LISA & LISA Cult Jam: Spirits In The Night

LISA & LISA Cult Jam: Spirits In The Night

Anne Leighton

A summer night in New York City is hot. Even if you’re wearing a bathing suit, sweat drips effortlessly down your body from your nose to your toes. In the Hell’s Kitchen section (west of Times Square), it’s even hotter. Motorcycle crews roar their machines late into the night, disturbing the slumber of parents who have to get up for work at six a.m. But there are also hard-working, good-hearted families who only want to make their lives better in their home, work, and play.

Lisa Lisa grew up in Hell’s Kitchen. The youngest child in a family of 10 kids, she was raised by one mother. A religious woman, Lisa’s mother taught her children to pray, to be honest and try to achieve their dreams. As the youngest child, Lisa liked the music of Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, Patti LaBelle and Stevie Wonder. When it was past her bedtime, she’d hear brother Raymond’s Latin band rehearsing in the house. She’d sneak downstairs into his rehearsal room, hide behind a sofa, and smile, enjoying the music. Soon Raymond would feel the presence of someone invading his band’s ensemble. He knew it was little Lisa Lisa. After a song, he’d lovingly holler at her, “Go to bed!”

Lisa’s gentle banishment didn’t stop her from making music. As early as junior high school she would organize singing groups to perform at Penn Station or Bellevue Hospital. Knowing that she was strongly committed to performance, Lisa enrolled at the High School of Performing Arts, the one shown on the TV show, Fame. Unfortunately, the school enforced a rule that students couldn’t sign contracts to do performing work until senior year. Lisa didn’t want to suppress any opportunities, so she found another performing arts high school in New York City called Julia Richman. With the school’s blessings, Lisa performed at many local functions at hospitals and nursing homes.

“Different audiences taught me different things at an early age,” says Lisa Lisa—a show business veteran now only 20 years of age—analyzing her on-thejob training lessons. “You have to change sometimes. You can be fun in the hospitals, but when you’re at an old folks home, you have to be a little more under control. We never changed the songs we did. We only changed our presentation.”

Because Lisa liked a lot of hit songs, she found a club called the Funhouse. This non-alcoholic dance club was the place where a pre-fame Madonna would amaze people with her dancing. Many established musicians hung out at the Funhouse in New York City, including members of the rap groups UTFO and Full Force. Mike Hughes, a percussionist, was a friend and adjunct member of Full Force, and he loved the Funhouse so much that he would travel quite a distance from his home in Brooklyn to the club several times a week. He knew that Full Force was looking for a special girl singer to sing some of the group’s new songs. One night at the club he gave a quick glace to Lisa Lisa, who had been dancing. That glance became a fullfledged stare, then a lengthy conversation. She was asked to come to an audition in Brooklyn for a new group that Mike was putting together with help from Full Force.

Brooklyn is even more frightening than Hell's Kitchen. The moment this young lady stepped off the subway, she saw barbed wire fences, litter on the streets and angry pit bulls. Drivers sped by shouting, “Hey chick, wanna come up to my place?” Lisa Lisa was as terrified as Dorothy seeing the Wizard of Oz for the first time as she ventured to the audition. Even the building that Full Force rehearsed in was frightening and filthy. Lisa Lisa was convinced that she was risking her life for a singing job.

It was a terrified 17-year-old-girl that passed the audition for Cult Jam. In fact Lisa admits that she was very shy with her first record, “I Wonder If I Take You Home.” “I never spoke out at interviews,” she recalls. “Mike and Spanador used to pinch me on my bottom; ‘Say something.’ They’re teaching me how to be more open and have fun.”

Lisa became very much in awe of the group of guys in Cult Jam and Full Force. “They were so la-de-da about life. They had fun. You could see it when they walked into the room—you could smell it!”

Their lust for life rubbed off on Lisa. All the guys are healthy, a result of weightlifting and Spanador’s martial arts involvement. Lisa learned to eat healthfully and has developed an exercise regimen; she does calisthenics every day. She also learned to take a break from show business and go out to Action Park or other local amusement places in the New York City region.

The most important thing she’s learned is to hang out with the people who inspired her to go into music—her neighbors. “One of the new things I’ve discovered about having hit records is meeting a lot of plastic people in the music business,” Lisa admits. “Yes, it’s true I’m learning more about performing, but I can’t claim a lot of show business people as my friends. My neighborhood is down to earth. I could never live anywhere else. It’s where I grew up. I feel that you should always remember where it all began. The people that were here made me take the step. It’s what makes me be me. Being there in Hell’s Kitchen is home. And it makes me wanna work even harder and harder.”

And on a hot summer’s night in New York City, Lisa Lisa walks past Seventh Avenue from a rehearsal. Dogs bark. Somebody throws a lit cigarette out of the window—it just misses Lisa. Just then, she sees a friend, a policeman: “Hey Lisa, I just got your new record. It’s wonderful. Keep singing, little woman.”

Lisa smiles, gives him a thumbs-up signal and walks on toward her home with her mom who is praying for Lisa’s success, safety and spirit.