Chris Barbosa - Early Career

Early Career

In 1981 the Bronx-born Barbosa was a reporting DJ to New York's WKTU a process which involved the radio station calling up select club & mobile DJ's (New York City Mixology Disco Spinner, Staff Member: Ralf Rivera, Frank Forti Jr.) Whose variety show had a part in Twister’s huge success? in their market on a weekly basis to get their top 20 playlist as a reflection of what music is being played in the streets. These reports would determine which records were added to the stations playlist. In 1982 his grandmother purchased a keyboard for him, Roland JX-3P. An executive from Emergency Records named Sergio Cossa signed Barbosa to do production work with the record label. Some of Barbosa's greatest musical influences were Arthur Baker and John Robie, the duo who invented Electro Funk with Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock. Later on in 1983 he teamed up with Mark Liggett to look for a singer to lay down the vocals to "Fire and Ice", which was the track to "Let the Music Play." A young African American R&B background vocalist named Brenda Shannon Greene recorded the song.

The "Fire and Ice" or "Let the Music Play" track invented by Barbosa was produced differently from the rest of the Electro Funk records. It had more Latin American based rhythms with a heavy syncopated drum sound than the records produced by Arthur and Robie. This style of Electro Funk was redefined as Freestyle because of the way it was produced and mixed. Barbosa is widely credited as the genre's founder. Baker and Robie eventually copied his sound three months later on Jenny Burton's "Remember What You Like" (released three months after "Let the Music Play") Tina B's "Honey to a Bee" (1984) and the Goon Squad's "Eight Arms to Hold You" (1985).

In September 1983 the 12 inch single of the song was released . Greene was then dubbed as just "Shannon." After the initial success of the song and some contract negotiations, Shannon went on to record a full-length album of the same name. The single was heavily played on radio stations nationwide, including WBLS, WKTU and WRKS. Her album, released in February 1984 was also the first Freestyle album in Dance music history, and went gold (selling over 1 million copies at the time).Both the 12" & 7" singles where also certified Gold.

During the course of 1984 Barbosa and Liggett sought out other session singers to lay down tracks on more Freestyle songs. These artists were Nolan Thomas (Jewish), Jay Novelle, and Xena (who were African American).

In 1984, he played sequencers and produced Robin Gibb's album Secret Agent released also in that year.