Genre: 90s artists

Jon Secada, one of the most gifted artists of our time, is not only blessed with a soulful voice, but also with an artistry to create, write and produce music. The millions of people worldwide who have followed the radiant career of this international superstar have witnessed the inimitable talents of this legendary artist. Secada, born in Havana, Cuba, arrived with his parents to the United States at the age of nine. While attending school, his family managed a coffee shop. It wasn’t until well into his teens that Jon discovered his gift for music. Growing up in the culturally diverse city of Miami, Jon was exposed to many different sounds. Although salsa, merengue and tropical rhythms filled the radio airways, Jon developed a passion for R&B and Pop.

Inspired by musical moguls such as Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Elton John and Marvin Gaye, Jon’s music is an eclectic fusion of all these sounds. With a bit of funk, soul and undertones of Latin percussion, much like his character, Jon has accomplished a unique and striking sound.

After graduating from Hialeah High School, Jon enrolled at the University of Miami where he became an accomplished jazz musician. He completed a Bachelor’s degree in Music and a Master’s degree in Jazz Vocal Performance. Simultaneously, he began developing his considerable skills as a songwriter.

Then, in the late 1980’s, Jon met Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Jr. At the time, he was unaware of the impact this meeting would have on his career. Soon after they met, Jon was invited to join Gloria’s band as a background singer. Shortly thereafter, the group realized his potential and he quickly became a valuable addition to the group. His incredible talent as a songwriter became evident when he started composing music including some of Gloria’s best ballads. Among other tunes, Jon co-wrote and sang background on Coming Out of the Dark Gloria’s number one hit from her 1991 album Into the Light. During Gloria’s Coming Out of the Dark tour Jon was given the life-changing opportunity of taking over the stage and performing solo. The crowd loved him and later, his career took off into a solo act.

His self-titled debut album Jon Secada (SBK/EMI), released in 1992, skyrocketed the career of this male vocalist. With his noticeable florid and solid singing style, this first album sold an astonishing six million plus copies worldwide and was certified triple platinum in the U.S., where it reached No. 15 among Billboard Pop albums. He later scored a No.5 Pop hit with the Gold single Just Another Day and three more top 30 hits, Angel, I’m Free and Do You Believe in Us? The Spanish-language version of the album, Otro Dia Mas Sin Verte (EMI-Latin), became the Number One Latin album of 1992 and earned Jon his first Grammy Award, for Best Latin Pop Album.

This landmark success was followed in 1994 by Jon’s second album, Heart Soul and Voice (EMI), which featured members of The Miami Sound Machine and guests Arturo Sandoval (trumpet) and Betty Wright (background vocals). The album went Platinum in the U.S. and spun off the Top Ten Pop hit If You Go and a Top 30 hit Mental Picture.

His third album on EMI, Amor, was released in 1995 and earned the singer his second Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Performance. Jon was once again honored at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards in 2006 when Songs From The Neighborhood: The Music of Mister Rogers, featuring twelve of today’s top artists including Jon, won the Grammy for the “Best Musical Album For Children”.

Over the years Jon has amassed a career sales total of more than 20 million albums worldwide and has repeatedly shown his multi-faceted talent. He is not only a successful singer and songwriter, but also an accomplished producer. He has played a leading role in the recent careers of many extraordinary artists.

He co-wrote the song Bella the Spanish version of She’s All I Ever Had for Ricky Martin’s 1999 Multi-platinum self-titled album. He also co-wrote and co-produced the song Baila for Jennifer Lopez, which appeared on her 1999 multi-platinum album, On the Six.

He worked with teen singing sensation Mandy Moore on two of her tracks, One Sided and It Only Took a Minute from her self-titled multi-platinum album. A three-time Grammy award winning recording artist, a dynamic live performer, a talented, insightful, songwriter, Jon is an international superstar in his own right. He’s performed with opera legend Luciano Pavarotti and recorded a duet with the late Frank Sinatra on The Best Is Yet to Come from Sinatra’s Duets II album.

Since the beginning of his solo career, Jon always explored a tremendous love for the theatrical stage, dating back to the beginning of his college career. This dream was realized in 1995 when Jon stared on Broadway’s hit musical Grease, where he acted in the lead role of Danny Zuko. He was an immediate sensation. Following the rave reviews of Grease, Broadway called upon him once again in 2003 where his mastery of theatrical stage was challenged in what he calls “the most important step in his career.” He played the Emcee role in Sam Mendes’ critically acclaimed version of Cabaret. Clive Barnes of The New York Post writes, “For the first long 30 seconds or so of Jon Secada’s bravura, powerhouse performance I had my own preconceived doubts, but the man is just a wonderful performer, and, with out really changing the Mendes/Cumming persona, he fits it around his own flamboyant individuality.” Cabaret earned 4 stars in the review. In the fall of 2004 Jon also starred as Joseph in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s & Tim Rice’s theatrical hit Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat . In an exciting new venture to further his career and after amicably parting from longtime manager Emilio Estefan, Jon’s latest pop release Same Dream was released to critical acclaim in 2005. Billboard magazine said, “This is the kind of meticulously produced album that most of us thought were a thing of the past.” Jon followed this success with his acclaimed Latin-themed holiday collection, Christmas Fiesta (2007).

For the last four years Jon has been one of the star judges on the international hit show, Latin American Idol. His lastest CD Expressions: The Jazz Album is a stunning collection of new songs, classic standards and Secada hits – all with a twist and Jon’s own jazz-flavored arrangements. Songs include the evergreen favorites Chances Are and What A Wonderful World the Secada hits Angel and Just Another Day and, some new tunes including Find Me In Your Dreams a touching tribute to his children. The CD was released on September 22, 2009 on The Orchard record label.

Jenny Berggren, lead singer of the internationally renowned Swedish pop group Ace of Base and now solo artist, looked into the face of success rather suddenly at the age of 19.

The group’s first two released songs ‘All That She Wants’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune’ coupled in the number one and number two spots on the Danish charts before a single publicity photo had ever been snapped of Ace of Base.

The band’s album The Sign skyrocketed to the top of worldwide music charts in the early nineties, selling over 21 million copies and making it the all-time most selling debut album ever—a title unsurpassed to this day. The album’s success even raked in more revenue for Sweden that year than the country’s signature auto company, Volvo.

“Meeting the top of the world in music is very challenging in a good way,” Jenny says.

The group, originally comprising of siblings Jenny, Linn, and Jonas Berggren and later their friend Ulf Ekberg, started their music from the basement of the Berggrens’ house in their hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The shock of Ace of Base’s success was one that delighted their listeners worldwide, but also one that caught the young Swedes off guard. The rise to fame was swift and especially had an impact on Jenny. In April 1994, she was awakened in her parents’ home with a knife held to her throat by an intruder that wanted to meet the rest of the band.

The event was enough to stop Jenny and her family still that night, and yet there was no pause button for the sensation that Ace of Base had become.

Only one month after the attack, Jenny and her fellow band members hit number one on the Billboard charts both with their single, ‘The Sign,’ and with their album of the same title. The prestigious chart positions held for six consecutive weeks.

The band continued making music, and Jenny found a strength within her Christian faith to press forward. She wrote a song about the attack on the group’s following album, The Bridge, which was released a mere 18 months after the intruder woke Jenny in her parents’ home that fateful night.

Jenny and her fellow band members gave hundreds of performances through their concerts and promotions from 1992-2009, their largest audience being 55,000 in Tel Aviv.

Overall, Ace of Base released four albums plus a greatest hits record in less than a decade. Jenny, along with her fellow band members, stand out as four of very few Swedish artists to have earned two American Music Awards and two Billboard Awards. Ace of Base sold more than 30 million copies with their four totaled albums.

It was because of their record-breaking debut success that Jenny and her fellow band members have become a well-known musical icon of the nineties, though their albums went on into the early 2000s.

After the promotion of their last album, Da Capo, in 2002, they finally took a well-deserved break. During this period, Jenny married long-time boyfriend and classical pianist Jakob PetrÉn in 2004 and they had their first child in 2005.
A few months after Jenny’s son was born, she, Jonas and Ulf performed Ace of Base classics in the notable European summer concert series, Night of the Proms, in Antwerp, Belgium.

The following year, Jenny was invited to perform in a concert series with the Original ABBA Orchestra, performing many of the ABBA classics heard in Mamma Mia! the movie and Broadway play. (Ace of Base had frequently been compared to ABBA due to the fact that Jenny, brunette, and Linn, blond, served as co-lead singers alongside two male musicians.) The concerts took place only months after Jenny and Jakob’s second child, a daughter, was born.

Jenny’s performances of the ABBA songs ‘Fernando,’ ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!,’ ‘Money, Money, Money,’ ‘I’m a Marionette,’ ‘Voulez Vous’ and ‘Summer Night City’ at this concert series turned many heads, as the ABBA classics showed off Jenny’s wide vocal range far more than most Ace of Base songs had to that point.

In Summer 2009, Jenny, Jonas and Ulf—again as a trio—held their Ace of Base Redefined world tour.

Now, Jenny has produced her first solo album entitled My Story, sidekicked by her autobiography, To Win the World. The book title is based off of the Bible verse Mathew 16:26, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul?” Jenny says both the book and the album depict her life experience as an international pop artist and how through her faith, she survived the trials that come along with stardom.

“Music is my first language, and it is in the music my friends in my fan base can recognize me,” Jenny says. “I want to reveal my story in both music and in words. I can’t think of a better way of doing it than using both ways, but in my own fashion. Here I am.”

Most of you who like Italo-Dance for sure know his name. Ice MC‘s real name is Ian Campbell. Originally from Nottingham in the East Midlands of England where he was born on the 22nd March 1965, Ian grew up in the area of Nottingham called Hyson Green (sounds like Ice n’ Green). His parents had moved there from Jamaica in the 1950’s along with a large number of their country men.

They lived together and strived to keep their identity and maintain their cultural traditions. They continued to speak their own dialect “Jamaican Patua” which is not easy for other English people to understand although 30 years of Reggae Music has helped them. No better dialect for Raps and Rhymes just like the ones that he wrote for hits including Easy, It”s a Rainy Day,, Think About The Way, Take Away The Colour. Unfortunately he was never credited for these lyrics.

At school his intials IC soon got him the nickname Ice. After leaving school he hung around Nottingham for a couple of years until in 1983 he joined a group of breakdancers and started touring Europe with them. One such tour landed him up in Florence and he decided to check it out. He”s still checking. For a while he worked teaching breakdance then started doing a bit of DJing. In his spare time he was soon rapping and improvising in local bars and clubs. He also made two promo records one for a Club in Rimini and one for a label in Florence. In 1989 he met Robyx (Roberto Zanetti) the writer, producer and singer for now classic Italo-Disco group Savage. Exactly in 1989 he released his first hit Easy. This first single, was an immediate success and went Top 5 throughout Europe, no. 3 in Germany and also was very big in South America. The LP Cinema followed shortly afterwards and was also a big success. The artist has toured throughout Europe including Russia and even Siberia, South America , and North Africa. Then came My World and then Ice ‘n’ Green which was his biggest selling CD with three big hits. His image was of “clean, next door guy”. Not anymore. When he released his mega hits like Take Away The Colour (1993), Think About The Way, It’s A Rainy Day (both 1994), he got that Bob Marley Jamaican look that he keeps also today. Also in his songs produced from 1989 to 1995 main female vocal was done by Alexia. Songs from that time are very rhythmic and typical Hi-Energy records with Reggae influence.

In 1995 Ice MC was in dispute with his Manager, Label, Producer, Agent, Publisher and Co- author. That’s not as bad as it sounds as they were all one and the same, Roberto Zanetti. Ice first got himself a new Management and then a new Label (Polydor Germany). The dispute has still not been settled and Ice MC is sueing Zanetti for his songs and a couple billion Lire which might not sound a lot. After long period of silence, in 1996 he released his single called Give Me The Light, that become an immediate hit in the Euro-dancefloor in the summer 1996. This song was a join production of Ice MC and Mega-Dance German group Masterboy. In August of 1996 Ice MC released his newest album called Dreadatour with new songs written actually by several different writers. This new album has been given different reviews, from raving to mediocre or even bad. In this album Ice MC presents his new image, lyrics has a political content and in many of the songs Ice MC expresses his feelings. You will find there many hot, dancable tracks. You will also for the first time can hear the new female vocalist Valentina Ducros (born, 06,19, 1974). She is an Italian girl originally from Rome. Valentina has a fiery temperament and quite strong and nice voice.

Ice MC is very dynamic when he performs. Rapping, Hip-hopping, Raggamuffining and Jamaican Rhythms that all well describes Ice MC.