Jenni Rivera died at age 43


There are excellent artists, and then there are game-changers. Jenni Rivera, who passed away at age 43 in a aircraft accident outside of Monterrey, South america beginning Weekend beginning morning, was that unusual reproduce of specialist who will be kept in mind not only for her achievements, but for all the guidelines she re-wrote.

As the proven king of banda songs, her expert achievements within a male-dominated category run strong – among her many achievements, La Queen de la Banda marketed some 1.2 thousand collections in the U. s. Declares alone and marketed out sides like the Basics Middle in Los Angeles, something no other women local Spanish specialist had done before. But create no mistake: nothing was ever passed to this lady.


Jenni Rivera was created in Lengthy Seaside, Florida on September 2, 1969, one of six friends. The little lady of bartender-turned-music mogul Pedrolati Rivera, who released his own history brand, Cintas Acuario, later to generate the songs of narcocorrido tale Chalino Sanchez, among others, and release the profession of his own son Lupillo, Jenni was a directly An outstanding student in secondary university. When she got expecting with her first kid as a sophomore, instead of losing out, she gained her GED at a extension university later - as the category valedictorian, no less - before going on to generate a higher education company level in 1991.

"Usually, when a litttle lady is expecting, she falls out of university and specializes in being a mom," Rivera, who increased up in a gang-ridden barrio in Lengthy Seaside, Calif., informed reporter and writer Gustavo Arellano in 2003 for an fantastic content named "How Jenni Rivera Modified Spanish Lifestyle Permanently," in the OC Every week. "I believed that's what I had to do, but my therapists informed me there was no way they would let me fall out. I had too much guarantee."


After high school, Rivera started selling real estate (her company, Divina Realty, is still a part of her multi-million business empire to this day). Soon, Pedro would ask her to help in the family-run business by writing legal contracts. But in 1994, a birthday present to her dad in the form of a corrido recording would change everything. One recording turned into several, and soon, local radio stations in Southern California were playing her music and people were paying to see her perform live.

"Though she was first taken as a novelty act, her snarling stage performance soon had men and women whooping for more," wrote Arellano in his article. "Rivera dressed like a Sergio Leone villainess imagined by Snoop Dogg. She varied her voice according to music type, dropping it a couple of octaves when backed by the accordion strains of conjunto norteƱo or shouting her freedom when backed by the thunderous brass of banda."

From the get-go, there was nothing traditional about Rivera's lyrics or her performance style. The self-penned "La Chacalosa" (The Jackal Woman), released in 1995, is the story of a drug trafficker's daughter who brags about the quality of "the merchandise" she hustles.

In these early recordings, Rivera manifested herself as neither La Malinche (the whore) nor La Virgen de Guadalupe (the virgin) – the two main cultural archetypes for Mexican women. She was just Jenni. And although male artists had been singing corridos since the early 1900s, no woman had ever been as fearless in her lyrics and delivery. The very reasons she was disliked by some, were the same ones that conquered the hearts of her fans, a new generation of people who moved comfortably between the two worlds – Mexican and American.

"Jenni had a plan and she was going to get it," says Arellano, reflecting on Rivera's legacy after her passing. "Everything she said she was going to do, she did it - which is amazing. She said, 'I'm going to have a line of jeans for women like me,' and she did it. My mother's generation viewed her as arrogant, but it's not arrogant when you actually go out and get it. Rivera's life was cut short, but it was a full life."