Jennifer Lopez
Biography
Jennifer Lynn Lopez, born July 24, 1969 in New York and popularly known as J.Lo, is a singer, dancer, actress, model, fashion and fragrance designer, and film and television producer of Puerto Rican descent.
She grew up in the Bronx with her Puerto Rican parents Guadalupe Rodriguez and David Lopez and has two sisters, Lynda and Leslie. From age 16 she funded her own singing and dance lessons. After leaving college she split her time between a job at a law firm, dance classes and performing in Manhattan clubs at night.
Her media career began on television as a dancer, first for rapper MC Hammer, then as a ‘fly girl’ on the comedy show In Living Color in 1990; she left the show after the second season due to tensions with another dancer.
Her debut album, On The 6 (a reference to the subway line she used from Castle Hill), was released on June 1, 1999 and reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200. It contains the No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 single If You Had My Love and the top 10 track Waiting for Tonight. The album also includes a Spanish-language, Latin-tinged duet, No Me Ames, with Marc Anthony (who later became her husband); although not released as a single, that track reached No. 1 on the US Hot Latin Tracks chart. The album features guests such as Big Pun and Fat Joe on Feelin' So Good.
Waiting for Tonight was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Dance Recording category in 2000, and Let's Get Loud, the album’s final single, received a nomination in the same category in 2001. The duet No Me Ames was nominated twice at the Latin Grammy Awards in 2000.
Her second album, J.Lo, was released on January 23, 2001 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. Over her career, Jennifer Lopez won the American Music Award for Favorite Female Pop/Rock Artist in 2003 and Favorite Latin Artist in 2007.