Connie

Latina vocalist Connie first gained notice through her 1985 club smash “Funky Little Beat,” one of the earliest entries in the Latin-freestyle scene—a dance-pop variant laced with Latin rhythms. Although the South Florida native, born in Miami and raised in Hialeah, Florida, never reached the visibility attained by Exposé or the Cover Girls, that debut single is now viewed as a cornerstone release within the style.

Born Consuelo Piriz on July 30, 1964, she is the child of Latino immigrants; her father arrived from Cuba and her mother had relocated to South Florida from Ecuador. While still in her early twenties, Connie met TK Records president Henry Stone, who facilitated her 1985 signing to Sunnyview. There she cut “Funky Little Beat,” executive-produced by Stone and co-written by his wife Inez Stone alongside Amos Larkins II. The track registered only modest chart numbers—falling just short of the Top 40 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs lists—yet it became a staple in clubs and later surfaced on countless freestyle and electro anthologies.

In 1986 she followed with the single “Experience” and issued her self-titled debut album on Sunnyview. Additional singles appeared throughout the decade, among them a 1987 cover of KC & the Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight,” though none matched the reach of her first hit. After stepping away from recording in the 1990s to marry and raise a family, she returned in 1995 with the album No Tears on Black Olive Records. Thump Records compiled The Best of Connie in 2002, pairing remixes and remakes of earlier material with new recordings and covers.

Her next project, the 2006 bilingual set Let’s Party (Estilo Reggaeton) on the same label, explored cumbia, merengue, and reggaeton. Essential Media Group subsequently reissued her original album as The Best of Connie: Funky Little Beat, appending “Get Down Tonight” plus several remixes of the title track. In 2015 Connie rejoined producer Amos Larkins for the studio album Amos Larkins Presents Party Time, Vol. 1, released on Essential Media Mod.