With her multi-octave voice and more than 80 million records sold worldwide, it's no surprise that pop diva Mariah Carey is viewed as the successor to Whitney Houston. She emerged as the premier R&B/pop songstress of the 1990s, and by the end of the …

This photogenic Colombian singer began her recording career at the tender age of 13. It wasn't long before her eclectic brand of Latin pop became a sensation in numerous Spanish-speaking countries. In 1998, without making the concession of singing in…

Britney Spears proved that the same goldmine that Madonna and Cyndi Lauper mined in the 1980s was again ripe for the picking, and she was immediately followed up the charts by another female teenybop sensation, Christina Aguilera. Closely aligned wit…

As the very first winner of the AMERICAN IDOL television show competition, Kelly Clarkson was inevitably pegged as little more than a manufactured pop commodity. The surprisingly versatile singer managed to survive against expectations, however, and …

Getting her start as a dancer on the TV show IN LIVING COLOR, Jennifer Lopez first found stardom as an actress, then as a pop/dance singer. By the turn of the century, Lopez was one of the world's biggest celebrities. As both of her careers skyrocket…

Videos and albums are not always the preferred formats for gaining success as a recording artist--it was an appearance in the hit Will Smith movie MEN IN BLACK that gave Destiny's Child a major boost to their recording career. From there, the all-fem…

In the late 1990s, Madonna had long since become a mature artist, turning her back on the carefree dance-pop of her early days ("Like A Virgin," "Holiday," etc.). Teenage singer Britney Spears picked up on this specific Madonna era, albeit with a mor…

As the daughter of gospel/R&B singer Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston was literally born to sing. Initially a back-up vocalist and fashion model, Houston leapt to solo stardom with her self-titled debut in 1985. Since then, she has remained one of the …

A popular Hollywood burlesque act, the Pussycat Dolls emerged as mainstream fixtures when they became an outlet for big-name celebrities looking to embrace their inner sex kittens. As a musical act, the Dolls scored huge hits with a familiar albeit …

Celine Dion's ascent from stardom in her native Canada to the upper echelons of international pop divadom is one of the 1990s major success stories. Blessed with a formidable set of pipes and a preference for heart-in-the-throat ballads, the precocio…

Tijuana-born and San Diego-raised contemporary RB artist Frankie J was raised on a steady diet of Latin music and American artists like Michael Jackson and Run-DMC At the age of 15 he was involved with the Latin freestyle scene and released a series …

As the urban regional style of Latin music heated up in the mid-2000s spearheaded by the burgeoning reggaeton sound Daddy Yankee above all led the charge selling hundreds of thousands of CDs in the wake of his international breakthrough hit Gasolina …

The ultimate Nashville outsider, Canadian Shania Twain (Eileen Regina Twain) took the country music world by storm with her second album, THE WOMAN IN ME. Famous for her midriff-baring outfits, Twain conquered the rest of the world with the 16-times …

Precocious R&B vocalist/pianist Alicia Keys was hand-picked by Clive Davis as one of the flagship artists for his post-Arista label, J Records. No doubt he was as impressed by her multitude of skills (Keys took a large role in the writing, arranging,…

This Atlanta-bred R&B trio was a hit straight out of the gate with its 1992 debut album. Role models for a generation of girls, TLC presented (and comported) themselves as strong, independent women, both sensual and powerful. Their followup album was…

Hailing from Chattanooga, TN, Usher Raymond (best known by his given name) emerged in the '90s as a young R&B singer full of promise. The stars must have been aligned correctly for him, as he snagged Puffy Combs as a producer for his eponymous 1994 d…

While rap music was the music of choice on the urban charts and radio playlists by the late 1980s/early '90s, vocal group Boyz II Men re-introduced the merits of soul and contemporary R&B, laden with perfectly executed harmonies. The group became one…

In the wake of the crossover mania that characterized the Latin music industry at the end of the 90s Ricky Martin Shakira Paulina Rubio Thala -- all of whom released English-language albums around this time came Juanes a Latin artist so great he didn…

The late 1990s saw a new graduating class of single-name female R&B singers hit the big time--Brandy, Monifah, and Monica. An appearance on LL Cool J's "Mr. Smith" and a hit duet with Brandy ("The Boy Is Mine") only strengthened Monica's standing as …

Julio Iglesias had made a career out of singing love songs over Latin pop music in the 1970s and '80s, and his son, Enrique, updated his father's sound and approach for the new millennium. Breaking out big around the same time as Ricky Martin, both t…