by Jenni Rivera
Every time I spoke to Juan he’d ask, “Are we getting back together? Are we going to work this out?” My answer was always no. The holidays came and it was hard to be alone with the kids and without a partner. My baby girl, Jenicka, was so little, and I started to feel guilty. Maybe I should give him another chance? I always wanted to make my relationships work, and if people sincerely apologize for their mistakes, I eventually forgive. Friends and family have often told me that this is my greatest strength, but also my greatest weakness.
In February of 1999 Juan and I got back together. He moved back into the house on Valentine’s Day of that year. I told myself that if we could get through this, we could get through anything.
10
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Where Are My Malandrinas At?
Nos dicen las malandrinas
porque hacemos mucho ruido
porque tomamos cerveza
y nos gusta el mejor vino.
(They call us the bad girls
Because we make a lot of noise
Because we drink beer
And we like the best wine.)
—from “Las Malandrinas”
In 1998 I recorded my Reina de Reinas (Queen of Queens) corrido album and my Si Quieres Verme Llorar (If You Want to See Me Cry) album at the same time. Both albums were completed during the tribulation and heartache of having found out Juan was cheating on me. In this terrible, painful period, in many ways recording these albums was strengthening. I can admit to myself that my vocals on these two productions were not the best. My voice had not yet developed to its fullest potential. However, that I could even manage to record during those difficult times was like training for me. I had always finished what I began, and these projects were not going to be exceptions. This is where I learned to get things done in my career despite what I might be going through in my personal life. Little did I know that I was going to be needing this experience and strength in many other circumstances in the years to come.
In 1999, my father licensed both albums to Sony Discos, the regional Mexican division of Sony Records. They were both released that year. I was excited that my music would be distributed under a bigger label. Especially after Balboa Records did not invest in promoting my album La Maestra when I recorded it for them. It was a new beginning, I thought. It felt good to know that Ruben Espinoza, José Rosario, and other executives at the label actually believed in me, at least a little. Ruben wanted us to focus on the corrido album, since no other female at the time was recording corridos. It was the best way to break in, according to him and my father. José Rosario, however, thought differently. He said that I could become a great “balada and bolero artist.” Whatever the outcome, it didn’t matter much to me. What mattered was that someone, anyone, was willing to listen to and promote my music.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. The label had become saturated with many new artists, including several of my brothers, Las Voces del Rancho, and many of the singers my dad was producing. I started to realize that it wasn’t going to be beneficial for me to remain with Sony. They had many priorities, and sadly, I wasn’t one of them. They simply didn’t have the time for me. It was comforting to know that at least it was my brothers and my father’s artists who had priority over me. I’d much rather it be them getting the attention and the promotional budget than artists who had nothing to do with our family and our record label.
At that time I recorded the CD entitled Que Me Entierren con la Banda, my first full banda (Mexican brass-band music) CD in a few years. On this album I included a corrido I had written entitled “Las Malandrinas.” I believed in the album and especially that song, but I was worried that it wouldn’t get the backing it deserved at Sony.
Around that time I met a girl who worked at Fonovisa Records. Somehow she made it to the studio when I was recording the album at Pacific Coast Recording in Long Beach. We became friends, and after she listened to a few of the songs I had included on the album, she said I should approach Fonovisa with it. I spoke to my dad about it, and he was adamant that I stay with Sony. He said they could do a better job and they supported me. I disagreed.
“Daddy, please take it to Fonovisa instead,” I pleaded with him. “I believe in this album. There are a lot of good songs on it. It would make me very sad if it fell through the cracks at Sony due to lack of interest. Please, Dad. If nothing happens at Fonovisa, I would want it to be my mistake, not yours.”
My mind was made up. My father knew me well enough to understand that I wasn’t going to budge. He called Fonovisa and tried to get an appointment with Gilberto Moreno, then president of the label. By the time he was able to see us, I had already delivered a master copy of my “Las Malandrinas” track to various stations in Southern and Central California. I didn’t have a promoter or a label to cover the expenses and knock on doors for me, so my husband drove us. I directed him to whatever stations I remembered from my first self-promotional tour in 1996 when I was delivering master copies of “La Chacalosa,” which the stations never played.
Before heading out on the 5 freeway toward the 99 to Central California, we stopped by La Ley 97.9 FM. Guillermo Prince, the programmer at the station, said he liked the corrido and promised that I would hear it on the air before I got to the Grapevine (a windy section of the 5 freeway). To this day, his words and his kindness have remained dear to my heart. Though much of the music industry can be dirty and ugly, there will always be good-hearted people like Guillermo Prince, Pepe Garza, and others who will give you a chance and offer you their support.
Juan and I continued on my self-promotional tour for a few days. When I came back to LA, my father and I visited Mr. Moreno at Fonovisa. I was excited. This was the label that had made Carmen Jara big during the nineties. All the big-timers were at this label, including Los Tigres del Norte, Banda el Recodo, Conjunto Primavera, and Los Temerarious, among others. Maybe this would be my big chance, I thought. Without Mr. Moreno’s even listening to my music, we were told that my father wouldn’t get any money for its production. He wouldn’t even get reimbursed for the costs he had already incurred. But we were welcome to drop off the album if we wanted. No money, no promise for promotion, no nothing.
Damn. I felt terrible. They were basically telling us that my father’s production effort was not worth a dime. I was more devastated for my father than for me. I wasn’t just another of his artists, I was his queen, the girl he had believed in since she was a child. I could only imagine what it felt like to hear, in front of his daughter, that what was a masterpiece production to him was a piece of shit to someone else.
After talking it through for a long time, we decided to proceed with Fonovisa. We signed a contract with the label, promising to license three productions to them, including the one with “Las Malandrinas” on it. We were reminded that my dad wouldn’t be reimbursed for production costs and there were to be no marketing plans for any of my CDs. Basically all they would do was distribute it. Hopefully, I thought, they would sell at least a few CDs due to the radio airplay I had got on my own. Wherever “Las Malandrinas” was played, it was well received, which gave me a bit of self-satisfaction because it was the result of my hard work, my lyrics, my ideas, and my very own promotion. It became an underground hit in Southern California and several other areas.
I had become content with being the underdog. I enjoyed proving my disbelievers wrong. I wondered if what I was going through was normal. Every time I took a step forward, I felt as if I were knocked back. Was it this rocky for everyone? Male and female artists alike? I didn’t know. I just knew that nothing came easy for me.
In 2001 my brother Lupe had his huge hit song, “Dedicatoria,” which went to number one on the Billboard charts for both Top Latin Albums and Regional/Mexican Albums. At the time I was starting to become nationally known, but I wasn’t selling out huge venues, and the little radio airplay I was getting started to disappear. A lot of people thought that I would benefit from my brother’s having the number one
hit on the radio, but it was quite the opposite. As soon as Lupe became really big, it became even harder for me. They stopped playing “Las Malandrinas” because they didn’t want to play both my song and my brother’s. When I would visit or call the stations, they would tell me, “This isn’t the Rivera station.” A lot of people swore that it was Lupe’s fault, but I knew it wasn’t. He had no control. It makes sense. You don’t want to put on a radio station and hear all the Jackson 5.
I kept reminding myself that one of my idols, Chalino Sánchez, never got played on the radio before he died, but while he was living, we all knew he was the best we had. It comforted me to know that my songs became underground hits, but it was frustrating that none of the stations would play me. I would get pissed off and angry at the whole music industry. I would say, “Fuck them then, I can do it on my own. One day they will ask for me.” However, I couldn’t deny that getting airplay is huge, especially in LA.
Around this time the popular LA DJ Pepe Garza decided that because they wouldn’t give regional Mexican music a specific category at the big award shows, he would create his own show. In 2001 he started the Premios Que Buena (later to be renamed Premios de la Radio). It was the first award show created by a regional-Mexican radio station. Lupillo was was set to perform the night of the awards ceremony, so I said to Pepe, “Let me sing my song too. Give me a chance.”
Pepe listened to “Las Malandrinas” and said, “Look, it definitely has potential, but I can’t have you sing the song because you are not known yet. What if I let you hand out an award?” I agreed to be a presenter and figured out a way to use the moment to my advantage.
That night when I got up to the podium, I called out, “Where are all my malandrinas at?” The girls went crazy and started singing my song back to me. Obviously, I knew what I was doing. I was showing Pepe that just because I wasn’t a hit on LA radio, it didn’t mean I wasn’t known. I had to show him, not tell him. After that he started playing “Las Malandrinas” on Que Buena 105.5, one of the biggest Spanish-language stations in LA.
The first time I heard my song on the radio I was driving some clients to see a house in Compton. We were listening to Que Buena, and when my voice came through the speakers, I went crazy. “That’s me!” I told them. “I’m on the radio!” They must have thought I was insane, but I didn’t care. I was screaming so loudly and so happily. That’s when it started. I started to get airplay outside of LA too, and that was huge for me. That said, it wasn’t as if I were an overnight sensation after that. I was still clawing my way up.
Because my popularity began to grow, slowly but surely, I was able to devote myself to my singing career full-time and drop my jobs as a real estate agent and a part-time employee at Cintas Acuario Music and Cintas Acuario Publishing. As I began to get more gigs on the weekends, we decided that Juan would quit his job at Fairchild Fasteners to accompany me on the road. I finally felt better knowing that he was no longer among the women at work. It was embarrassing to me that they knew I had given him another chance. Plus, since I didn’t trust him, I was always nagging him and that would cause continuous problems between us.
Despite Juan’s infidelity, I must say that he was always a firm believer in my talent. He knew that I would someday be someone important in my musical genre and in the Latin community. Because I loved him and because he was so supportive, I put the cheating behind us and moved on with him by my side. I wanted the people in the industry to know that he was my husband. He served as my business manager and did all of my bookings. He also shielded me from some of the dirty aspects of the industry. I learned a lot of valuable lessons when I worked at the record label with my dad, and one of them was that sleeping your way to the top is not a myth. It happens. But it wasn’t going to happen that way for me. I wanted it to be known that I was a married woman who was successful based on her talent. I never hid that I was married, and I would respect my husband to the fullest among people and artists in the industry.
Just when “Las Malandrinas” was starting to get a lot of airplay on La Ley 97.9 and Que Buena 105.5, I became pregnant with my fifth child, my second child with Juan. I was quite selfish at the time and was devastated. My music was finally being heard throughout California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, and in other states. Everyone told me that having a baby would ruin my career and all that I had fought for in the past five years.
“I’m not ready to have this child now,” I told Juan.
“I agree.”
“I want to have an abortion.”
“Fine.”
That was the extent of our conversation, and then I made my appointment. But then the strangest thing happened. When I went to the clinic to have the procedure, I took the urine test confirming that I was pregnant, and then when the doctor was to suction the baby out, the fetus was nowhere to be found. The doctor said if the baby was not in my uterus, he was in my fallopian tubes, which is dangerous and possibly fatal. They took me to the hospital to monitor me. I had to lie in the hospital bed and wait to see if the fetus would come back into the uterus so they could do the procedure. I had to stay in bed because if anything burst inside me, it could kill me. I was there for a few days and still the baby was nowhere to be found. I told the doctor and nurses that I had to get out of there because I had performances in Indio that weekend. They tried to convince me not to go, but I wouldn’t hear a word of it. They told me I was leaving at my own risk, and I had to sign papers to release myself so they wouldn’t be held responsible. They instructed me to go to the nearest emergency room if anything happened.
I performed that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Monday I came back to LA and went to the hospital to get checked again. And there the baby was, right where he was supposed to be. It was the weirdest phenomenon. I had never been one to even think about having an abortion, but this time I had, and now look at what had happened. I started to feel guilty about my decision not to have him. My baby wanted to live. I changed my mind right then and there. My little fighter would be born after all.
I continued to perform throughout the pregnancy, and the fans became so excited for me. The baby brought la torta (good omen). The pregnancy turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. I love all my children, but this little boy brought so much happiness to my life.
Johnny Angel López was born on February 11, 2001. The following day, February 12, Que Buena started playing “Querida Socia.” Many other stations followed its example, and in weeks I had a second hit on the radio. The original singer of the song, Diana Reyes, was getting major airplay on stations in Mexico. Her label was rumored to be bringing her on a promotional tour with her version of “Querida Socia.” Their plan was to take the territory that I had conquered with my version.
For that reason, Fonovisa contacted me and told me to get ready for my first promo tour with the label. I doubt that they cared much about the success of the song; it mattered more to them that a competing record label would even attempt to conquer their territory. Regardless, this was how the label started to promote me, and this was the song that brought me national and international attention.
11
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Lupillo Rivera’s Sister
Pienso que es preferible sufrir a solas
Mi cruel tormento.
(I think it’s better to suffer on my own
My cruel torment.)
—from “Sufriendo a Solas”
In 2001 I went to Miami to promote my new album. I was still unknown in that market, so all of the announcers insisted on introducing me as “Jenni Rivera, Lupillo Rivera’s sister.” It started to get under my skin. I was proud of my brother, of course, but I was also determined that one day they would introduce me as just “Jenni Rivera.”
I was most excited to go on Don Francisco’s Sábado Gigante on Univision, one of my favorite shows. In June 2001, when I first sat down with him, Don Francisco showed a welcoming video of my parents, brothers, sister, and kids. Whe
n the part about my kids came on, I began to cry. I knew I was being seen all over the world and that my mascara was probably going to start dripping down my face, so I tried to hold it back. But I couldn’t hide my emotions. All my life I’ve worked so hard to give my five babies everything I never had, and that was a wonderful moment of realization for me. I was making good on my promise. I was making my kids proud. One day they would be able to look back and say, “My mother gave everything she had to give us a better life.” There has never been anything more important to me than that.
I wiped away my tears as Don Francisco and I started the interview. One of the first questions he asked was “Who is older, Lupillo or you?” I had loved him before, but now I loved him so much more.
“I am two years older than Lupillo,” I told him. “I am thirty-two, but I look twenty-two.”
He started to laugh, and the audience laughed with him. We had chemistry right off the bat, and still do to this day. As an interviewer he makes you feel safe, and I talked to him about times in my life that I had never revealed to anyone else. I briefly told him about the rape that had occurred in 1997 (that was the only time I ever publically discussed what happened that night). I told him of how I used to work at the swap meets or collect scrap metal for change, and how I was now working as a secretary at my parents’ record label.