![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Mariah-.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tIn December 1988, Carey attended a holiday party at Media Sound in New York with singer Brenda K. Starr. She brought with her two demo tapes featuring seven original tracks.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tIn December 1988, Carey attended a holiday party at Media Sound in New York with singer Brenda K. Starr. She brought with her two demo tapes featuring seven original tracks.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Photo by Wax Poetics<\/a><\/p>\n If you\u2019re a Mariah Carey superfan and looking for an early holiday present, this might be the chance of a lifetime. As the Queen of Christmas defrosts<\/a> for the season, the mystery around a long-rumored demo tape<\/a> from her early days has finally been cracked, and in true Florida fashion, it has Miami ties.<\/p>\n Back in December 1988, Carey attended a holiday party at Media Sound in New York with singer Brenda K. Starr. She brought with her two demo tapes featuring seven original tracks written with collaborator Ben Margulies. One tape famously ended up in the hands of Tommy Mottola, then head of Columbia Records, who signed Carey soon after. The other? That one went to legendary Miami-based producer Arthur Baker<\/a>.<\/p>\n After the party, Baker, Carey, and Starr headed to Baker\u2019s Shakedown Sound studio, where he gave the demo a listen. \u201cThe first three songs are all hits,\u201d Baker recalls in a video shared on Wax Poetic\u2019s Instagram. \u201cI\u2019m like, holy shit. I thought, she writes like Madonna. She sounds like Whitney. I\u2019ve discovered gold.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhen news happens, Miami New Times is there \u2014 \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWe\u2019re aiming to raise $30,000 by December 31, so we can continue covering what matters most to you. If\u00a0Miami New Times\u00a0matters to you, please take action and contribute today, so when news happens, our reporters can be there.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Baker tucked the tape away, until recently. Wax Poetics shared the news that Baker had partnered with the platform to auction the unearthed demo on December 2. The tape includes seven tracks that would go on to form the DNA of Carey\u2019s self-titled 1990 debut album, a record that would produce four #1 singles and launch one of the most iconic careers in pop music history.<\/p>\n In an April 1992 interview with Young & Modern, Carey recalled the hustle behind those early songs:<\/p>\n \u201cI would waitress until one in the morning, work in the studio until seven or eight, sleep a few hours, and do it again. I was really determined\u2026 And I prayed every day.\u201d<\/p>\n The rediscovered demo features the following tracks:<\/p>\n \u201cHere We Go Around Again\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll in Your Mind\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlone in Love\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHypnotized\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSomeday\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cVanishing\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cVision of Love\u201d<\/p>\n Ben Margulies and Chris Toland helped shape the tape\u2019s sound. \u201cThe songs were primitive in demo form, but all the elements are there, the hooks, the vocals, the chords,\u201d Toland said.<\/p>\n So, how can you get your hands on this piece of pop music history? Head to the online auction hosted by Wax Poetics. Bidding starts December 2. And if you are in Miami and want to hear more stories from the man himself, you can catch Arthur Baker at the Miami Book Fair<\/a> this weekend, where he will be presenting his new book titled Looking for the Perfect Beat: Remixing and Reshaping Hip-Hop, Rock and Rhythms. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In December 1988, Carey attended a holiday party at Media Sound in New York with singer Brenda K.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[323,225,227,226,17878,33374],"class_list":{"0":"post-53108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-hialeah","10":"tag-hialeah-headlines","11":"tag-hialeah-news","12":"tag-history-nostalgia","13":"tag-pop-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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