Tego Calderon

Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, in 1972 but raised in nearby Carolina and in Miami, FL, rapper Tego Calderón got the multicultural backbone he'd need to become a star in the genre-mixing world of reggaeton. Growing up with massive Ismael Rivera fans as parents exposed the young Calderón to envelope-pushing Latin pop music, while his father's love of jazz added yet another flavor. Studying percussion set Calderón on the path to creating his own style, one that mixed the rhythmic sounds of salsa, plena, dancehall, and hip-hop. Lyric-wise, he combined hip '60s slang with current slang and tales of barrio life. Calderón made a couple appearances on other Latin rappers' albums before the White Lion label signed the artist. Issued in 2002, El Abayarde became Calderón's full-length debut. An instant success, El Abayarde sold 50,000 copies during its first month, and Calderón was now an official Latin music superstar.
Returning to Miami led to an increase in the dancehall flavor of his music. This, combined with Calderón's outspoken viewpoint that salsa had become too corporate and too safe, made 2004's El Enemy de los Guasíbiri a punchier, more hectic, more street-level affair. With the reggaeton genre blowing up with New York City's hip-hop tastemakers and spreading its influence further and further, Calderón soon found himself fielding offers from hip-hop producers while landing tracks on numerous street-level mixtapes. His voice ended up on remixes of Usher's "Yeah," Fat Joe's "Lean Back," and N.O.R.E.'s "Oye Mi Canto." Looking to expand beyond reggaeton, Calderón declared his 2006 release The Underdog/El Subestimado "a musical journey through the Afro-Caribbean culture." The album kicked off his relationship with the Warner Brothers imprint Atlantic. ~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide

Eric Benét

Eric Benet is a contemporary R&B singer with mild hip-hop and strong adult contemporary influences. As a teenager, Benet was in a vocal group called Benet with his sister and cousin. The group signed with Capitol and released an eponymous album in 1992 that went ignored. Eric went out as a solo artist shortly afterward, signing to Warner Bros. and releasing his debut album, True to Myself, in the fall of 1996. A Day in the Life followed in 1999; its first single, a cover of Toto's "Georgy Porgy", was a moderate radio hit, but the album's second single "Spend My Life With You" (featuring Tamia) was a chart smash. "Spend My Life With You" went to number one on the R&B charts, was certified gold, was nominated for a 2000 Grammy Award for "Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group." Benet's popularity was on the rise; A Day In the Life went on to earn a Soul Train Music Award for "Best R&B/Soul Album Male." During this time, Benet headed into the studio to work on Earth, Wind and Fire's 30th anniversary CD. He and actress Halle Berry also became an item (the couple married in January 2001). Aside from music, Benet caught the acting bug. He had a recurring role on WB's For Your Love and made his feature film debut in Mariah Carey's flashy showbiz drama,Glitter, in 2001. Berry and Benet separated in 2004, a year before the singer released his third album, Hurricane. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Cake

Best-known for their ubiquitous hit "The Distance," Cake epitomized the postmodern, irony-drenched aesthetic of ‘90s geek-rock. Their sound freely mixed and matched pastiches of widely varying genres -- white-boy funk, hip-hop, country, new wave pop, jazz, college rock, and guitar rock -- with a particular delight in the clashes that resulted. Their songs were filled with lyrical non sequiturs, pop-culture references, and smirky satire, all delivered with bone-dry detachment by speak-singing frontman John McCrea. Cake's music most frequently earned comparisons to Soul Coughing and King Missile, but lacked the downtown New York artiness of those two predecessors; instead, Cake cultivated an image of average guys with no illusions or pretensions about their role as entertainers. At the same time, critics lambasted what they saw as a smugly superior attitude behind the band's habitual sarcasm. Perhaps there was something in Cake's doggedly spare, low-key presentation that amplified their ironic detachment even when they didn't intend it, but most reviewers pegged them as one-hit wonders after the success of "The Distance." Nonetheless, Cake managed a few more alternative-radio hits in the years that followed, while retaining largely the same approach. Cake was formed in Sacramento, California in 1992 by vocalist/songwriter John McCrea, who'd recently returned home after spending a few years in Los Angeles, unsuccessfully trying to break into the music business. The original lineup of Cake also featured guitarist Greg Brown, trumpeter Vince DiFiore, bassist Sean McFessel, and drummer Frank French; McFessel soon left to attend college, and was replaced by Gabe Nelson. In 1993, the band released their debut single, "Rock ‘n' Roll Lifestyle," on a local basis, and followed it with a self-produced, self-released, self-distributed album, Motorcade of Generosity. Motorcade found its way to the revived Capricorn label, which released the album nationally after Cake signed a contract with them. With the prospect of extensive national touring, both Gabe Nelson and Frank French left the band, and were replaced by bassist Victor Damiani and drummer Todd Roper. Re-released by Capricorn, "Rock ‘n' Roll Lifestyle" caught on at college radio in 1995, and was followed by two more singles, "Ruby Sees All," and "Jolene" (not the Dolly Parton song). Cake's second album, Fashion Nugget, was released in 1996 and spawned a breakout smash in the Greg Brown-penned "The Distance," which dominated alternative radio that fall, and even turned into an unlikely sporting-event anthem. Mostly on the strength of "The Distance," Fashion Nugget charted in the Top 40 and sold over a million copies. It also spun off a somewhat controversial follow-up single in a cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive"; although the band professed its sincere admiration for the song, some critics and listeners took it as a smarmy put down, in part because of McCrea's dead pan vocals. In 1997, Greg Brown and Victor Damiani both left Cake and formed a new group, the new wave-influenced Deathray, which eventually released its debut album on Capricorn in 2000. Meanwhile, McCrea briefly considered putting Cake to rest, but brought original bassist Gabe Nelson back to replace Damiani. For Cake's next album, McCrea used a tag-team procession of guitarists -- five in all -- on different tracks; the result, Prolonging the Magic, was released in 1998. True to its sardonic title, it defied critical opinion to produce another big alternative-radio hit in "Never There," plus decently successful follow-ups in "Sheep Go to Heaven" and "Let Go." Prolonging the Magic sold nearly as well as Fashion Nugget, and was also certified platinum. For the supporting tour, one of the album's guitarists, Xan McCurdy, officially joined Cake full-time. In the spring of 2000, Cake signed a new deal with Columbia, and debuted in 2001 with their fourth overall album, Comfort Eagle, which became their highest-charting yet (at Number 13). The lead single "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" was a hit on alternative radio, and even earned some MTV airplay -- no longer an easy task for any artist -- with a video that featured reactions to the song by randomly selected people on the street. Following the completion of the album, drummer Todd Roper left the group to spend more time with his children, and was replaced on the supporting tour by Pete McNeal. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar's polished mainstream pop/rock made her one of the more popular female vocalists of the early '80s. Although she came on like an arena rocker with her power chords, tough sexuality, and powerful vocals, her music was straight pop/rock underneath all the bluster. Born Patricia Andrzejewski on January 10, 1953, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the singer was raised in the nearby town of Lindenhurst on Long Island, NY. Benatar began singing regularly in the New York City area by the '70s, where she was discovered at the Catch a Rising Star club and signed by Chrysalis Records. Backed by a stellar band led by guitarist Neil Geraldo (who the singer would later marry) that provided the perfect accompaniment that was able to effortlessly alternate between rockers and ballads. Benatar quickly established herself as one of rock's top vocalists, scoring a hit right of the bat with her debut album, 1979's In the Heat of the Night, which spawned such radio favorites as "Heartbreaker" and "I Need a Lover" (the latter of which was written by a then-unknown John Mellencamp).

Benatar's sophomore effort, 1980's Crimes of Passion, more than delivered on the debut's promise and it's often considered to be the finest recording of her career. Spurred on by such classic rock radio standards as "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," "Treat Me Right," and "You Better Run," the album was certified platinum shortly after its release and Benatar became a certified arena headliner in the U.S. Benatar also became one of the most-played artists during MTV's early days, received several Grammy Awards around this time, and continued to enjoy massive hits and sold-out tours throughout the early to mid-'80s, including such albums as 1981's Precious Time, 1982's Get Nervous, 1983's Live from Earth, 1984's Tropico, 1985's Seven the Hard Way, and 1988's Wide Awake in Dreamland, plus the singles "Fire & Ice," "Promises in the Dark," "Shadows of the Night," "Love Is a Battlefield," "We Belong," and "Invincible." But by the end of the decade, it appeared as though Benatar had fallen of the face of the Earth as the hits seemed to dry up.

Benatar opted to shift musical gears and issue an album of blues and R&B, 1991's True Love, which failed to return the singer back to the top of the charts. Benatar returned back to her patented arena rock sound with such further studio releases as 1993's Gravity's Rainbow and 1997's Innamorata (although the latter of which was largely acoustic-based) and while the albums didn't exactly measure up to her earlier releases, both were solid efforts. The late '90s saw a pair of live archival releases hit record store shelves, 1998's 8-15-80 and 1999's The King Biscuit Flower Hour Live, in addition to countless hits collections (although the best of the bunch proved to be 1989's Best Shots, which remains a steady seller to this day). The singer began touring again by the middle of the decade (after taking a five-year hiatus from the road), co-headlining shows with REO Speedwagon, Fleetwood Mac, the Steve Miller Band, and Styx. She also continued to dabble in acting, appearing in the ABC Afterschool Special Torn Between Two Fathers and on various sitcoms. In August 2003, Benatar returned to recording with Go (Vanguard), her first studio LP since 1997's Innamorata. The LP revisited the arena rock/MOR sound that had defined Benatar's career, and was accompanied by an extensive tour. ~ Greg Prato & Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Susan Cagle

acommon face in New York subways since 2002, singer Susan Cagle was signed to a record deal when producer Jay Levine saw her playing at the Herald Square Street station at 34th Street. Cagle, who spent her childhood traveling the world with her family -- who were part of the Children of God religious sect -- singing and playing the guitar, had never seriously considered music as a career. But after she set off on her own to New York in 2001, she soon found that she could make just as much money -- and have a much better time doing it -- performing her blend of pop, rock, and soul underneath the city as she could with a more "typical" job. In 2006 Cagle and her band (which includes sister Caroline on bass and brother Jesse on guitar) released her debut album, The Subway Recordings, which, as the title suggests, contains songs taken from two live performances, one in the Times Square Station and the other beneath Grand Central. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide