FEATURE:
Still
Jennifer Lopez’s This Is Me…Now and the Continuing Influence of the Global Icon
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EVEN if some of her studio albums…
have not been given smooth critical ride, there is no denying the influence, excellence and importance of Jennifer Lopez. In terms of how she has inspired artists. There is a new album, This Is Me…Now, due on 16th February. It follows almost two decades after her (2002) breakthrough, This Is Me…Then. One of the big themes of that album is her love life. She was with then, as she is again now, Ben Affleck (they married last year). One of the most unlikely but popular rekindling, the two have come full circle. Lopez’s new album will reflect too on her life as a tabloid target. Go deep into her new love and stage of life. I wanted to mention the album, though also delve deeper into the ways in which Jennifer Lopez has inspired others. First, and surely among the most anticipated albums coming in the first quarter of 2024, Variety report on the This Is Me…Now:
“Jennifer Lopez‘s ninth studio album finally has a release date. The full-length “This Is Me…Now” will arrive on Feb. 16, 2024, in tandem with a new short film that has been acquired by Amazon MGM Studios.
“This Is Me…Now” is Lopez’s first studio album in nearly a decade and celebrates the anniversary of its sister album, “This is Me…Then.” The album, written and executive produced by Lopez and Rogét Chayed, along with Angel Lopez, Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman, HitBoy, Tay Keith and INK among others, is described as an blend of “R&B, contemporary pop sounds and hip-hop beats.”
As for the Dave Meyers-directed film, it is said to be “a narrative driven, intimate, reflective, sexy, funny, fantastical and highly entertaining musical and visual reimagining of her publicly scrutinized love life.” Like its sister album, “This Is Me…Now” includes nods to Lopez’s relationship with actor Ben Affleck; the track list, which was announced in November 2022, features among its titles “Dear Ben Pt. II,” presumably a sequel to the earlier album’s “Dear Ben.”
A teaser of the film was shared on Monday morning and is said to feature additional, unannounced cameos. “When I was a little girl, when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always… in love,” Lopez says in the clip.
“Can’t Get Enough,” the first single from the album will be released on Jan. 10, 2024, and is available to pre-save. This will be Lopez’s first release under her new partnership with BMG. The 13-song set credits BMG’s Brandon Riester as the album’s A&R”.
There is more to Jennifer Lopez than her music. Also known as J.Lo – though I think that she is going mostly by Jennifer Lopez now for her music, there is no denying how important she is in modern culture. In terms of inspiring a wave of Latin artists in the late-1990s and 2000s, she was at the forefront. Last year, GRAMMY wrote how Lopez is this record-setting, boundary-breaking actor, dancer and GRAMMY-nominated singer - arguably the most influential Latino entertainer of all time:
“From her roots as "Jenny From the Block" to one of the highest-paid and influential Latinas in Hollywood history, Jennifer Lopez's stratospheric career has broken borders, elevated Latin music and culture, and cemented her as one of the largest-looming entertainment icons of all time.
While music fans were introduced to J. Lo via her 1999 debut album, On the 6, Lopez first gained prominence in the early '90s as a dancer on the sketch TV show "In Living Color." Lopez then established her acting career with starring roles in Selena, Anaconda and Out of Sight, becoming the highest-paid Latina actress in Hollywood before ever even branching out into a musical career.
As part of GRAMMY.com's celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, this special episode of Run the World takes a look at Lopez's storied career. In every field of entertainment she stepped into, the dancer, actor and singer quickly established her position as a record-setting powerhouse paving the way both for female entertainers and for Latin entertainers to step into the business on the highest level.
When she released On the 6, Lopez helped to usher in "Latin explosion" of the late '90s, introducing herself as a proud Nuyorican who used her story to elevate the experience of growing up Latina in the Bronx.
In 2001, she became the first woman to ever simultaneously have a No. 1 album and film — her second record, J.Lo, was released the same week as The Wedding Planner, which she starred in opposite Matthew McConaughey. Over the decade, Lopez continued to set records, pursue new ventures and evolve along with the entertainment industry, putting out her first entirely Spanish-language album — Como Ama una Mujer — in 2007. In 2011, she became a judge on "American Idol," and in 2016, she began a Las Vegas residency that grossed more than $100 million in ticket sales over the course of its three-year run.
Over the course of her lengthy and varied career, Lopez has delivered a multi-faceted, ever-adapting skill set while remaining true to her roots. Her strong sense of self has brought her to the world's largest stages, including a co-headlining performance the 2020 Super Bowl LIV halftime show with Shakira. But, as she sings, Lopez is "still Jenny from the block."
"Everybody knows that I'm the Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx," she told Billboard in 2020. "I'm proud of that because there's no reason for that to ever hide. It's the secret to my success”.
Jennifer Lopez’s new album might be a different affair to anything we have heard in terms of its sound and tone. Perhaps something more introspective, it is another evolution from one of the most important artists of her generation. You only need to listen to mainstream artists today like Karol G and a host of others to realise how impactful she has become. I am going to include a playlist of songs from artists influenced by J.Lo/Jennifer Lopez. Before that, Oprah Daily wrote about Lopez’s influence back in 2019 (ahead of her fiftieth birthday):
“Without question, Lopez transformed Hollywood's perception of Latino people in contemporary culture—but of course, there are several trailblazers who paved the way. Before Lopez, representation of Latino people on television was essentially limited to Carmen Miranda in the 1930s and '40s, and in the '50s, there was Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy. Next came '70s comedian Freddie Prinze and, in the '80s, Saved by the Bell star Mario Lopez.
But between 1995 and 2004, less than 1 percent of stories in film and television were about Latinos, and most of those stories focused on illegal immigration and crime, according to a report by the University of Pittsburgh. Today, the number of speaking roles by a Latino in film and television has increased just slightly to 5.8 percent, suggests research from the Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Despite how slowly those numbers are rising, representation for Latinos in popular culture is indeed growing—and much of that is thanks to the influence of Jennifer Lopez over the past three decades. Many were first introduced to J.Lo, as she would later become known, during her stint as a dancer on the sketch-comedy show In Living Color during its 1990-1994 run.
Later, she would descend upon box offices thanks to her starring role in the 1997 biopic Selena, which earned nearly $12 million its opening weekend—the first contemporary feature film that caused Hollywood to sit up and pay attention to our box office power. And for many Latinas like me, growing up in the '90s and early 2000s, Lopez was the first famous Latina in mainstream media we knew. And she's since continued to blaze that trail for us.
"She's a change agent, having given visibility to our culture and our people through the massive media empire she's created that sees the spotlight shine on her cultural pride, her work, her talent, and her drive," says Isabel González Whitaker, a Latina author and journalist who has interviewed Lopez for InStyle and Harper's Bazaar.
Out of the few other Latinos that popped up in film and TV during the 90s—in addition to the aforementioned Mario Lopez in Saved by the Bell, I have to give other shoutouts to Wilson Cruz in My So-Called Life, Tatyana Ali in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, John Leguizamo in Romeo + Juliet, Stacey Dash in Clueless, and Lauren Vélez in New York Undercover—Jennifer Lopez became the quintessential example of a Latina star.
You only have to look at her record breaking sales for her last Las Vegas residency show to see the heights she has climbed since those days on In Living Color—but long before she was earning millions, Lopez was making waves as one of only two Latinas on the 1997 Oscars red carpet. And for many Latinas who grew up in the U.S., she was the one they could relate to, thanks to her Nuyorican (meaning, a Puerto Rican from New York, since Jenny from the Block was born in the Bronx) accent and around-the-way-girl style. In fact, as one fan puts it, with the 1999 release of her first album On the 6, Lopez put both Puerto Ricans and the Bronx on the map.
Out of Variety's list of the top 10 Latino actors and actresses, most names—like Salma Hayek and Sofia Vergara—found mainstream fame after J.Lo. And although she cannot be fully credited with the rise of Latinos in mainstream media, her impact is certainly significant.
"While there were definitely prominent Puerto Rican women in the urban sphere before her—like Lisa Lisa and Rosie Perez—Lopez was the first to bring that pop sensibility and diva magnitude while still remaining true to her Bronx roots," says Davu Flint, an African American emcee, musician, educator, filmmaker, and ethnomusicologist. "I think that her embracing her roots like that definitely paved the way for artists like Cardi B."
But her influence on today's stars doesn't stop there, says says Jesús Triviño Alarcón, a Webby-nominated content creator and authority on Latino pop culture who booked Lopez for her final Latina magazine cover in 2015. Before J.Lo, "Latina celebrities were largely regulated to Spanish language outlets," he says. "Jennifer Lopez was on the inaugural cover of Latina in 1996. In many ways, she set off the Latino media industry and influenced the current crop of actresses and musicians. I’m pretty sure Gina Rodriguez, Diane Guerrero, Becky G, Natti Natasha, Karol G, and more will point to Lopez as a source of inspiration”.
In terms of taking Latino music and artistry to new levels and the mainstream, Jennifer Lopez has been enormously influential! She has also helped do the same in Hollywood. Maybe not to the same extent but, starring in some incredibly profitable films., she has raised the profile and visibility of Latino actresses. This powerful and multi-talented women from the Bronx who conquered music, Hollywood and beyond, there is this new generation of talent that follows in Jennifer Lopez’s lead. The fact that she is with Ben Affleck again and they are embarking on this new relationship – albeit one that has existed before – shows that old love can be found again. Against tabloid scrutiny, a couple can come back together. In 2021, The New York Times referred to her relationship with Affleck and the way Lopez defying human standards as the ‘J.Lo Effect’. With stunning albums like her 1999 debut, On the 6, and 2002’s This Is Me...Then, we now look forward to This Is Me...Now. With the single, Can’t Get Enough, out in January, there will be this new interest around Jennifer Lopez. Nearly twenty-five years after her debut album announced this incredible artist, it is clear that this inspiration and groundbreaking legend is very much loved and still relevant! 2024 is going to be a year when one of music’s titans and queens…
REIGNS large and proud.