Mariachi is an ensemble of musicians that typically play ranchera, the regional Mexican music dating back to at least the 18th century, evolving over time in the countryside of various regions of western Mexico. The usual mariachi group today consists of as many as eight violins, two trumpets and at least one guitar, including a high-pitched vihuela and an acoustic bass guitar called a guitarrón, and all players taking turns singing lead and doing backup vocals.
Jennifer Marcella Peña is a Grammy Awards and Latin Grammy Awards nominated Mexican American Tejano/Latin pop singer known as "The Princess of Tejano". Peña reached a milestone in her career of over 3.5 million records sold internationally. Peña was born in San Antonio, Texas, and is the third and youngest daughter of Jaime and Mary Peña with other sisters Janet and Jackie. Peña is of Mexican descent native to the state of Texas.
María Guadalupe Araujo Yong, known professionally as Ana Gabriel, is a Mexican singer and songwriter. With over 40 million records sold worldwide, Gabriel is the best-selling Mexican female artist, and one of the best-selling Latin music artists of all time. Dubbed as the "Diva de América" and the "Luna de América", during her long career, she has performed different genres of music.
Intocable is an American band from Zapata, Texas that plays regional Mexican music; specializing in norteño and tejano music. It was started by friends Ricardo Javier Muñoz and René Orlando Martínez in the early 1990s. In a few years, Intocable fused the genres Tejano and Norteño with a musical signature that fused Tejano's robust conjunto and Norteño folk rhythms with a pop balladry. Intocable is perhaps the most influential group in Tejano and their Tejano/Norteño fusion has become the blueprint for several Tejano bands. The group's style combines romantic, hooky melodies, tight instrumentation and vocal harmony.
Regional Mexican music refers collectively to the regional subgenres of the country music of Mexico and its derivatives from the Southwestern United States. Each subgenre is representative of a certain region and its popularity also varies by regions. Subgenres include banda, country en Español, Duranguense, grupero, mariachi, New Mexico music, Norteño, Sierreño, Tejano, and Tierra Caliente. It is among the most popular radio formats targeting Mexican Americans in the United States.
Mexican pop is a music genre produced in Mexico, particularly intended for teenagers and young adults.
Dolores Janney "Jenni" Rivera was an American singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and producer known for her work within the regional Mexican music genre, specifically in the styles of banda, mariachi and norteño. In life and death, several media outlets including CNN, Billboard, Fox News, and The New York Times have labeled her the most important female figure and top-selling female artist in regional Mexican music. Billboard magazine named her the "top Latin artist of 2013", and the "best selling Latin artist of 2013".
Mariachi los Camperos de Nati Cano is a Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles–based mariachi ensemble which was formerly led by Natividad "Nati" Cano.
Stanford Dale Freese is an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, and talent booking director best known for his work with The Walt Disney Company.
Ruben Ramos, also known as El Gato Negro, is an American Tejano music performer. Beginning his music career in the late 1960s, Ruben's fame as has grown throughout the years as he formed his own distinct sound of music. In March 1998, Ruben was inducted into the Tejano Music Awards Hall of Fame and later won Best Male Vocalist in 1999. His band, The Mexican Revolution, also won album of the year in 2008.
La Gran Señora is the tenth major label studio album by regional Mexican singer Jenni Rivera, released on December 1, 2009, by Fonovisa Records. It has sold 112,000 copies in the United States as of November 2011. It was named the best-selling Regional Mexican Album of 2010 by Billboard.
The Grammy Award for Best Música Mexicana Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for releasing albums in the regional Mexican or Tejano genres. Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".
The Grammy Award for Best Banda or Norteño Album was an award presented at the 2012 Grammy Awards, but was discontinued after that.
Elida Reyna, also known as Elida, is a Mexican American Tejano music singer.
Audi Castillon Portales, known by her stage name Audi Y Zentimiento, is an American singer-songwriter. Starting in the early 2000s, Castillon was nominated for Tejano Music Awards for Best New Female Artist and Best New Group. She was also nominated for Tejano Globe Awards for Best New Female Artist, Best Online Popularity and Best New Group. She then started her own Record Company Audi Y Audi LLC. She has performed at multiple venues as an artist in, Nebraska, Texas, and Colorado.
Natividad "Nati" Cano was a Mexican-born American mariachi musician and former, longtime leader of Mariachi los Camperos, a Grammy-winning mariachi band based in Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Times, Mariachi los Camperos is "widely considered one of the top mariachi ensembles in the country". In 1990, Cano was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Women have made significant contributions to Latin music, a genre which predates Italian explorer Christopher Columbus' arrival in Latin America in 1492 and the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The earliest musicians were Native Americans, hundreds of ethnic groups across the continent, whose lyrics "reflect conflict, beauty, pain, and loss that mark all human experience." Indigenous communities reserved music for women, who were given equal opportunities with men to teach, perform, sing, and dance. Ethnomusicologists have measured ceramic, animal-bone, and cane flutes from the Inca Empire which indicate a preference for women with a high vocal range. Women had equal social status, were trained, and received the same opportunities in music as men in indigenous communities until the arrival of Columbus in the late 15th century. European settlers brought patriarchal, machismo ideologies to the continent, replacing the idea of equality between men and women. They equated native music with "savagery" and European music with "civilization". Female musicians tended to be darker-skinned as a result of the slave trade, and contemporary society denigrated music as a profession. Latin music became Africanized, with syncopated rhythms and call-and-response; European settlement introduced harmony and the Spanish décima song form.
"Remember Me" is a song from the 2017 animated Disney/ Pixar film Coco, written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. The song is performed variously within the film by Benjamin Bratt, Gael García Bernal, Anthony Gonzalez, and Ana Ofelia Murguía. Miguel and Natalia Lafourcade perform a pop version of the song that is featured in the film's end credits. Carlos Rivera recorded a cover version of the song, titled "Recuérdame" for the film's Spanish-language soundtrack album. It won Best Original Song at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018. The song was performed live by Gael García Bernal and Federico Ramos on guitar.
Hecho en México is the sixteenth studio album by Mexican singer Alejandro Fernández, released on February 14, 2020, through Universal Music México. It was produced by Áureo Baqueiro and features collaborations with fellow regional Mexican artists Christian Nodal and Vicente Fernández. On July 16, 2021, he released a special edition of the album with six more songs including a second collaboration with Nodal and a song with Mexican band Calibre 50.
Lupita Infante Esparza is an American singer-songwriter. She sings traditional mariachi, norteño, and ranchera music. Infante's debut studio album La Serenata (2019) was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Regional Mexican Music Album. In 2020, her song "Dejaré" was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award. Infante advocates for women's empowerment through her music.
