Jenni Rivera by Leila Cobo

Author:Leila Cobo [Cobo, Leila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780698136205
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-04-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

13

Singing to Life…and to Death

Jenni always loved to sing what she lived, or what her fans lived. Her songs were often stories, describing things that happened in real life. If it hadn’t happened to her, it had happened to somebody else. And if Jenni didn’t really feel the truth in the lyrics, she wouldn’t sing it. That was a part of her incredibly strong connection with her fans. She thought—correctly—that a large part of her success was due to her honesty, her integrity as a person both on- and offstage, and the fact that she never forgot the person she had once been, and she never lost touch with the people who made her who she was: her fans.

“For those of us who make our livings singing, we must never forget where we came from,” Jenni said in an interview with Radio Notas in 2002. “Humility is something we should always have through our whole life. […] Being Jenni Rivera the recording artist doesn’t mean I’m better than anyone else, it’s just that God gave me this gift, this opportunity to record, and for people to listen to me. There are a lot of people who think they’re a big deal, they treat their fans badly and they don’t understand that the fans are how we make a living, the fans bought my car, the fans put gas in my car, the fans put clothes on my back, the fans feed me, and there are a lot of artists who just don’t see that.”

Jenni didn’t write all of her songs, usually just one or two of the songs on any one album were her compositions. The rest came from songwriters, big and small, who were able to channel Jenni’s experiences into words and music that reflected the singer’s most heartfelt emotions. All of Jenni’s albums are personal, and all tell stories that deeply touched her. But two in particular are very closely associated with la Diva de la Banda’s life: Parrandera, rebelde y atrevida (2005) and Mi vida loca (2007).

Off of Parrandera, rebelde y atrevida the single “De contrabando” was released, written by Joan Sebastian, a great friend of Jenni’s. In June 2006, the song claimed the number one spot on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart in Billboard, becoming Jenni’s first and only number one song. It stayed at number one for a week, and was on the chart for a total of thirty-three weeks. The album Parrandera, rebelde y atrevida debuted at number two on the Regional Mexican Albums chart, and at number ten on the list of Top Latin Albums. It was the highest-ranking debut for an album Jenni had ever had, and it stayed on the charts for fifty-nine weeks—over a year.

“I liked ‘De contrabando’ a lot because it talks about the other woman, she knows she shouldn’t be with that man, but she likes it,” Jenni told me on Estudio Billboard. “And that’s contraband love [amor de contrabando].”

But that wasn’t the only song that sold the album.

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