'It is great to be seen as somebody who was at the forefront of that little girl movement,' she tells MTV News.
You might think Lady Gaga is a big deal. Maybe Taylor Swift seems about as famous as a person can be, or Beyoncé ranks as high as you could imagine.
All these years later, it's still a bit hard to comprehend how absurdly famous Jennifer Lopez was in 2001, when she became the first woman to ever have a film ("The Wedding Planner") and album (J.Lo) both debut at #1 in the same week.
Now, Lopez has a new movie ("The Back-Up Plan") and album (this summer's Love?) on the way and is still going strong. But she happily looks back on that crazy time and the path she blazed for today's female artists.
"Gosh, I love all the girls out," Lopez said of today's female artists. "[Husband] Marc [Anthony] and I were just talking about this the other day, because obviously we're both into music and we make records and stuff.
"All the way from Taylor Swift to Lady Gaga to Madonna to Britney to Beyoncé and Rihanna and myself — there's just so many people who are on the scene and really doing their thing, and it's nice," she added. "It's nice to see."
Does Lopez see herself as a trailblazer since she was topping the charts long before Gaga and Rihanna came along? "I don't really think of myself that way," Lopez said. "I just always thought of myself as somebody who was out there [trying something unique], and that's what I love about [the music industry]. There's room for all these different kinds of artists."
Although music-buying dollars undoubtedly have fans torn between whether they should drop their bucks on Gaga, Madonna, Taylor Swift or someone else, J.Lo said the ladies are all rooting for one another.
"It's not a competition type of thing," Lopez insisted. "But it is great to be seen as somebody who was at the forefront of that little girl movement.
"[We've seen] such an onslaught of so many different women, girls taking over the music scene, and it's nice," Lopez said of the last decade in music. "There was a time where it was just boy bands and rock-and-roll stars and all that bull. But now is a real girl time."
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