Jenni Rivera: La Divina

The undisputed queen of banda music.

WORDS Alejo Sierra
PHOTOGRAPHY Andrew Takeuchi

She has been called “La Diva de las Bandas.” Her songs have become rallying cries for strong independent women everywhere. Her last hit “Se las voy a dar a otro,” raised her profile and became an anthem for a nation of Latinas with its suggestive lyrics informing a boyfriend that he’s about to lose the best things she can give him. Now, Jenni Rivera can ponder her next album, an English language hip-hop R&B cross-over album, while her recently released Homenaje a las Grandes (Fonovisa Records) consolidates her status as a superstar artist.

Nicknamed by many “La Malandrina” del Corrido and “La Querida Socia” as result of two of the most successful songs she has recorded, Jenni Rivera was the reluctant artist among the famed Rivera family, a musical dynasty which includes her brothers Lupillo, Gustavo and Juan. Under the tutelage of their father, Don Pedro Rivera, Jenni and her brothers were raised in Long Beach surrounded by the sounds of and love for Mexican music.

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As the founder of Cintas Acuario, the small, mom-and-pop record label which first pushed narcocorrido legend Chalino Sanchez into the limelight, Pedro Rivera invited Jenni to join the business after she’d already graduated from college with a degree in business and established a successful real estate practice. Watching the musicians come and go in her father’s Long Beach studio—musicians such as Graciela Beltran, Rogelio Martinez, Los Razos and, of course, her brothers—woke something up in her heart, she says.

With tunes previously recorded by artists such as Alejandra Guzman, “Reina de las Rancheras” Lola Beltran and Marisela, Jenni Rivera’s newest album leads with a song recorded several years ago by Gloria Trevi, the controversial Mexican pop star who was recently extradited from Brazil for alleged corruption of minors. The album includes a song by Diana Ross and the Supremes as well. The song choices reflect Ms. Rivera’s willingness to take chances and skirt the edge in a career that has taken her from single motherhood to the pinnacle of musical success.

Consider the song, “La Chacalosa,” the “jackal woman,” which revolves around a blustery, hardened woman who can live lavishly and party with the best of them while never diminishing her ability to play by the laws of the streets. Similarly, “Las Malandrinas” speaks of the tough women who come from the wrong side of town and make no apologies for the way they are.

In real life, Jenni Rivera is a young mother deeply committed to her family and her life as a music professional. Making Coronado, California her home, she often contributes personal time and money for causes such as Padres Contra el Cancer or the earthquake victims and flood victims in Latin American countries.

Later this week, she says, she will appear on the Big Boy Show, a popular L.A. morning drive time program on the rap and R&B fueled Power 106 FM. Her appearance there is a testament to the changing face of Los Angeles, a city where the native-born children of Mexican immigrants tune in to both hip-hop and the strident sounds of banda, norteño and mariachi.

While Latin pop continues to gain audiences in the mainstream, thanks to the likes of Shakira, Enrique Iglesias and the ubiquitous J-Lo, the fact remains that the biggest selling genre in Latin music is a category known as Mexican Regional music, a loose umbrella encompassing the various sub-genres and fusions of the four dominant styles: banda, norteño, sonidero and mariachi. It is Jenni Rivera’s generation that takes the music even further, mixing in elements of R&B and hip-hop with the music they heard as children or even adapting classic East L.A. lowrider oldies for Spanish speaking listeners and thereby giving birth to a new American sound in the process.

Open Your Eyes caught up with the young vocalist by phone from her home. Amiable and sincere, Jenni Rivera is articulate and witty. Offering to send CDs personally by mail, she demonstrates a savvy familiarity with media and makes an effort to establish a comfort level with reporters. Fluent in Spanish and English, her unmistakable voice is imbued with a generosity apparent in her soft features, a face highlighted by full lips, a broad smile and dark, almond shaped eyes that glow with energy and confidence. It is this confidence that she hopes to leave behind as her example for young Mexican American women in particular and Latinas in general. The way she puts it, she’d like for them to know that, “If Jenni Rivera can do it, then anybody can.”

Where are your parents from?
My dad is from Jalisco and my mother’s from Sonora.

How did your parents meet?
What’s really, really cool and ironic is my mother was 15 and my father was 16. He left Jalisco, literally on a bicycle. His father wasn’t around because he was a ‘militar,’ so he’d spend two weeks with the family and then he’d be gone for the rest of the year.

My father eventually made it to Sonora and he started selling lottery tickets at a restaurant in Hermosillo where they were having a ‘concurso de aficionados,’ a singing contest. My mom was singing. He fell in love with her and her voice.

But you were born here?
I was the first one born in the U.S… I grew up on the West Side of Long Beach.

I understand you didn’t start out to be a singer.
I never wanted to become a singer. My dad would take me to singing lessons when I was little, but I loved school. I got good grades because I thought education was important. Time passed and I graduated from high school. Then I went to college and majored in business management. I became a real estate agent, and pretty successful, working part-time. Then the label grew and my dad asked my brother and me if we would come and help out, so I would basically do everything, from answering the phones to handling sales and legal issues.

So how did the whole singing thing happen?
I was with my girls one day and we went out to a club. We were kind of tipsy so we bet on which one of us would go up onstage and sing.

So you did it on a dare?
By then the studio was already there. My father had been asking me to record for a while, so I did just that. I prepared a whole album and turned it into him on DAT (Digital Audio Tape). After that we would release one CD a year.

So then the radio stations got involved?
Yeah, in 1999. One of those CDs, Reina de las Reinas started getting airplay on la K-Buena. On La Ley, which is now La Raza 97.9, they started playing “Las Maladrinas.” The CD started selling, then the clubs started calling to ask if I would perform.

Jenni Rivera “en vivo y a todo color?”
When you start getting feedback from the fans, the love, the unconditional love, there’s nothing else like it.

So can you give a little on your plans for the English record?
I’m about to produce my first hip-hop CD. I want to do an R&B artist thing, sort of like what Eve and Queen Latifah are doing, but as a real Mexicana-Chicana. Because we really don’t have anyone. I mean we have J-Lo, but she’s Puerto Rican.

Has it been hard being the only woman in a style of music dominated by men?
At first it was pretty difficult. I didn’t get a lot of respect because I was the only female artist to stand out. If they wouldn’t program my music, I would go to the program directors at the radio stations and say, “I’m my own priority.” I think they just got tired of me coming by so, they would eventually program my material.

Things may look pretty rosy for Rivera now, but she’s just getting warmed up. A producer named Betty Kaplan has spoken to her about the possibility of bringing her story to film. Elijah Wald, author of an acclaimed book on narcocorridos, included her in the survey of the music he brings to life for an English-speaking readership. Her soon to be released line of women’s cosmetics will be called “Divina,” she says. Her men’s cologne will be called “Don Juan.” Life for the businesswoman turned artist is, at the moment, good.