NEED TO KNOW
Lisa Velez, better known by her stage name, Lisa Lisa, was on the side of the stage when one of pop culture’s most infamous moments occurred: Milli Vanilli was caught lip-syncing during a live performance.
“Their machine just blew. It just shut down,” she recalls of their performance on the 1989 Club MTV Tour, referring to the moment as a “drastic, horrible thing.”
The German duo, made up of Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus, found huge success in the United States in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, even winning a Grammy for Best New Artist. However, on July 21, 1989, during a performance in Bristol, Conn., their backing track malfunctioned and repeatedly played a lyric from “Girl You Know It’s True.” The duo ran off the stage after their lip-syncing was exposed.
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The following year, the duo’s producer admitted that Morvan and Pilatus lip-synced, confessing that their voices weren’t even on the album. For Velez, though, who briefly toured with the group, she wasn’t surprised by the scandal.
She notes that people in her orbit all “thought that something was kind of flaky and weird with them” because they had strong accents in person, but sounded drastically different on their records.
Whereas Morvan and Pilatus were never the same afterward, Velez, 58, continued to carve out an impressive career in entertainment, nabbing acting gigs and top 10 songs.
Last month, she released a music video for her Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam hit “All Cried Out”, which originally dropped in 1985. However, she recently rerecorded it in Spanish. The accompanying music video, her first in 30 years, was filmed in a New York City restaurant and salsa club.
”It’s an homage to my people and my mom and my neighborhood, Hell’s Kitchen, where I was raised, born and raised, and it meant so much for me to put that feel out there,” she says.
Nan Schuster
A survivor of breast cancer and domestic violence, the “I Wonder If I Take You Home” singer continues to tour and says she has no regrets about her career. But there is one opportunity she passed on that could have reshaped her history.
Back in the late ‘80s, she says she was offered the role of Eddie Murphy’s love interest in 1988’s Coming to America. However, she turned it down because her then-partner didn’t want her in the movie. The part eventually went to Shari Headley.
“I thought I was being the good wife, being so young, how stupid was I,” she reflects.
“It wasn’t meant for me,” Velez adds, “but can you believe that I said no to it because of a man!”
