The Invisible Women of Dance Music
I grew up in a very unique point in time in regards to popular music. MTV reigned supreme. Music videos drove trends in not only fashion, but in lifestyle. They did more than just provide visual eye candy to accompany our tunes. They told us what was cool…..desirable even.
But here’s the thing: a lot of us don’t even know how insidious it all was. Sure, we know about the whole Milli Vanilli fiasco. But they mainly got the spotlight because they were awarded a Grammy award (which was later revoked). But they were really just the tip of the iceberg.
So I want to hone in on a particular group that has, by large, not received their flowers — because they were not features in the music videos of the songs that we all know so well.
Martha Wash
Martha Wash’s voice is legendary. She was handpicked by Sylvester to provide his background vocals in the 1970s. She then went on to become one of the Weather Girls, who had the hit Raining Men in 1982. In the late 1980s, Martha started working as a session singer — recording demos for various producers. These vocals were so good, they they were often left in the final, released mix. To date, Martha has sung on fifteen Billboard number one hit singles, including (You’re My One and Only) True Love – Seduction; Everybody, Everybody & Strike It Up – Black Box; Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) – C+C Music Factory; and others.
It was a known secret at the time that the record companies were not eager to put Martha in the foreground. Whitney Houston even spoke about it — giving full respect to her singing talent in the process:
To me it was like, well wow, you made this hit song off this woman’s voice, how come we can’t see her? What’s the big deal? Because she’s a heavy-set woman with a beautiful face and this gigantic, fabulous, tremendous, rocking voice.
Whitney houston
Martha herself wasn’t quiet about it either. Here she is on the Arsenio Hall show back in 1994:
The good news is that Martha sued. She was awarded a settlement her credit on future releases and her fight was impetus behind legislation that requires that a song’s vocals be credited correctly. They aren’t redoing those videos though!
Manuela Barbara Kamosi Moaso Djogi (a.k.a. Ya Kid K)
In 1987 a Belgian man named Jo Bogaert started an electro-dance project called Technotronic. He regularly worked with other local talent on his recordings. One of those recordings was Pump Up The Jam which featured rapping and singing by a 17 year-old who went by the stage name Ya Kid K. Born in Zaire (then known as the Democratic Republic of Congo), Ya Kid K grew up in Chicago and Dallas before moving to Belgium – her mother’s birthplace. It was during her time in the US that she developed a love for hip-hop. Even at 17, Ya Kid K’s skills were impressive. However as a minor, so did not have the ability to enter into a record contract. When the song began to shoot up the charts, Jo had to scramble up a new plan. Which was:
Ummm…..Harpo, who is this woman? Well, it is Felly Kilingi, a model turned singer — who actually did’t sing anything on this record. Jo figured that he would just plug in another Black woman into Ya Kid K’s spot.
To make things even more confusing, Ya Kid K did eventually sign with Technotronic, and went on tour with them. So she and Felly where in the group at the same time. In live performances, Ya Kid K would (rightfully) perform the vocals, and Felly was just a dancer. See?
Ya Kid K would go on to contribute vocals to another hit, which was also Technotronic but for some strange reason credited to ‘Hi Tek 3’ and that was Spin That Wheel, which was on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie soundtrack.
Sadly even with her obvious talent, I don’t think that Ya Kid K ever had a chance. There seemed to be obvious misgivings about her style and appearance. So was too much of a tomboy to become a video star. And even if the public would have had no problem with it, that decision was made for us at the start.
Loleatta Holloway
Like Martha Wash, Loleatta Holloway got her start in the disco era of the 1970s, and finally scored a #1 hit on the Billboard Dance chart in 1980 with Love Sensation — which has gone on to sampled a crazy amount of times since.
European DJs were obsessed. Then Black Box, the Italian house music group, got their hands in the mix. Mind you, they had already used Martha Wash’s vocals without permission on the track Everybody, Everybody (plus five others). They did the same with Loleatta with their track 1989 Ride on Time.
And to make it worse, Black Box promoted the lythe and beautiful Black model Katrin Quinol as the ‘frontwoman’ who was singing these vocals from both Martha and Loleatta. And just like Milli Vanilli, they told Katrin they found Katrin in the clubs and told her they wanted her to be a singer for them. She went to the studio, but they never used her tracks. She was put on stage to lip-sync and never imagined that it would get so big so fast. So now she was stuck on the ride.
Loleatta and Love Sensation producer Dan Hartman (who was originally from Harrisburg btw) sued Black Box. They paid a settlement and re-recorded the track, this time using vocals from Heather Small — who still isn’t Katrin!
In 1991, it was time for the Americans to have some fun; but this time they gave proper credit. In 1991, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch released a track called Good Vibrations, named from the refrain from Love Sensation. This time Loleatta was credited properly and they even featured Loleatta in the music video:
However in many ways the damage was done. Loleatta never received her proper accolades when she was alive in my opinion. She passed away in 2011 at the age of 64.
Jacci McGhee
I realize that including Jacci in this list might be a stretch — but stick with me here! Jacci contributed the singing vocals to Salt-N-Pepa’s 1989 hit Expression. Now to be fair, they did put Jacci in the music video. But she was shown as a homeless woman among trash cans — and that wasn’t accidental. Nonetheless, Jacci’s work on the track helped to propel it to platinum status — the first for a female rap group.
But this wasn’t the first time that Jacci found herself in the shadows. Going back to 1987, Jacci did a favor for producer Teddy Riley and recorded the demo vocals for the female part of a duo for Keith Sweat. That song became the multi-platinum hit Make It Last Forever. However, the single was released when Jacci and Keith were on tour (and then Jacci was later touring as a backup singer for the band Toto). There was never a music video made for the song. So sadly, Jacci has remained faceless to most — with only her voice, not her image, reaching the masses.
Well, I hope that I was able to give a teeny tiny bit of props to these amazing, talented women over here on my corner of the internet. If there are any others that you can think of, feel free to drop their names in the comments below!
