Mariah Carey is an American pop and Rhythm and Blues singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. She made her recording debut in 1990 under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the United States Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola in 1993, a series of hit records established her position as Columbia’s highest-selling act. According to Billboard magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States.
Some may feel Mariah Carey has the fashion sense of a 1970s porn star, but her dazzling, multi-octave voice defined ’90s “diva-tude.” Carey ruled the charts during the Clinton decade — literally, her 1990 debut album alone spawned four No. 1 hit singles and set the stage for Celine Dion’s less R&B/dance-oriented approach. Her albums are always expertly crafted and performed, making her MTV Unplugged EP a surprisingly warm change of pace. Carey has entered the new century ready to defend her urban vocalist crown against Whitney Houston or any other iron-lunged singer that her ex-beau, music mogul Tommy Mottola, decides to promote.
(Nick Dedina)

Mariah Carey’s video

Mariah Carey, one of the most internationally renowned superstars brings her most successful tour, THE ADVENTURES OF MIMI, produced by Live Nation, to DVD.

Perhaps the pervasive element of tragedy that ruled Marvin Gaye’s life accounts for the profound intimacy found in his songs. He scored dozens of hits for Motown in the 1960s both as a solo act (”How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”) and singing duets (”Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”). A late-decade period of depression and solitude ended with What’s Going On? (1971). That album eschewed the pop frivolity of Marvin Gaye’s earlier work, grappling with such issues as the Vietnam War, poverty and the ecology. Its success allowed him to create increasingly personal records. Let’s Get It On was perhaps the most explicitly sexual album of its era; the double LP “Here My Dear” recounted the disintegration of his marriage in such detail that his wife considered suing for privacy invasion. Marvin Gaye’s final chart topper was “Sexual Healing” (1983), a luscious ballad that simmered erotically beneath his velvet-lined vocals. His sudden death in 1984 at the hands of his father renewed interest in his life, music and legacy.
(K. Holloway)

Marvin Gaye’s video

He was an American singer-songwriter, musician and performer who gained international fame as an artist on the Motown record label in the 1960s and 1970s.

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She’s been called a lot of things: J-Lo, Jenny from the Block, Mrs. Anthony. Just don’t call La Lopez a diva, although she deserves it — and not just for her fur-wearing, outlandish demands-making, entourage-rocking behavior. Love her or hate her, you have to respect a woman who went from being a “Fly Girl” on In Living Color to a captain of the movie, music and fashion industries.

Born in the Bronx to Puerto Rican parents, Jennifer Lopez dabbled in musical theater as a child before moving on to small roles in film and television and backup dancing gigs for artists like New Kids on the Block and Janet Jackson. Several small movie roles followed, but it was her portrayal of beloved Tejano singer Selena in the 1997 film of the same name that catapulted Lopez to true stardom. After co-starring with George Clooney in 1998’s well-received Out of Sight, Lopez recorded her first album, 1999’s On the Six. All of which left people asking: sure, she can dance, act and sing, but can she design a fashion line? Yes, yes, she can. In 2001, Lopez founded Sweetface Fashion Club, home to her J.Lo and Sweetface lines.

Four more studio albums and a series of high-profile relationships (one word: Diddy) later, Lopez settled down with hubby No. 3, Marc Anthony. The two of them produced and starred in 2007’s El Cantante, a biopic about Puerto Rican salsa singer Hector Lavoe. That same year, Lopez put out two albums: Como Ama Mujer and Brave.
- Rachel Devitt

Whitney Houston was the first of the modern R&B divas and is graced with the same vocal genes as her mother, Cissy, and her aunt, Dionne Warwick. She started out at the very top of the charts but her throne is currently being challenged by more golden throated vixens than even Homer imagined in the Odyssey and her illustrious career has been sidetracked by scandal since the late 1990s.