Latin hustle

You haven't lived until you've witnessed several thousand people in one room (in Jersey, no less!) singing along to Brenda K. Starr's "I Still Believe." I learned that this weekend, when I attended KTU's annual Freestyle Free-for-All at the Arena in the Trump Taj Mahal. I understand that the prospect laid out in the preceding sentence -- basically, seeing the formerly spandex-clad 15 years and god knows how many calories later in the cultural void that is Atlantic City -- sounds sad, but, in fact, it was a joyous occasion. So many who helped define the genre were there: Stevie B, TKA, the Cover Girls, Sweet Sensation, Lisette Melendez, Coro, Judy Torres, Sa-Fire, Debbie Deb, et. al. And even better, they stayed on stage only as long as their hits lasted: for many, this meant that after one song, they were out of there. It was like a mixtape, just live and with more flights of fancy. No one busted out new material with the exception of Judy Torres. But the fact that hers had the line, "Jesus loves you, but I don't," in its chorus made everything OK.

Hilarity abounded. I've never witnessed so many people relishing singing off-key in my life -- I'm tempted to reason that at this point, these singers just don't give a fuck, but the fact is that they never did. This, of course, is the beauty of freestyle -- emotion trumps craft every time. Is that a poorly sung note or is it a little meltdown? Hard to say, usually. This flair of telenovela-style drama, formerly just applied to objects of desire in freestyle's lyrics, has entered a meta sort of realm: the singers now apply their yearning to the genre itself. At times, the three-hour-plus show felt like propaganda, as we were constantly hit over the head with the fact that freestyle is not dead. Perhaps it is just a very spangly zombie. My favorite of such moments came from Judy Torres, of whom I entered barely familiar with (I don't think she ever had a lasting hit in South Jersey). She quickly won me over. She is a gay-pride-parade-float of a woman (at one point, she announced a dance move she was about to do: the "Puerto Rican Wonder Woman"). "This is your music," Judy told us between songs. "This is your legacy. You teach this to your children...and your children's children." Indeed. We learn to crawl, we learn to walk. We learn to talk, we learn "Bad of the Heart." I scoff, but really, that's kind of my childhood in a nutshell.

The stage was as bare as one you'd see at a high-school talent show. Helping out the warblers was a backing band. As though live instruments aren't antithetical to the synthetic heart of freestyle, it was particularly hilarious to see a drummer pounding away to Maurice's "This is Acid" (that Maurice Joshua, who has never laid down a freestyle track and is known as a house pioneer, was on the bill seemed appropriately half-assed). It's wonderful to watch musicians play in a non-musicians genre. Someone near us, at the beginning of the show when this band, dubbed the MGM Band, was announced, yelled out, "They're a wedding band in Brooklyn!" I believe it, oh yes I do.

And speaking of the crowd, the attendees weren't nearly as exciting as I'd hoped. Believe me, I would be sharing pictures right now if they were. It was mostly made up of people pushing 40 also seemed formerly spandex-clad, but now just have receding hairlines, paunches and vagina arms. Everybody was really into it, though. During Coro's set, some older guy leaped up on a chair a few down from where we were sitting and started pumping his fist. A security guard came over to ask him to get down, and he said, "But this is Coro! This is freestyle!" Surprisingly, that didn't help his cause.

But it was as it should have been, mostly: the true stars of the night were the veteran acts. Some performers (Lisette, Coro, Sa-fire) underwent outfit changes during their brief sets -- in every case, this involved taking off part of their outfit to reveal their bodies' success in the fight against time. Many of them dedicated their songs to the audience, which: duh. I didn't think that they were singing to the cushioning. My favorite of such shout-outs came from Betty Dee, the lead singer of Sweet Sensation, during the intro of "Take It While It's Hot": "This song is for all the hot people tonight. Are you hot? I don't know." That makes two of us!

Oh, and there were awards! Lifetime achievement ones, to be exact. The first went to Sa-fire (Coro and some behind-the-scenes guy would also get little trophies before the night was over). She had already performed and proved herself to be dominatrix-like in her heckling of the crowd (she seriously would get so pissed after she'd sing a line, hold out her mic to have the audience sing the next, and be faced with silence). "I really hope she cries!" I said to my boyfriend as soon as they announced her name. And, much to my pleasure, she did. Oh, and by "they," I mean various KTU personalities who hosted the night. Introducing Sa-fire, DJ Whaterhisnamewas said, "It's tough to dance without her." You know, he's on to something. That's why I'm usually so reserved at clubs and family functions: no Sa-fire to be found. Additionally, TKA were announced as "the Beatles of freestyle." I think a more apt title would have been "the champagne of wine coolers," but hey, I'm just a blogger.

Stevie B played last and received the reverent response he deserves. I can say without a shred of irony or derision that seeing him live was pure joy for me -- he's simply one of my favorite producer-songwriters of all time. Despite the rapturous response, Stevie threatened (albeit good-naturedly) to leave the stage after every track, just to make sure the audience really, really wanted to see him. This sort of behavior was the night's most striking motif: the constant rabble-rousing (variations of "Sing along!" and "Get out your seats!" over and over and over) by the performers bespoke a deep insecurity of artists whose medium has long gone out of fashion. A common refrain of Coro, TKA and Stevie was, "Are you still with me?" as though they'd grown accustomed to a waning fan base since freestyle's heyday, now almost 20 years ago. But for the throng of us almost filling out the 5,000-person capacity venue, it was clear that we weren't going anywhere, and we were doing it together.

I took lots and lots of video during the show and what follows is a highlights reel including the aforementioned crowd-hyping, Coro's shaking ass, Sa-Fire's acceptance speech and brief clips of almost all the acts performing. I have extended versions of most of these clips and footage from many more songs, so if you have a request to see more, let me know and I'll upload it. But really, I think the video below should be plenty.

But just in case it isn't plenty, here's a bonus:

It's the full performance of Stevie B's "I Wanna Be the One." LOVE.

Comments

You make me wish I was from Jersey.

[pdxprofessor]

i think we're supposed to be BFFs. i would give my left arm to have been at that show. when i was growing up the south bronx was all about lisette melendez. and stevie b? stevie b was god. thanks for sharing the love with us.

[NYCMami]

This shit is all high school. Another Bronx girl and I don't know what was up in Jersey but I know the Boogie-down was all about freestyle. And I hated it! This Latina stick in the middle of the Bronx was two busy listening to Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen and Tears for Fears. Although watching this I was like 'yeah, I liked that song! Ooo, I liked that one too". To that I say, Damn you Rich. Now I gotta go download You Are My All and All.

I'm surprised they didn't drag out Information Society.

[Jerome]

Hi Rich, a few comments:
1. The "new" Cover Girls without Angel as their lead singer are WACK, and need to stop.
2. You may disagree with me, but Safire absolutely deserved that lifetime achievement award; she is a defining artist of the genre.
3. Coro is still hot (you know he's gay, right?).
4. I can't believe that you weren't familiar with Judy Torres. She is the queen of freestyle! Her original studio albums ("Love Story" and "My Soul") are practically sacred to the genre, and well worth finding if you don't have them already.

[Rebecca]

I just had to mention here, before I forget, that I think there was a blue dwarf-shaped dildo just chilling next to the tyra mail on tonight's episode of antm. Whaaaat?

[Tallsonofagun]

"The champagne of wine coolers" is the new way I am going to describe myself from now on. Just awesome. Sorry to steal from you Rich, but what do you expect when you are the Stevie B of forgotten Freestyle artists.

[Gyn]

I haven't lived :(

[Gyn]

Joel Stein is the cool brother I never had and Rich is my other cool gay brother I never had. I <3 them both.

[Jules]

Christmas has come early! This is the best re-cap of anything in history. Stevie B., Brenda K. Starr....... I love you, Rich!

Jules
House of Jules

[Lieve]

I wish every love scene in my life would feature a Stevie B song.

[Lieve]

I wish every love scene in my life would feature a Stevie B song.

[scorzi]

Gotta fess up and admit I've never heard of any of these people (not sure if it's cause I'm younger or originally from Boston) but wanted to let you know Rich that for the first time in my life I watched Project Runway last night...and it wasn't half bad! Hope you caught it, even if you don't blog about it.

[Y]

OMFG STEVIE B!!! Did he sing Spring Love? That was my mother fucking song, man.

[Jennifer]

Damn, I love these artists. I'm 36, grew up in Anaheim, CA and I've seen just about everyone you mentioned at either the Anaheim Convention Center back in the day or some like Shannon, Trinere, Connie, at Disneyland believe it or not! Some were at Skating Rinks. We'd break dance and then they'd clear the floor for a battle, and then some group like the World Class Wreckin Cru would come on. All glitter, Sequins and Eyeliner. My favorite back in the day was the group Nice and Wild and their one hit wonder Diamond Girl. Brings back memories of Boones Farm, Aqua Net, and mini trucks.
Thanks for taking me there, Rich. Are you sure you're not my age? How is it that being in your 20's you got to liking the music from my generation?
Love ya

[Matt]

I. Am. DYING!

[Foxy]

I couldn't be sadder that I wasn't invited!

"But it's Coro!" T-shirts, anyone?

I have to say this somewhere and well, I know you were watching...

What in the name that is all good and Winstony were those judges thinking on Runway last night praising that ass ugly, greekym, grey goddessy, drapey, boob offsetting piece of trash last night?

Oh, and Kors looked like hell too.

[Kevipants]

Wait, is Debbie Deb a drag queen?

[KMM]

Did Noel die? Why wasn't he a part of this?

[Avin]

Why wasnt I there! OMG I am so old.

[Tallsonofagun]

Actually Rich, I´m surprised you´ve never heard of Judy Torres before the concert. She was one of the most consistently good and productive freestyle artists of the 80´s and she´s actually had quite a few really big club hits in the past 10 years (most notably "Faithfully" which is a remake of Journey´s 80´s hit and was number one on Billboard´s dance charts for a while). For me, her biggest and best hit was "Come Into My Arms". That song is hot and is the soundtrack to my teenage/young adult years. Here´s a link to it on You Tube in case you are interested in refreshing your memory about her.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=I7bySouNMl8

The song is on like every single Freestyle compilation released in the past 20 years, so I´d be surprised if you didn´t actually know it. Enjoy.

[sarah]

Every middle school memory somehow either relates to a Stevie B song or a Stevie B song is the background music for that memory. Loved TKA and K7 too.

[sarah]

Oh, and I am from Philly -- I think Northeast Philly and South Philly as well as South Jersey had their own favorites, because I don't know Judy Torres either.

[Foxy]

PS - Yeah, I don't think we got Judy Torres down our way, because I've never heard of her either.

[Rich]

Also in that category: "Dreamboy/Dreamgirl." Huge, huge, huge hit in the New York area (seriously: go to a wedding on Long Island and watch people freak out when DJ inevitably plays it), but I never knew anything of it until a few years ago.