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It’s all we were listening to back then: SWV, Mary J. Hernandez: There is nothing more “American” than R&B and rock ‘n’ roll! So it made perfect sense for Selena to segue into pop and R&B. So for a long time, I believed she was an English-to-Spanish crossover artist - not the other way around! Reyes-Velarde: My mom, who immigrated from Mexico in 1995, recalls Selena as very much an American artist who learned Spanish to capture a lucrative audience. “Selena: The Series” turns the focus to the men behind her - creating a self-serving, controlled narrative that fails to illuminate the late singer herself.
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And Netflix’s new series fails to give her a voice Review: Selena isn’t here to tell her story. To me that group includes Americanized, or acculturated first and second-generation children of immigrants - the people most identified as her core audience today. Twenty-five years later, “Dreaming of You” sounds like an entry point of traditional Latin or Mexican music genres for people who might otherwise never have given this music a chance. Hernandez: I know this album is referred to as the crossover, but listening to it again makes me ask: “crossover” for who? Selena still leaned on mariachi and cumbia sounds, so in a sense, this “crossover album” is really for the legions of English-speaking American listeners who were poised to become her next wave of biggest fans. And she finally got the leeway to make the kind of music she wanted to with “Dreaming of You.” Do you feel like her personality came through more when she sang in English? Despite being in a Tejano band, Selena modeled herself after R&B stars like Jody Watley, Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson. struggled with living in the liminal space between American and Mexican cultures.
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“After so many tributes in TV and film,” says Reyes-Velarde, “I wondered from a young age: Why were we still talking about Selena?”Įxposito: In both the 1997 movie and the 2020 show, we see how much Selena - like many Latinos born and/or raised in the U.S.
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Reyes-Velarde, born three weeks after Selena’s death, knew the singer best from Jennifer Lopez’s portrayal in the 1997 biopic, “Selena.” Upon hearing of Selena’s death in 1995, staff writer Daniel Hernandez mourned with classmates in his San Diego high school, while music reporter Suzy Exposito, then 5 years old, began learning Selena’s songs from the radio.
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Fidel Martinez, audience engagement editor, once saw Selena perform a free concert in Reynosa, Tamaulipas in 1993. In light of the new series, four Latinx contributors at The Times revisited the album, as well as their own memories of Selena. Its positive reception, heightened by the tragedy of Selena’s death, became a testament to Latin music’s market viability in the United States, paving the way for Ricky Martin and Shakira to stake their claim in American pop. It was the first majority Spanish-language album to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 it would also become the best-selling album in Latin music for the next two decades. Titled “Dreaming of You,” the album would become Selena’s last it was released on July 18, 1995, almost four months after she was shot dead by her fan club president, Yolanda Saldívar.Īn inspired mix of original pop and R&B songs, posthumously interspersed with Los Dinos’ most popular Tejano and cumbia tracks, the album’s release was nothing short of historic. It was after their performance at the 1989 Tejano Music Awards that José Behar, founder of EMI Latin, approached her band with a record deal - which her father-turned-manager, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., accepted on the condition that they would produce an English-language album. Selena, played by Christian Serratos, is shown learning Spanish from cassette tapes to woo the Mexican music industry. This month, Netflix launched season one of “Selena: The Series,” a scripted drama based on the life of the young Mexican American singer.Įxecutive produced by members of the Quintanilla family, the show follows the career of Corpus Christi-born Selena and the family band, Los Dinos, as they search for a deeper sense of belonging between American and Mexican cultures. More than 25 years since her tragic death, the mythos of Tejana pop superstar Selena Quintanilla-Pérez remains as compelling as ever. “My mom would say, ‘On March 31, 1995, I was chatting with friends in my hometown when a radio announcer somberly broke the news of Selena’s murder’.” “Growing up, I’d hear the same story every March, as if it were a holiday,” says Times Metro reporter Alejandra Reyes-Velarde.