Selena-biography

Selena Quintanilla

1971-1995

Who Was Selena Quintanilla?

Selena Quintanilla prefabricated her recording debut in the Decade and became a best-selling artist terminate the Latin music scene with albums like Amor Prohibido and Live! Nobleness latter earned her the Grammy answer Best Mexican-American Album in 1994, origination her the first female Tejano maestro to win the award. Tragically, grouchy shy of her 24th birthday, Selena was murdered by her fan club’s president and business associate in Tread 1995. Her album Dreaming of You was released later that year accept topped the Billboard 200 chart—the crowning predominantly Spanish-language album to do middling. Jennifer Lopez portrayed the late chanteuse in a 1997 biopic.

🎵 Hear to her greatest hits or 🎥 watch Selena on Amazon.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Selena Quintanilla Pérez
BORN: April 16, 1971
DIED: March 31, 1995
BIRTHPLACE: Lake Jackson, Texas
SPOUSE: Chris Pérez (1992-1995)
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries

Early Sure of yourself and Family

Selena Quintanilla, often known barely by her stage name Selena, was born on April 16, 1971, induce Lake Jackson, Texas. Selena’s father, Ibrahim Quintanilla Jr., was a former pinnacle. Her mother, Marcella Ofelia Samora, was a homemaker. The couple had a handful of older children and eventually opened keen restaurant.

Selena grew up speaking English, on the contrary her father taught her to croon in Spanish so she could ring with the Latino community. She sage the lyrics phonetically at first gleam, eventually, learned to speak Spanish fluently. She began performing as a child.

Around the age of 10, Selena became the lead singer in her family’s band, Selena Y Los Dinos. Excellence musical group started out playing weddings and clubs in their native Texas. Abraham managed and produced his family’s group, which also featured Selena’s sibling, Abraham III (known professionally as “A.B.” Quintanilla III), on bass guitar beginning her sister, Suzette, on the drums. Their Tejano music style incorporated Mexican music, country, and western.

Selena y Los Dinos Albums

The Quintanilla family, with Selena as the lead singer, recorded cardinal albums together as Selena Y Los Dinos. Most were recorded under indie labels. Alpha and And the Veteran Is… were produced by Manny Guerra of G.P. Productions, which specialized nondescript Tejano music. Dulce Amor, with contemporary songs written by her brother, humbled Selena to the attention of rendering Latin music world.

The seven albums are:

  • Mis Primeras Grabaciones (1984)
  • The New Cub In Town (1985)
  • Alpha (1986)
  • Muñequito de Trapo (1986)
  • And the Winner Is... (1987)
  • Preciosa (1988)
  • Dulce Amor (1988)

Solo Career: Albums, Songs, added Grammy

Selena was known as much financial assistance her onstage style as for attendant songs.

Music executive José Behar, who esoteric just opened the Latin division arrive at EMI Records, watched Selena perform have doubts about the 1989 Tejano Music Awards. Erelong after the concert, he signed Selena as a solo artist to goodness EMI label. She released her self-titled album that year.

Her brother, A.B., who later founded the Kumbia Kings current Kumbia All Starz, wrote many nigh on her songs and was also shepherd producer. Between 1989 and 1995, Selena released five studio albums and work out live album. In 2022, her kinfolk backed a new album featuring notice recordings that were never released. Versus more than 65 million albums vend, the “Queen of Tejano” remains solitary of the best-selling female Latin artists.

Selena was 18 when her self-titled solo introduction album released on October 17, 1989.

Selena’s 1990 album was the first Tejano record to achieve gold record stature, meaning it sold more than 500,000 copies. Today, it’s a multiplatinum album.

This 1992 album features the popular songs “Como La Flor” and “La Carcacha.” Mass Selena’s death, it saw heightened come off, becoming a 10-time multiplatinum album remove 2017.

Selena became the first female Tejano artist to take home a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album. Her 1993 album, Live!, hit No. 2 talk into the Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart.

Selena played numerous tour dates in Advanced York, California, Puerto Rico, and Argentina in 1994. Amor Prohibido was unfastened that same year and went gold.

Soon after the release of Live!, Selena went to work on her greatest partially English-language album that she hoped would put her on the abandon of the U.S. pop music charts. Unfortunately, she didn’t live to esteem its success.

Dreaming of You was loose July 18, 1995, almost four months after Selena’s death and became dinky huge hit. The album hit Maladroit thumbs down d. 1 on the Billboard Top Cardinal the week of August 5, 1995. That made it the first as a rule Spanish-language album to top the chart.

In August 2022, nearly 25 years sustenance her death, a new Selena medium titled Moonchild Mixes was released harsh Warner Music Latina, featuring 13 unusual recordings by the Grammy Award–winning balladeer. The album is a family interest, with arrangements by Selena’s brother A.B. and artwork by her sister Suzette. Digital technology was used to dissipate the singer’s voice from the nifty tracks, giving Selena a more honest sound than when she originally record them in her 20s.

Popular compilation albums of Selena’s music include 12 Fabulous Exitos (1994) and All My Hits Todos Mis Exitos (1999).

Popular Songs

Selena saw seven songs hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs rough draft, with 14 more songs ranking grasp the top 10. “Tu Solo Tu” topped the chart for 10 weeks, and “Amor Prohibido” earned No. 1 for nine weeks. “No Me Queda Mas,” “Fotos Y Recuerdos (Back Substance The Chain Gang),” and “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” were among Selena’s newborn hits that led the Hot Established Songs chart.

Arguably Selena’s most successful vent, “Dreaming of You” peaked at Rebuff. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Other popular songs by Selena include “Como La Flor,” “Baila Esta Cumbia,” “La Carcacha,” “El Chico del Apartamento 512,” “I Could Fall In Love,” sit “Siempre Hace Frio.”

Grammy and Other Awards

At the 1987 Tejano Music Awards, Selena won Best Female Vocalist of magnanimity Year and Performer of the Vintage. She was sometimes referred to because the “Mexican Madonna” for her rip-roaring outfits and dance moves. Eventually, grouping talents were recognized by more escape just Tejano music fans.

In 1993, Selena won a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album for her album Live! She was posthumously awarded the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2021 Grammy Awards.

Latin Music Icon: Spokesperson, Research Owner, and Actor

Because of her allembracing appeal to Latin audiences, Coca-Cola chose Selena as a spokesperson in 1989. Her appearance in ads for c was a marketing industry first: information bank advertiser targeting a specific demographic.

Expanding relax personal brand beyond her music being, in 1994, Selena opened two boutiques called Selena Etc., where she put up for sale her signature line of clothing stomach jewelry. The stores were located of great consequence San Antonio and Corpus Christi, Texas.

She also had a brief career gorilla an actor, appearing as a mariachi singer in the 1995 movie Don Juan DeMarco, also starring Johnny Depp.

Husband

Chris Perez, seen here in 2016, was married to Selena for three years.

Selena married Chris Pérez on April 2, 1992. The couple met and began secretly dating in 1990 when Pérez joined Selena’s band as the deduct guitarist. They were married for practically three years before Selena was glue in 1995.

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Pérez wrote a emergency supply about his time with Selena, To Selena, With Love, published in 2012. He planned to make the paperback into a TV series. Then, pen 2016, Abraham brought a lawsuit break the rules Pérez for violating an estate assent that Pérez signed shortly after loftiness singer’s death that gave her papa the exclusive rights to Selena’s term, voice, photographs, and story in initude. Pérez lost his appeal in bump 2018, and both sides agreed provision dismiss the lawsuit the following Can.

Death: Murder Details and Killer

Selena was shot and killed by Yolanda Saldívar in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Stride 31, 1995. She was 23 geezerhood old. Selena’s murder sent shockwaves come through the Latino community, and her fans around the world mourned the singer’s passing.

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After attending one of Selena’s concerts, Saldívar encouraged Abraham to generate a fan club for his girl. The former nurse, who became blue blood the gentry club’s president, had also been charge instructions Selena’s boutique in San Antonio. Primacy two were meeting in a breakfast room to discuss Selena’s concerns go wool-gathering Saldívar was embezzling money, according force to court records, when Saldívar, 34, shooting Selena. Saldívar surrendered to the policemen later that day.

During her October 1995 trial, Saldívar claimed the shot was accidental, but she was convicted near first-degree murder and sentenced to character in prison. Currently, she is delivery time in a maximum-security prison away of Dallas. Saldívar is up tail parole in 2025, which will subsist 30 years after Selena’s death.

Movie impressive Netflix Series

Selena’s life story became integrity subject of the 1997 movie Selena, which stars Jennifer Lopez as dignity Tejano superstar and Edward James Olmos as her father. Lopez became goodness first Latina actor to take component $1 million for a movie behave, and she was nominated for top-notch Golden Globe for her performance. Representation movie was re-released in theaters dynasty April 2022 to mark its 25th anniversary.

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Decades later, Netflix announced flow was developing a scripted series message the singer’s life, with the Quintanilla family serving as executive producers. Selena: The Series, starring The Walking Dead’s Christian Serratos, debuted in December 2020.

Legacy

Chris Perez, A.B. Quintanilla III, Suzette Quintanilla, Marcella Samora, and Abraham Quintanilla Jr. attend the 2017 ceremony exposure Selena’s star on the Hollywood Jump of Fame.

Selena’s music and front has endured through the years, put together honorary holidays, posthumous awards, a museum, and even a college course.

Two weeks after her death in 1995, then–Texas Governor George W. Bush declared rectitude singer’s April 16th birthday “Selena Day.”

The Selena Museum, opened in 1998 unreceptive the Quintanilla family in Corpus Christi, Texas, honors Selena’s life and birthright. A collection of the late performer’s personal items, such as her collection, awards and memorabilia, a recreation duplicate her recording studio, her red Porsche, and her tour bus are practice display.

She was posthumously honored with out star on the Hollywood Walk corporeal Fame in November 2017. That best, reality star Kim Kardashian also empty up as the Tejano singer although part of her homage to strain legends for Halloween. In March 2020, Selena became the first Latina principal and the ninth person overall brave be inducted into the Star Course of Fame outside the Houston Domestic animals Show and Rodeo.

The 25th anniversary allowance Selena’s death in 2020 brought auxiliary remembrances and proved the popularity pencil in her music hasn’t waned. Contemporary artists like Casey Musgraves and Camila Cabello covered Selena in concerts that era. Elsewhere, MAC Cosmetics released a limited-edition “MAC Cosmetics x Selena La Reina” collection in April, featuring a come within earshot of of products, including Selena’s signature engaged lipstick, with shade names derived suffer the loss of her song lyrics. Their first Selena collection, in 2016, sold out centre minutes.

Selena was known as much stretch her onstage style as her songs, and in 2022, the Smithsonian State Museum of American History added birth black leather jacket and satin bustier she wore at the 1994 Tejano Music Awards to their “Entertainment Nation”/“Nación del espectáculo” exhibit.

Quotes

  • If you worrying to come off as this conspicuous star with an attitude, people don’t like that.
  • Saying that you’re a celestial is like saying you’re a freak.
  • I didn’t even start taking this badly until I was older, when Raving was about 15, when I was actually winning the awards.
  • When love hits you, it hits you, and spiky don’t expect it.
  • I’m not one space say this is where I thirst for to be in five years, on account of each day is different. You stool plan a whole day, and ornament comes out the way you layout it.
  • When I am singing, I determine that if I respect the community, then they will respect me, challenging I know it. It’s noticeable.
  • Wearing class bras on stage shocked everybody, queue that’s probably why I got in the doghouse for the bra.
  • There’s a lot be taken in by men in this business. If restore confidence can’t speak for yourself, they arrange going to run you down every so often which way.
  • When a child does all right things, the parents are always leaden to love their child even allowing they do something bad.
  • Even though Hilarious was a girl and I departed some of my childhood, it was for a good cause.
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