|
Marta Marrero (born May 18, 1969), better known as Martika, is an American pop singer and actress of Cuban ancestry.
Born in Whittier, California, U.S., Marrero entered mainstream show business as
one of the orphan girls (an uncredited role) in the 1982 motion picture Annie. This led to
her being cast as “Gloria” on the Disney Channel kids show Kids
Incorporated about a group of neighbourhood kids who rose to local fame
by singing staged productions at a corner malt shop. At around the same time,
Martika and many fellow cast members from Kids Incorporated starred in
the musical numbers from the Mr. T
motivational video Be Somebody... or Be
Somebody's Fool!, which also aired in 1984. Shanice as well as future Black Eyed Peas member Stacy Ferguson also had
singing parts in the video.
Following her role in Kids Incorporated and Be Somebody,
Martika was quickly snagged by CBS Records as a potential Madonna-like pop star. Her first album,
1988's Martika, spawned the anti-drug abuse song “Toy
Soldiers”, which became a #1 U.S. Top 40 single. “More Than You Know” (#18)
and “I Feel The Earth Move” (a remake of Carole King’s Tapestry
album classic; #25) were also U.S. Top 40 hits. Her first solo release was,
however, a song called "We are Music" recorded for use in Japan to promote Sony
cassette tapes. The song was only released in Japan on 12", 7" and CD
formats.
She 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. Unfortunately the
producers of the album did not like her vocals and so the song was re-recorded
by Sara Hickman for the
film, though Martika retained her writing credit. "Eyes are Sensitive to the
Light" was re-recorded by Deborah Blando, an "Italian-Brazilian-diva" ,
and by Elba Ramalho for
her first album "A Different Story".
In 1991, she was approached by Prince and became one of the so-called
“Prince Protégées.” Her second album, Martika's Kitchen, was an American flop
(except for the minor radio favorite “Love…Thy Will Be Done,” her second and
final U.S. Top 10 single, which is almost a modern 'spiritual' number, and the
title track). However, the album was again a huge success abroad, though on a
lesser scale, spawning hits with the songs “Coloured Kisses” and “Temptation.”
However, it faded fast on the charts and went out of print.
Martika attempted to revitalize her acting career by playing lounge
singer/undercover cop Dahlia Mendez on the early 1990s cop show Wiseguy,
but the role was a temporary one and eventually she 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. In 1991, she contributed one
song, "Temptation", to Patti
LaBelle's album Burnin'
(as the songwritter).
During the 2000 explosion of Latin
pop music, Martika attempted to regain interest by singing backing vocals on
various projects and contributing lyrics, but she failed to grab any major label
attention. Instead she built martika.net, a website in 2001 for her fans, and
released a remix of a newly self-recorded song called "The Journey". She also
recorded a track titled “Monday,” as part of a direction she was heading for a
new solo album the website promised was on its way. However, “The Journey”
garnered only 5,000 hits as a free download on mp3.com’s music service. Eventually her
website was shut down, and Martika seemingly faded once again into Hollywood
oblivion.
In 2003 Martika joined forces with her musician husband, Michael Mozart to
form the band Oppera. Changing her sound
to that of goth pop,
she and Mozart released Oppera’s debut album Violince in 2004. Also in the same year, Eminem used a sample of her “Toy Soldiers”
song for “Like Toy
Soldiers” (a track on his album Encore) which entered the UK Singles
chart at No. 1. In response, Martika’s UK Greatest Hits album was repackaged
with its title altered to Toy Soldiers: The Best of Martika. This
reflected the fact that the song was her biggest hit in the U.S.; 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 album release with a Borders tour. Oppera is currently working on its third
release which should see a 2007 release and is apparently going to have a
dancier sound.[citation needed
|
and/or