How Jennifer Lopez Shamelessly Steals from Black Artists
Song after song, find out how J-Lo manipulated her way to the top of the music charts.
Jennifer Lopez is undoubtfully a household name. J-Lo caught her big break in 1997 where she starred as the late Latin pop singer ‘Selena’ in her biography of the same name.
After the film, J-Lo ventured into music. J-Lo’s demo was picked up by music exec Tommy Mottola and Sony Music.
J-Lo dropped her debut album ‘On the 6’ in summer 1999. One big hit from the album was ‘If You Had My Love’. The song received backlash from R&B singer Chanté Moore. Moore had a near-identical song called ‘If I Gave Love’ recorded a year prior in 1998.
Both songs from J-Lo and Moore were written and produced by Rodney Jerkins. It's been said that Lopez's then-boyfriend Diddy pressured Jerkins to write a near-identical song.
Lopez's stealing habits worsened as time went on. It was a known rumour in the industry that J-Lo cannot sing well and shamelessly lip-synced when performing live. In rare moments where Lopez was actually singing, her performances were sub-par.
When it came to recording a majority of her songs, J-Lo utilised background vocals of predominantly black female vocalists.
Using background vocals is not uncommon in the music industry. The issue is that Lopez passed many vocals from other singers as her own, essentially committing fraud.
The term background vocalist is misleading when the background singer performs the most memorable parts of the song. Songs like ‘Play’ and the ‘I’m Real' remix' feature prominent reference track vocals from Christina Milian and Ashanti.
Jennifer Lopez and Ja Rule’s music video for the ‘I’m Real’ remix. J-Lo reused Ashanti’s reference track vocals on the song and passed them off as her own.
Instead of J-Lo re-recording the song, she left the demo vocals on the song and failed to credit Milian or Ashanti. The worst offender is J-Lo’s signature song ‘Jenny from the Block’.
Former Star Trak signee Natasha Ramos sings the track’s chorus, bridge and ad-libs. Ramos also contributed vocals to multiple songs on Lopez’s third album 'This Is Me... Then'.
Ramos has downplayed her contributions to the song on Twitter. This is directly contradicted by the leaked reference track showing Ramos’s chorus and ad-libs are directly cut and pasted.
J-Lo has also stolen or attempted to steal from artists like; Usher, Amerie, Brandy Norwood, Mariah Carey and many more.
More attention should be bought to this issue as it's just one case of colourism and fraud in music. J Lo has repeatedly taken advantage of black artists in the music industry.
Lopez has made a career from stealing from others without fair credit.
