Over a lengthy professional arc, Jennifer Lopez has moved fluidly between acting and pop performance, thriving in both arenas across multiple decades. Her music path began with the 1999 album On the 6, which included the chart-topping single "If You Had My Love." That track inaugurated a run of neo-disco successes that sustained her prominence on the charts through the 2000s, an era highlighted by her becoming the first woman to top both the U.S. album and film charts simultaneously when her second album, J.Lo, arrived the same week as The Wedding Planner. While sustaining her film work, Lopez expanded into fragrances and apparel lines and served for much of the 2010s as a judge on American Idol. Those commitments sidelined new recordings until 2024, when she staged a high-profile return via This Is Me…Now, positioned as a follow-up to her 2002 success This Is Me…Then.
Jennifer Lynn Lopez entered the world in the Bronx, New York, on July 24, 1969. Early involvement in children's musical theater led to a screen debut at age 16 in the obscure My Little Girl, yet she soon joined the dance ensemble known as the "Fly Girls" on the sketch series In Living Color. A supporting part on the drama Second Chances came next, after which she gained wider notice opposite Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson in the 1995 feature Money Train. Subsequent smaller appearances in My Family/Mi Familia, Jack, and Blood and Wine preceded her casting as the title character in 1997's Selena, where she embodied the murdered Tejano performer. That portrayal earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. Her 1998 turn opposite George Clooney in the well-received Out of Sight made her the highest-paid Latina actress in Hollywood at the time. The summer afterward she revisited her musical beginnings with the debut pop album On the 6 and its major single "If You Had My Love."
Lopez moved quickly to a second project, the fittingly named J.Lo, released in early 2001. The next year she issued both J to tha L-O!: The Remixes and This Is Me...Then, the latter generating the hit "Jenny from the Block" and reaching number two on the Billboard 200. Although her publicized relationship with Ben Affleck overshadowed her music output, the 2005 album Rebirth—issued shortly after her marriage to singer Marc Anthony—entered the U.S. chart at number two. The Spanish-language Como Ama una Mujer appeared in 2007, climbing to number ten on the Billboard 200 and holding the top spot on the Latin chart for seven straight weeks. Later that October she delivered the more conventional pop set Brave, which peaked at number 12 and supported a tour. Love?, another pop album, arrived in April 2011, shortly after she joined Randy Jackson and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler as a judge on American Idol.
Love? marked Lopez's strongest commercial performance in some time, aided by her American Idol visibility. She remained on the show for two seasons. News of her 2012 exit coincided with the announcement of her divorce from Marc Anthony. Her inaugural compilation, Dance Again...The Hits, surfaced in July 2012 and debuted at number 20 on the Billboard album chart.
Lopez rejoined American Idol for its 13th season in January 2014. During that run she previewed her next album with the March single "I Luh Ya Papi," which reached number 77 on the Hot 100 and number seven on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart. After the season concluded she released her eighth album, A.K.A., her debut for the Capitol label. In 2015 she supplied a voice for the animated film Home and contributed the single "Feel the Light" to its soundtrack. January 2016 saw the launch of an extended concert residency at the AXIS at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, the same month she began portraying NYPD detective Harlee Santos on the NBC series Shades of Blue.
Several months afterward she returned to Epic Records following a six-year absence by issuing the single "Ain't Your Mama," which she also performed live on the finale of American Idol's 15th season. July 2017 brought the single "Ni Tú Ni Yo," co-written and executive-produced by ex-husband Marc Anthony. "Amor, Amor, Amor," featuring Wisin, arrived that November, followed in May 2018 by the bilingual track "Dinero," featuring DJ Khaled and Cardi B. Shades of Blue concluded its run that August. Later in the year she contributed "Limitless" to the soundtrack of the romantic comedy Second Act, which she co-produced and starred in.
In 2019 Lopez took the role of strip-club dancer Ramona in the independent crime-comedy Hustlers, earning best-supporting actress nominations at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Independent Spirit Awards. Alongside Shakira, she co-headlined the Halftime Show at Super Bowl LIV in 2020, an experience later documented in the 2022 film Jennifer Lopez: Halftime. That September she issued two songs with Colombian singer Maluma, "Pa' Ti" and "Lonely," both later featured on the soundtrack to her 2021 romantic-comedy Marry Me, for which she also released the solo single "On My Way." Later that year she collaborated with rising Puerto Rican artist Rauw Alejandro on the single "Cambia el Paso."
Following the January 2023 release of Shotgun Wedding and the May 2023 release of The Mother, Lopez relaunched her recording career through the expansive project This Is Me…Now. Conceived as a sequel to 2002's This Is Me…Then, the album drew inspiration from her reunion with Ben Affleck, whom she married in 2022—nearly 18 years after their initial engagement ended. Accompanied by a feature-length film and led by the single "Can't Get Enough," This Is Me…Now appeared in February 2024.
