PREPARING TO CELEBRATE 25 YEARS of FREESTYLE!! A brief history..

First, let me apologize to my faithful followers of the blog!!  I know the blogs about Le Parisen were suddenly gone...I was doing some editing, wanted to change some things, and when I went to retrieve them, I accidentally lost them!! UGH!!  I actually saw some followers having a conversation among each other...it touched me actually that you were worried about me.  I am fine.  Now I know the true meaning of "backing up your computer & documents"!  LOL...

So we are almost 2 weeks away from the celebrating the big 25th Anniversary of Freestyle!!  Wow!  I can't even begin to tell you how crazy that sounds!   I have had this career as a recording artist for 24 years...yes, freestyle had a head start before I broke in the business.  If you are a freestyle freak, you will recall how freestyle spread like wildfire in New York, Florida, Iloinois and California!  Freestyle was in everyone's walkmans (lol, remember that?), cassettes and on the radio on almost every station....it was huge! Freestyle became unanimous with New York culture!  Freestyle was a celebration of the latino culture influencing American dance music - it was clean, feel good music. It was about love, falling in love, losing love, wanting love, cheating love...bottom line it was about the basic feelings of the youth in the 80s.  In other words, freestyle was good, clean fun, music...you have never heard about "gangsta freestyle" LOL...

The 80's were synonymous with freestyle, cavarrici's, high hair, aqua net hairspray, and nightclubs such as Palladium, 1018, Devil's Nest, La Mirage, Marty & Lenny's, Copacabana, Exit, Paled's, Red Parrot, and Emerald City!!  It was a wonderful time for all of us - we were free!!  We didn't have all the drama...we were just celebrating and loving life!  So at first this style of music had no name.  But somehow the industry decided it needed a label. I HATE labels...labels, I find them to be limiting.  Labels puts things in a box, to me, keeps things restricted. So the music industry began writing articles:  "What is this new wave of music?"  "The New Latin Hip-Hop...then it evolved to Latin Freestyle...now because I think music is for all people, it is simply FREESTYLE!!  And the crowds that the freestyle shows drew were in drones of the thousands!!!  I will NEVER forget that!  I can never forget it!  And so,  freestyle became a frenzy, an out of control storm force that could not be stopped.  Or could it???

Suddenly in the mid 90s, something happened, and everyone has a different explanation for it.  In the mid 90's there was a station called HOT 103...Hot 103 had given birth to the freestyle by being the first station to play it.  And before you know it, major pop stations such as Z100 wanted to have freestyle artists to perform at their functions.  And what most people don't know is that in the inner circles of freestyle, it became a political war!  Station vying against station, fighting over us...We had a chance to cross over and be more pop, aka, TOP 40 - the very thing all artists strive to achieve.  And for a second we had a taste of it.  But what you don't know is that while many of the freestyle artists saw the chance, we couldn't take the opportunity.  You see, there was a threat going on behind closed doors. It was an unspoken threat:  If you do the show, the parade, the concert for such and such a station, we will black ball all your music and NEVER support your music again.  It may not sound scary, but it became extremely frustrating to feel that one small step could potentially ruin our career...so in a way, many freestyle artists were literally held back. 

There is another theory as to why freestyle did not continue:  EVERYONE was doing it - everyone wanted piece of the freestyle pie...this is not a fact, just an opinion  here.  But I feel that in some ways, freestyle needed to grow - it needed to expand and change and evolve in the very same way that hip hop and rap has over the years.  For some reason, the demand for new freestyle was so HUGE and STRESSFUL, that many people just copied the same recipes from other songs, and before you know it...some people could not distinguish who was who.  Also because everyone wanted it, so many more freestyle artists were emerging...and it seemed that everyone was signing anyone, and thus, the quality of some artists, the standards were not as high anymore. I am not trying to put anyone down - it's an observation that many of us have talked about.

I will never forget the day I was at HOT 103...and an announcement was made that they were changing dials to HOT 97. In less than a year, sometime in the early 90's, HOT 97's program director announced that HOT 97 would no longer play freestyle...they announced they would be changing their format to play a new genre of music:  Hip-Hop!  It was the beginning of the end for freestyle!  And once New York stopped supporting freestyle, the other stations around the country followed suit.  And we were faced with a harsh reality that freestyle was "over."  We were told to go find jobs...I had even heard a rumor that the program director owned a restaurant at the time, and was said to have mocked us by saying, "If they need a job, they can wait tables at my place."  Ouch. That hurt.  I never forgot it.

I remember walking the streets of Parkchester, in the Bronx...and wondering, "What am I going to do?"  We had such a  tremendous success, that I think we didnt' see the end ever coming.  We felt invincible...that freestyle would last forever.  We were wrong...well, sort of.  I can't tell you what everyone did; I can only tell you what happened to me.  I was not ready for the rainy day.  I did not save enough money.   was so preoccupied with taking care of my family, my siblings, etc., that I kind of gave it all away.  And little by little, the shows slowed down.  the bills began coming.  It is VERY expensive to keep this business going. Each artist is their very own business...and they have LOTS of overhead:  you have to pay your manager, booking agent, road manager, dancers.  You have to constantly invest an re-invest into yourself...there are costumes to buy, shoes to wear, make up, hair, nails...and you have to keep it fresh to keep up the face e of the illusion you've learned to give the public.  The public loves to believe you have it all, when in essence, you are truly spending a LOT of money.  In less than a year, I lost my precious condominium that Ihad purchased at the age of 18!  Gone. Done.  My stubbon self refused to declare bankruptcy, so I paid off every single credit card.  I was stil singing, but instead of 12 shows a month, it was about 2...too little to suvive one.  I became an aerobics instructor, I worked for two attorneys, and every once in a while deal with the "shame" of someone recognizing me on the street, saying, "Oh, my God! Judy Torres?? Judy Torres works here?!"   Ah, yes it was a very humbling time for me...and I am happy to have been humbled!  It was a valuable lesson to learn...and I'm glad God gave me that lesson very early. 

And then something happened.  The phone started ringing again.  I was told that the people in the clubs were asking to hear me perform...huh? But the songs are so old now...it didn't matter.  And in a couple of months I was working regularly perfornmng in clubs.  I wasn't the only one - George Lamond TKA Coro, Cynthia, etc...we all were working consistently.  And in a few more years, a new station re-emerged:  WKTU, the Beat of New York. And they supported freestyle...the people's hunger to hear it agin was satisfied. I was hired there and for 12 1/2 years I hosted the KTU Freestyle Free For All.  And soon after, the idea of freestyle concerts began to flourish, and we were once again thrown into a resurgence of freestyle, accompanied by new fans - the younger borthers and sisters and children of the original freestyle freaks!  We've been able to say we've performed in the big arenas:  Nassau Coliseum, PNC Bank Arts Center, arenas all over the country and finally the world famous Madison Square Garden....almost 25 years later!!  Sold OUT!!  It has been an incredible ride.

We are now less than two weeks away from the 25th Anniversary of Freestyle!! Twenty-five years!!!  A quarter of a century! If someone had told me I'd still be singing No Reason to Cry ans  Come Into My Arms 25 years later, I would never have believed them!  But yet, here we are...and I have to tell you how grateful I am, how grateful we all are, that you have stood by us through thick and thin.  And it is YOU, the PEOPLE who forced freestyle to be reincarnated!!!  I will take this joy to my grave!  And I will NEVER again take it for granted. I am well aware that we are all getting older - many of you have children, mortgages, and I fear the day that you wil all say, "Ay, I wish I could go to the show, but I'm too tired!" LOL...

And so, I enjoy
every
single
moment!!!

And when I step out onto the stage in two weeks to sing, I am going to soak up EVERY SINGLE MINUTE!!  I have some special things planned...I want to show the "industry", well, we STILL GOT IT!! And FREESTYLE isn't going anywhere!!  It is the voice of the people, it is a part of our culture...it is our LEGACY!!!                                        

"I May Be Chunky But I'm Funky" - Message to Gabourey Sidieb

Fresh out of high school, I recall deciding I'd pursue being a professional singer.  Although I had good times thus far, I'd also been secretly depressed.  It was a side of me I never showed, or rather never came out until I was in my mid-twenties.  And it was this depression that actually gave me the drive and hunger to sing, because I noticed early on that when I sang, that black cloud was absent.  I felt like I could do anything when I sang. I felt happy, I felt loved and although I was an obese adolescent, I felt  for the first time in my life - unjudged. 

When I first met my manager and other "instrumental" people in the business, I was told, "Judy, if you want to be a singer, you can't be fat....no one will want to sign you.  No one will want to take pictures of you, nor will anyone do a video of you."  It was the first time I was told I was limited. My mother always told me that if I want to be a singer, I should just go out there and get myself heard.  And that's exactly what I did.  Fat and depressed and suffering from acne, I STILL went after it.  A year after graduating from high school, I met my first manager. And a year after that, I had my first single, No Reason to Cry.  I would go on stage and I could hear the whispers, the giggles.  And within a year, the audience got louder in their opinion and would chant, "Go, golda, go golda!" which is a not so kind way of saying, "Go, fatso, go fatso!"  People would tell me it was in jest, "de carino", but having to lock myself in a bathroom and cry was not funny at all.

One day, after a show at Flushing Meadow Park, I was on a park bench crying because the chanting had followed me to almost every show.  A man passed by and said to me, "Yea, baby!  That's how I like 'em: nice and thick!  I like 'em chunky but funky."  I was furious!  Did he not see me crying there?  I was so freaking pissed off, I almost considered quitting my dream of singing.  I wanted to be a singer..I wasn't trying to be a supermodel.  If you have a voice and you can entertain, do you have to be perfect in looks?  Isn't what comes out of my mouth more important than what I put in it?  LOL.  A few weeks later, I was booked to sing at the Palladium in New York City.  It was a HOT 103 concert (before it became HOT 97) and it was an award night.  I had been nominated for best female performer.  I was performing Come Into My Arms that night for the first time.  There I was on that big and famous stage, so many people...and my mother and father were in the audience.  I was so scared. I almost cried before I went on, and thanks to Nayobe, a fellow diva who can sing like nobody's business, she gave me the courage to go on. "Somebody, get her some water, " she demanded.  She looked at me, with her hands on my shoulders, "You listen to me, mama!  You go up there!  This is YOUR night...go do your thing!"  To this day, I still love her always for that gift of courage she gave me.  The lights went down, the song began, I threw my hands out to the side, and before I sang one note, the crowd chanted, "Go Golda, Go, Go Golda!"  I was mortified!  It was bad enough that I had to tolerate it; I didn't want my parents to hear it, God, how embarrassing!!!  I thought of that man, that stranger, who spoke to me in the park.  I asked them to stop the music.

"I wake up every morning, and I look in the mirror and see exactly what you see. I don't try to lie to myself.  I know I'm fat. No one has to tell me. I deal with it every day.  But I'll tell you this:  I MAY BE CHUNKY...(pause)...BUT  I'M FUNKY!!!"  The crowd literally went wild!  I won the award, but I won something else:  the ability to talk to the crowd and take my power back.  The truth was becaue I didn't accept myself, the crowd sensed that weakness and just put it in my face. I had to become my own #1 fan! The next day the deejays were talking about it all day on the air, and to this day it's become my most famous quote, helping me represent plus-size women everywhere!  And from time to time, I will say it and it still gets a great response!

So, I'd like to address this blog to Hollywood and the critics on Gabourey Sidibe's back - claiming she will never make it if she doesn't lose weight:  Everyone has a monkey on their back they have to deal with.  For some it is alcohol, for some it is drugs, for some it is sex, and for some it is food...I think these "critics" are people who feel so lousy about themselves, they cannot wait to find fault with people and purposely try to steal their spotlight.  Give Sidibe a break!  Get off her back!....if you don't want to support her, DON'T...don't hire her, don't go to her movies, but SHAME ON YOU, for judging her...she's so young for God's sake!! Are you trying to break her spirit??  Did you not see her performance in Precious!!!  She deserved to be nominated, and she deserves to pursue more acting...all my life I was hoping to see a plus size woman be THE star in a movie, and not only has it happened, she was brilliant!

Gabourey, I pray my blog gets to you...know how many of us are praying for you, are routing for you and your success.  I pray that you don't allow these ugly people to take you down, don't let them get you, girl!  You do you!  You want to lose weight, go for it...but do it for you.  And if you don't want to, don't. Never, never lose weight for anyone! No matter what, I see your beauty...I see your beauty the way I hoped someone saw mine when I was 16!  I love you, and I SEE YOU!  Go prove them all wrong...and if you don't make it, you are now and always be a hero to me.

PS:  I'm still a plus sized woman.  And although I have never won a grammy, I have had two albums, countless singles, I've had MANY pictures and videos taken of me, I was a plus size model, and I still am a recording artist of TWENTY-THREE gorgeous years, and a radio personality in NYC for THIRTEEN years!  I am still here.....Que Viva Chunky but Funky women everywhere!  We are all deserving of love.  Okay, I'll shut up now.