Martika

Martika

born on 18/5/1969 in Whittier, CA, United States

Martika

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Martika
Birth name Marta Marrero
Also known as Vida Edit
Born May 18 1969
Origin Whittier, California, United States
Genres Pop, pop rock
Occupations Singer-songwriter, record producer, actress
Years active 1982 present
Labels Columbia Records, Dunda Chief Records
Website Official website

Martika (born Marta Marrero, May 18, 1969, Whittier, California, United States) is an American pop singer and actress. As a singer she released two internationally successful albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, selling over 4 million worldwide. Now working mainly as an actress, since 2009 she has used the new stage name Vida Edit.[1]

Biography

Early life and career

Born in Whittier, California, Marrero entered mainstream show business in an uncredited role as one of the orphan girls in the 1982 motion picture Annie. This led to her being cast as Gloria on the long-running kids show Kids Incorporated as one of a group of neighborhood kids who rise to local fame by singing staged productions at a corner malt shop. Martika and many fellow Kids Incorporated cast members were featured in the musical numbers from the Mr. T motivational video Be Somebody... or Be Somebody's Fool! in 1984.

Following her role in Kids Incorporated and Be Somebody, Martika was signed by CBS Records as a potential Madonna-like pop star. Her first solo release, however, was released only in Japan. "We are Music" was recorded to promote Sony cassette tapes in the Japanese market, where the song was released in the 12", 7" and CD formats.

Rise to prominence

Her first album, 1988's Martika, spawned the song Toy Soldiers, which she co-wrote and became a top 5 hit in the United Kingdom and many other countries. In the US, "Toy Soldiers" spent two weeks at #1 and was certified Gold by the RIAA. Two additional releases also went Top 40 in the US: "More Than You Know"(#18) and "I Feel the Earth Move"(#25), which was a remake of Carole Kings #1 from her album Tapestry. Both of those tracks also hit the top 20 on the US Dance charts and the UK singles chart.[2] Further releases from the debut album were "Water," a modest hit in the UK and Australia, and "If You're Tarzan I'm Jane." The album was certified Gold in the US in 1989, and sold 3 million copies worldwide.

1990s

Martika was encouraged by her agent to combine her love of film and music by scoring soundtracks and, in 1990, she wrote and recorded the song Blue Eyes are Sensitive to the Light for the soundtrack to the film Arachnophobia. The producers of the album did not like her vocals and so the song was re-recorded by Sara Hickman for the film. The song has also been recorded by Brazilian singers Deborah Blando (on her 1991 debut, A Different Story), Elba Ramalho and Frances Ruffelle.

In 1991 Martika was approached by Prince to record some of his tracks. Among these was her second (and last) US Top 10 single, "Love... Thy Will Be Done", which also became a Top 10 hit in the UK and #1 in Australia. Her second album, Martika's Kitchen, peaked at #111 on the Billboard Top Albums chart, and the title track received only minor airplay and reached #93 on Billboard Hot 100 Chart. However, the album was a bigger success abroad, though on a lesser scale than her debut, spawning further hits with the songs Coloured Kisses and Temptation.

In 1991 she wrote the song "Temptation" for Patti LaBelle's album Burnin'.

Martika played the role of the lounge singer Dahlia Mendez in the early 1990s cop show Wiseguy, opposite Steven Bauer, but the return to acting was brief and she eventually faded from the public eye around 1993.

In 1997 a greatest hits album entitled The Best of Martika: More Than You Know was released. It achieved sales figures of over 500,000 copies internationally.

Re-emergence

During the 2000 explosion of Latin pop music, Martika re-emerged into the music world, singing backing vocals on various projects and contributing lyrics to releases by other artists, although she failed to grab any major-label attention for herself. Instead she built martika.net in 2001, a website for her fans, and released a remix of a newly self-recorded song called "The Journey". She also recorded a track entitled Monday for a new solo album which the website stated was on its way. The Journey had 5,000 hits as a free download on mp3.coms music service. Eventually, however, her website was shut down, the album never materializing.

In 2003 Martika joined forces with her husband, musician Michael Mozart, to form the band Oppera. Adopting a latin pop sound, she and Mozart released Opperas debut album Violince in 2004. That same year rapper Eminem used a sample of her biggest U.S. hit, Toy Soldiers, for Like Toy Soldiers, a track on his album Encore which entered the UK singles chart at Number 1. In response, Martikas UK Greatest Hits album was repackaged with its title altered to Toy Soldiers: The Best of Martika. A biography was added to the album insert reflecting the new Eminem sample, though it asserted that she had not released any albums since Martika's Kitchen.

Oppera released a self-titled second album in 2005. Martika promoted Oppera's release with a Borders bookstore tour.

In October 2009, it was announced that Martika, now going under the stage name Vida Edit, will star in the new web-based television action program J8ded, as Lolly Pop. [3]

Discography

References

External links

This page was last modified 26.04.2010 00:13:51

This article uses material from the article Martika from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.