Jenni always loved to sing what she lived, or what her fans lived. Her songs were often stories, describing things that happened in real life. If it hadn’t happened to her, it had happened to somebody else. And if Jenni didn’t really feel the truth in the lyrics, she wouldn’t sing it. That was a part of her incredibly strong connection with her fans. She thought—correctly—that a large part of her success was due to her honesty, her integrity as a person both on- and offstage, and the fact that she never forgot the person she had once been, and she never lost touch with the people who made her who she was: her fans.
“For those of us who make our livings singing, we must never forget where we came from,” Jenni said in an interview with Radio Notas in 2002. “Humility is something we should always have through our whole life. […] Being Jenni Rivera the recording artist doesn’t mean I’m better than anyone else, it’s just that God gave me this gift, this opportunity to record, and for people to listen to me. There are a lot of people who think they’re a big deal, they treat their fans badly and they don’t understand that the fans are how we make a living, the fans bought my car, the fans put gas in my car, the fans put clothes on my back, the fans feed me, and there are a lot of artists who just don’t see that.”
Jenni didn’t write all of her songs, usually just one or two of the songs on any one album were her compositions. The rest came from songwriters, big and small, who were able to channel Jenni’s experiences into words and music that reflected the singer’s most heartfelt emotions. All of Jenni’s albums are personal, and all tell stories that deeply touched her. But two in particular are very closely associated with la Diva de la Banda’s life: Parrandera, rebelde y atrevida (2005) and Mi vida loca (2007).
Off of Parrandera, rebelde y atrevida the single “De contrabando” was released, written by Joan Sebastian, a great friend of Jenni’s. In June 2006, the song claimed the number one spot on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart in Billboard, becoming Jenni’s first and only number one song. It stayed at number one for a week, and was on the chart for a total of thirty-three weeks. The album Parrandera, rebelde y atrevida debuted at number two on the Regional Mexican Albums chart, and at number ten on the list of Top Latin Albums. It was the highest-ranking debut for an album Jenni had ever had, and it stayed on the charts for fifty-nine weeks—over a year.
“I liked ‘De contrabando’ a lot because it talks about the other woman, she knows she shouldn’t be with that man, but she likes it,” Jenni told me on Estudio Billboard. “And that’s contraband love [amor de contrabando].”
But that wasn’t the only song that sold the album. The title track, Parrandera, rebelde y atrevida, was like an irresistible invitation to listen. The lyrics of the song evoked another of Jenni’s big hits, “Las Malandrinas,” saying I’m a party girl, rebellious and in your face, I’m a ranchera girl, that’s in my heart, bitter champagne is for stuck-up old ladies, I want my Tecate with salt and lemon.
Incredibly, all these years after “Las Malandrinas,” and even after a hit song with a similar theme was released in the general market—Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman”—Jenni was still the only Latina artist who sang honestly and frankly, telling it like it is, talking about what it was like to be a regular girl from the barrio. This wasn’t a song sung by a diva or a pop star. It was just the story of a woman who liked to go out and party. The fans loved it.
“Some people think it’s wrong, but singing that you like to go out with your girlfriends and have a few drinks are things that everyone does, but we’re afraid to sing about it,” Jenni told me on Estudio Billboard in 2010. “And I said, no. I know what I’m doing. I know what my fans are like, my girls. They like to hear songs about real life. And when I’m recording it I go, ‘we’re going to see what happens.’ But when the record started to sell, and when they were requesting the song on the radio, and when I’m on stage and they ask for the songs I wrote, I think ‘no, that wasn’t bad at all.’”
In spite of the partying spirit around it, and in spite of its major success, Parrandera, rebelde y atrevida also held a dark note of premonition, captured in the song “Cuando muere una dama” [when a lady dies]. Jenni had tackled the subject of death at various times over the course of career. Years earlier, she had recorded “Que me entierren con la banda” with her brother Lupillo, but that song, in which the singer asks to be buried with the band, was written by Melo Diaz and popularized long before Jenni sang it. In contrast, “Cuando muere una dama” was written by Jenni herself, after she had a very close call with death.
On May 16, 2005, Jenni suffered a car accident which did not result in any serious injuries, but which could have been deadly. Jenni was driving near her home in Corona when she fell asleep behind the wheel and was hit by another car. Luckily, it was a side impact, not a head-on collision; otherwise, Jenni could have died.
“The loss of the car isn’t so important, that’s just material,” her sister Rosie Rivera said at the time on an interview on Bang Bang radio. “But to think that my sister could have died, that terrifies me. I’m so thankful to our Lord, because it’s a real miracle.”
The incident gave Jenni such a scare that she spoke publicly about how the accident had prompted her to reflect on life and the possibility of death.
“The accident made me think about how I’d like to be sent off (when I have to go), if that had really happened,” she said, also on Bang Bang Radio. “The inspiration came to me spontaneously, and it’s been a big help because it’s a way for me to express my feelings and the fear I felt afterwards. I’m very grateful to God, for allowing me to continue on in this world, with my loved ones around me. Maybe my mother’s prayers reached me, and now I can appreciate the opportunity that life is giving me.”
Listening to “Cuando muere una dama” now, after Jenni has actually died, is as sad as it is revealing. In the song, Jenni clearly explains how she would like to be celebrated, and remembered. Many things she expresses in the lyrics—the peace of arriving at “another show” up in heaven, how she would look and how she wanted to be remembered, even including instructions for her funeral service (specifying she wanted butterflies released, and asking her sister to “read my letter”), underscores just how closely Jenni was tied to her songs, since she sang this in 2005 and it’s basically what was done in 2012 after her death.
“Cuando muere una dama” was the last song on Parrandera, rebelde y atrevida and was never a single that got much radio play. But just as with all of Jenni’s songs, her fans knew it very well and asked for it at shows. Looking back to 2005 and 2006, Jenni Rivera was at her zenith, and was definitely the most famous woman performing in regional Mexican music. Her album climbed to the number one position on the Billboard Top Regional Mexican Albums chart—a feat only made possible by many thousands and thousands of fans buying the record.
Jenni not only performed every weekend—Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and sometimes even on Thursdays—and worked at a frenetic pace during the week, she was also starting to fill venues usually reserved for major pop stars. In 2006, for example, she sold out the prestigious Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles (where her memorial service would be held after her death), making her the first regional Mexican artist to accomplish this.
It seemed that around 2006 and 2007, Jenni’s fame had reached its peak. But it hadn’t. Not yet. As a celebrity, she was just starting to spread her wings. What this warrior butterfly managed to achieve in the last five years of her life was nothing short of extraordinary.