About
Lisa Velez (born January 15, 1966), better known by her stage name Lisa Lisa, is an American singer. She rose to fame in the 1980s as one-third of the band Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam.
Velez was born in January 1966 in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City as the youngest of ten to a religious mother, who supported the family by babysitting, and an absentee father. Of Puerto Rican descent, Velez learned to speak Spanish at home and English in school. She sang in her church choir, at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, along with her six sisters, and was an A student at Julia Richman High School on the Upper East Side. At Sacred Heart she studied alongside several future members of the Irish-American criminal organization, the Westies. In school she was also part of a traveling singing group that sang Motown hits and songs from old Broadway musicals.
Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam was founded when Velez successfully auditioned for the Brooklyn production team Full Force. She met drummer Mike Hughes at Funhouse, a Manhattan underage club that she frequented to be discovered. She described the atmosphere as, “a young place, no liquor served in that place at all, so I kinda…
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