SELENA
Long before the likes of J-Lo and Shakira appeared on the scene, a young Texas-born mexicana single-handedly familiarised US audiences with Mexican music and brought pride to the US’ Mexican population. By 1995, at the time of her untimely death at the age of 24, Selena Quintanilla had become the world’s first crossover Central American superstar, breaking down racial barriers and uniting audiences with her winning combination of rancheras, cumbias, soul and pop and her unique relationship with fans. Her single, "Como la Flor", became one of her most popular signature songs and , with her album Live! (1993), she was the first Tejana artist to win a Grammy. In 1994, she released Amor Prohibido, which became one of the best-selling Latin albums in the United States.
At the height of her popularity, Selena was shot dead on March 31, 1995, by Yolanda Saldívar, Selena’s friend and manager of her fan club. In the months leading up to the murder, Saldívar had been accused by Selena’s father of mismanagement, after he discovered she had embezzled more than $30,000 via forged checks. He banned Saldívar from having any contact with Selena, but Selena did not want to dissolve their friendship. On the day of the murder, Selena met with Saldívar in her motel room at the Days Inn in Corpus Christi.Saldívar shot her. Critically wounded, Selena ran towards the lobby and collapsed on the floor as the clerk called the emergency services, with Saldívar chasing after her.
News of Selena’s death generated complete hysteria. Fans lined up for almost a 1 mile to see her casket. Rumours that the casket was empty began circulating, prompting the Quintanilla family to have an open-casket viewing, allowing 40,000 fans to pass by, with 78,000 signing a book of condolence. They say the reaction at the time was akin to the death of one of the Beatles and Elvis. What was it that made her such an icon? It is easy to forget just how many people took comfort from someone who looked and sounded - she sung in English and Spanish - just like them.
Two weeks later, Texas Governor George W. Bush declared Selena's birthday Selena Day in Texas. Her posthumous crossover album, Dreaming of You (1995), debuted at the top the Billboard 200, making Selena the first Latin artist to accomplish this. Selena has sold around 30 million records worldwide, making her the best-selling artist in Latin music, bigger than Marc Anthony. America called her the "Tejano Madonna." Perhaps Madonna was the American Selena. In 1997, Warner Bros. released the movie ‘Selena’ which starred Jennifer Lopez as Selena, a role that gave birth to the next Latina superstar, J-Lo.
J-Lo
This ultimate Latin Diva needs no intro. J-Lo is simply the biggest Latina star on the planet. Never mind Latin Diva, we’re talking Mega-Uber Global Diva. Born on July 24, 1970, in New York's Bronx to Puerto Rican parents, Jennifer never wanted an ordinary life. Although her mother, a kindergarten teacher, and her father, a computer specialist, wanted her to study, Jennifer was having none of it. She wanted to sing, to dance, to act and most of all, she wanted to be beyond famous. At 17, she landed a place at Manhattan's Dance Studio, dividing her time between the Studio and high school but it wasn’t until 1997 that, having landed the part playing Selena in the Tejana star’s bio-pic, that Lopez began to hit the big time.
"When I was doing Selena, I thought, 'God, I really miss singing and dancing and sharing that with the public," she recalls. More realistically, Lopez clearly got a taste for the kind of stardom that Selena had coveted. That was what she really wanted. She wanted to surpass Selena, not be her.
As divas hungry for fame do, 'Jenny from the block' managed to engineer a meeting with Tommy Mottola, the president of Sony Records. Impressed by her demo, he signed her up, and in 1998 she started work on her debut album, On The 6, which unashamedly piggy-backed on the explosion of R&B. It went platinum in the States within months of hitting the stores. Her relationship with Sean Combs, aka P Diddy didn’t hurt, of course, along with her appearance in a stunning green Versace dress at the Grammys and a small scandal in a night club involving a ‘shooting’ (ooh dangerous) on the front pages. But by the time that was well and truly an A-list celeb, this diva had moved on, now with her new name J-Lo.
The rest is history, starring roles in Hollywood blockbusters, Grammy winning albums, lots of high-profile affairs with Hollywood stars that kept her in the news. Raunchy “Bennifer" (Jennifer and Ben Affleck) called it quits in January, 2004. And she was soon linked to Marc Anthony, the biggest Latin Artist of all time. The two suddenly tied the knot in June, 2004, just four days after Marc's divorce from former Miss Universe. How very Latino.
But it was J-Lo’s undeniably phenomenal show, at the age of 50, at the Super Bowl Half-Time show, which cemented her status as greatest Latin Diva of all time. Because, whatever you think of J-Lo's singing talents, nobody could deny the spellbinding acrobatics, the singing spectacle and the plain sexiness of a woman who, in another life, might be sitting on a sofa like the rest of us.
CELIA CRUZ
From the ultimate to the original Latin diva, our ‘Reina de la Salsa’ was born in 1920’s Havana. An avid performer of santería and traditional yoruba songs, Celia spent her youth winning musical competitions and was lead singer for La Sonora Matancera, Cuba’s most popular band ever, when Fidel Castro assumed power in 1959. In the early 60s, the whole band left to tour in Mexico and never returned. From there Celia arrived in the US, but it wasn’t until 1973 when Fania records, began aggressively marketing the sound that became known as ‘salsa’ that her career.
Part of the famous trip that took the Fania All Stars to Zaire in 1974 to perform in the Kinshasha stadium, from then on Celia was the undisputed “Queen of Salsa” until her death in 2003, outliving salsa’s popularity peak in the late 70s, to continue her success in the 80s. That decade not only witnessed Cruz reuniting with La Sonora Matancera for an album, it also found her making an entry in The Guinness Book Of World Records for a free outdoor concert in Tenerife – at that time the biggest event of its kind, attracting 250,000 people. Recalling the concert, she said: “An event like that goes to show the importance of exporting the music of my tiny homeland throughout the world.”
‘La Vida es un carnaval’ is one of Cruz's most popular songs, from her 1998 album "Mi vida es cantar" (1998). This song won the award for "Tropical Song of the Year" at the 2003 Lo Nuestro Awards .
GLORIA ESTEFAN
There was once a little Cuban girl who was dragged from house to house by her mum in Miami watching the signs: ‘no children, no pets, no Cubans.’ ”Miami was the deep South, don’t forget, a difficult place for non-white Americans. The fear of the Cuban invasion was just beginning,” Gloria Estefan told LatinoLife.
Gloria Estefan epitomises the American Dream: from revolution, exile, immigration and hardship to becoming the world’s first ever mainstream Latina pop star and one half of Latin Music’s most famous couple.
“We had nothing when we came to Miami,” Gloria continues. “The Cubans ripped up my mum’s degree when she left so she couldn’t get a decent job and my father was still in prison in Cuba.” Gloria’s father joined them when she was 6, but not long after, went to fight in Vietnam. When he returned, he contracted Multiple Sclerosis, which was later proved to be caused by exposure to Agent Orange, a poisonous chemical used by the US Army in Vietnam. While her mother worked, Gloria took care of her father throughout her teens, until he died 14 years later, when Gloria was 23.
Fast forward to 1984 when, signed to Columbia, Miami Sound Machine got their first dance hit "Dr. Beat” followed by "Conga", which became a worldwide hit. Their 1987 album ‘Let It Loose’, featuring ‘Rhythm Is Gonna Get You’, went multi-platinum, with three million copies sold in the US alone. But with the worldwide success of the ballads such as "Anything for You,” the appeal of Gloria as lead singer was becoming increasingly clear. Emilio decided to make his wife a superstar. And so she did, becoming the world’s first crossover Latina mega artist. The story didn’t end there. In the next decades, the Estefans would go on to discover and produce the major Latin crossover artists of the next 10 years, including Ricky Martin, Shakira, with Gloria writing many of their songs. Indeed Shakira would not exist, if it were not for the Estefans.
LA INDIA
Though lesser known to the mainstream, in our humble opinion, La India one of the greatest Latina singers in the world. This Nuyorican burst onto the scene in the 90s. Formerly part of the NY house music "Freestyle" movement, she got bitten by the salsa bug (don't we all!) and recorded some of the most memorable classics of modern salsa. Unique in her ability to sing Salsa songs in English and make them sound as good as in Spanish (check out her version of 'Turn off the Lights’), she is a true emblem of the unique voice of Nuyorican culture. She could pull it all of simply because her voice is unmatched, making her without a doubt, one of the most successful Latina singers ever.
Her duet with Marc Anthony 'Vivir Lo Nuestro' (one of the best Salsa hits of all time) pretty much launched the career of the then skinny Puerto Rican with a bad haircut. Marc was to become the biggest Latin artist of the 90s and Salsa’s mega-super star, but in this song, India is definitely the boss, virtually eating him alive in their classic live performance.
Marc Anthony and La India knew each other from the New York House Freestyle scene. India’s husband, legendary House producer Little Louie Vega (and nephew of Salsa’s most famous icon Hector Lavoe) was also Marc’s producer. A love version of the song was part of the seminal album La Combinacion Perfecta that made both artists international superstars. When they released Vivir Lo Nuestro in 1994 Marc looked like a geek prematurely released from the science lab, let alone worthy of singing alongside the diosa that is La India...but the astounding vocals of both is very forgiving.
