Jennifer Lynn Lopez

While her first two albums included funk, dance, urban and Latin-flavored music, Lopez's third album This Is Me... Then was inspired by '70s music. Rebirth, her fourth album, explored pop rock while utilizing stronger use of percussion and horns. Her sixth and seventh studio albums, Brave and Love? delved further into a dance music direction. Lyrically, Lopez's music revolves around love. However, she has also explored themes such as dance, sex, female empowerment, and self-loathing. She often includes personal experiences in her songs, such as her relationship with Ben Affleck on tracks "Dear Ben" and "He'll Be Back". Songs from Love? such as "Until It Beats No More" and "One Love" are also based on Lopez's own love life.
Lopez has been influenced by artists such as Tina Turner, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Madonna and Barbra Streisand. Critics have considered Lopez's soubrette vocal type to be limited, though "radio friendly". Rolling Stone observed: "Instead of strained vocal pyrotechnics, Lopez sticks to the understated R&B murmur of a round-the-way superstar who doesn't need to belt because she knows you're already paying attention ... She makes a little va-va and a whole lot of voom go a long way." Entertainment Weekly criticized her vocal performance for lacking the trademark "husky-voiced voluptuousness" she has in her films. The Baltimore Sun regards Lopez as having a "breathy" stylistic range, but lacking personality. Today Music opined: "like Madonna and Janet, people don’t listen to J.Lo for the poignant lyrics—she’s best when riding a dance groove".
• Choreography and stage
Lopez has felt an emotional connection to dance since her childhood. Growing up, she specialized in ballet, jazz and flamenco dance genres. Her career commenced on the variety television sketch comedy series In Living Color, where she was a part of an ethnically diverse dance group labeled The Fly Girls. Lopez briefly served as a back-up dancer to recording artist Janet Jackson, who she claimed to have a considerable influence over her choreography. After beginning her own recording career, Lopez's provocatively choreographed debut music video for "If You Had My Love" allowed her to become a dominant figure on MTV Networks worldwide. Since, Lopez has become well known for her body-emphasizing music videos such as "Waiting for Tonight", "I'm Glad" and "Dance Again" among others, which have been subject to mixed responses. For the film Shall We Dance? (2004), Lopez learned a new genre of dance: ballroom. Lopez often includes dance routines to her music videos.