
Selena and the Geto Boys Changed Texas Music at the Same Time
The Geto Boys and Selena set the stage in the early nineties for the transformation of Texas music.
Selena Quintanilla-Perez, a third-generation Texan, was born in Freeport in 1971. The youngest of three children, she began singing at the age of eight. Backed by her father, Abraham, on guitar; her brother, A.B., on bass; and her sister, Suzette, on drums, Selena started her musical career at her father’s Mexican restaurant in Lake Jackson. “Oh my gosh, that girl could sing!” Rena Dearman, who began playing keyboards with the band when Selena was nine, recounted in Texas Monthly‘s 2010 oral history of the pop star. “I used to listen to her and wonder, ‘Okay, where is that coming from?’”
When the Quintanilla family hit hard times, the band—christened Selena y los Dinos—hit the road and played any gigs that Abraham could book. Although none of the kids spoke Spanish, Abraham taught them to play Tejano, the exuberant South Texas dance hall music he had grown up playing, which is often accompanied by Spanish lyrics. “With its vigorous polka beat pepped up by various influences—pop, traditional Mexican, Latin, country, rap, rhythm and blues—it has emerged as the sound of assimilation in Hispanic Texas,” Joe Nick Patoski noted in Texas Monthly in 1994, in the magazine’s first profile of Selena.
After a string of regional hits, Selena y los Dinos began getting major radio play in South Texas with their hit “Dame Un Beso” and a cover version of Ritchie Valens’s “La Bamba.” The band’s popularity quickly grew in Mexico and Central America. Guitarist Chris Perez, who would later marry Selena, joined the group in 1989. Under A.B.’s direction, the band developed a more modern sound that drew from funk and hip hop, and Selena’s music soon reached a wider audience. Her album Live! won a Grammy in 1993 for Best Mexican American Album, and her songs rocketed up the Latin charts. With a crossover album in the works that included several songs in English, she was poised for worldwide fame. Her performance at the Astrodome on February 26, 1995, broke all previous attendance records.
A month later, the president of her fan club, a San Antonio nurse named Yolanda Saldivar, shot and killed Selena at a Days Inn in Corpus Christi. After her murder, “the legend of the talented, beautiful, smart, clean-living vocalist who proved you can assimilate and have your culture too . . . spread from her hometown of Corpus Christi throughout the world,” Patoski wrote in 1995. Street murals of Selena that evoked the image of the Virgin de Guadalupe popped up around the state, and more than 600 baby girls in Texas were named after her in the months after her death. Her crossover album, Dreaming of You, was released posthumously and debuted at number one on Billboard’s album chart, making it the second fastest-selling release by a female vocalist in the history of pop music.
“Selena has been canonized, sanctified, and resurrected,” Pamela Colloff wrote in her 2010 oral history about Selena. “There has been a glossy Hollywood biopic, a touring musical, and talk of featuring her on a postage stamp. In South Texas and beyond, she has been elevated from popular singer to something more ethereal: cult hero, martyr, patron saint. Thousands of her fans still travel each year to Corpus Christi, where her family’s recording studio—as well as her home, former boutique, grave, and memorial—has become Texas’s own Graceland.”
The Geto Boys and Selena set the stage in the early nineties for the transformation of Texas music.
Cat Cardenas’s 2021 essay made a poignant case about the mistakes Selena never got to make—and how they would have deepened our love for her.
In an upcoming record, the singer’s voice will be digitally aged. The Quintanilla family continues to misunderstand why Selena’s fans adored her.
Ahead of its April rerelease, members of the 1997 biopic's cast and crew recall a set overcome with emotion as loved ones grappled with Selena's tragic death.
Though uneven and at times lacking in self-awareness, Abraham Quintanilla’s book sheds light on the extreme approach he took to protect his daughter’s legacy.
Part two of Netflix's Selena series delivers a more confident version of the Tejano icon than part one, but fails to portray the late singer as the nuanced person she was.
This month, WhiteClaw Hard Seltzer wants to celebrate Selena and her legacy with the ultimate dance playlist.
As her fiftieth birthday approaches, the writers we’ve gathered to celebrate her are part of a generation of Latinos who came of age after her heyday.
If we’re going to honor the real Selena—and find a way to carry her with us—we need to imagine what she might have done if she had lived a full life.
Her ensembles, influenced by pop stars such as Janet Jackson, highlighted the sartorial choices of Texas’s Mexican American working-class communities.
How do we love the Queen of Tejano? Let us count the ways.
In the years since her death, the Queen of Tejano has become a gay icon, especially in Texas.
Four Latina musicians chat about code-switching, role models, Freddy Fender, and the importance of growling.
In the 25 years since her death, the singer’s memory has been flattened and commodified. Selena—and her fans—deserve more.
The initial installment of the two-part television show details the first 20 years of Selena’s life—yet it feels like we’ve hardly gotten to know the person the series is about.
Ahead of tomorrow’s nail-biter, we present a grab bag featuring a Big Bend documentary, Beyoncé clips, the Houston Zoo’s baby animal playlist, and more.
Plus, how ‘Dallas’ brought down the Soviet Union, Netflix’s ‘Selena’ gets a real trailer, and Luke Wilson plays a fire-belching robot duck.
Plus, Kacey Musgraves meets Scooby Doo, Borat meets Sid Miller, and Austin meets ‘Walker, Texas Ranger.’
“White people, this is your daily reminder that if you stay silent, you are part of the problem,” Lizzo said.
The true crime podcast tackles a murder that continues to confound fans around the world.
Nathian Shae Rodriguez's class examines how the Tejano star influenced Latinx representation.
The Corpus Christi DJ, producer, and nu cumbia pioneer El Dusty talks about the music that shaped his trajectory.
Photographer John Dyer’s iconic photos of the fallen singer are being shown for the first time.
The rapper heads to a Houston megachurch, Netflix introduces its new Selena, and This Week in Matthew McConaughey.
The best-selling Texan author takes on the silver screen in his latest book.
Featuring Selena, a Golden Girls gospel remix, and more.
MFAH curators added an emphasis on diversity and Lone Star celebrities to the special exhibit, ’Icons of Style,’ since its LA debut.
Yes, we’re taking this week’s overblown Twitter fight way too seriously.
Launched on the anniversary of the 'Selena' biopic, the Forever 21 collection features versions of the singer's staples.
The Queen of Cumbia’s birthday may become an annual day of recognition in the state of Texas.
The hottest singer in country music paid tribute to her Texas roots with a cover of "Como La Flor."
A newcomer to the state is looking for a cinematic introduction to his adopted home.
Plus, rap from San Antonio, essays from Houston, and landscape photography from across the state.
And that’s a good thing.
In our current moment of Selenamania, Stripes and H-E-B have nothing on the dedication from crafty fans.
Bidi bidi bom bom, indeed.
The one in Hollywood, not the Louis Tussauds in San Antonio, so adjust your travel plans accordingly.
If you don’t know it, can’t remember it, or won’t sing it, what good is it?
Valentine’s Day is almost here, and we've found the perfect opportunity to end things with a little bom bom.
Readers respond to the September 2015 issue.
Twenty years after her death, who gets to love Selena (and how)?
Even academics know what there is to learn from La Reina de Tex-Mex.
On March 31, 1995, South Texas came to a standstill as the shocking news spread that the hugely popular Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla Perez had been shot and killed in Corpus Christi. Fifteen years later, the people who knew Selena best recall the life and devastating death of a star
When Selena Quintanilla Perez was killed on March 31, Texas mourned—and around the world, the veneration began.
Era una chica del barrio cuya voz la hizo acreedora de un Grammy, vendió millones de álbumes y la convirtió en una sensación como ninguna otra. Y cuando fue asesinada, el 31 de marzo de 1995, la estrella de la música tejana Selena Quintanilla Pérez pareció llevarse consigo las aspiraciones
This past year marked an important, though largely unnoticed, milestone for fans of Selena Quintanilla Perez, the hugely popular Tejano singer who died at 23 on March 31, 1995: She has now lived in our memories for longer than she performed professionally. She was 9 years old when she started
Five years after Selena's death, tejano music is struggling to be heard.
How did Houston supergroup La Mafia get to be the biggest tejano act in the world? By leaving Texas.
Why Texas’ best-known homeless writer is back on the streets.
ON MAY 29, 1995, TWO MONTHS AFTER THE TRAGIC death of tejano star Selena, a tribute was staged in her honor at Houston’s Astrodome. Although many well-known acts performed that day, including hometown superstars La Mafia and Selena’s former bandmate Pete Astudillo, it was an unknown eleven-year-old dynamo named Jennifer