Martika is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 and actress. As a singer she released two internationally successful albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, selling over four million copies worldwide.
Martika entered mainstream show business in an uncredited role as one of the orphan girls in the 1982 motion picture Annie

Annie (film)

Annie is a 1982 American musical film directed by John Huston and choreographed by Arlene Phillips. The film is an adaption of the 1977 stage musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the 1924 Little Orphan Annie comic strip by Harold Gray. The movie features music by Charles Strouse,...

. This led to her being cast as Gloria on the long-running kids show Kids Incorporated

Kids Incorporated

Kids Incorporated, is an American children's television program that was produced from 1984 to 1993. It was largely a youth-oriented program with musical performances as an integral part of each and every storyline....

 as one of a group of neighborhood kids who rise to local fame by singing staged productions at a corner malt shop.