SINGER UNITED STATESShe really broke the mold in Tejano music with everything from the music she sang to the way she dressed . . . Selena had a huge talent and sang like an angel. But she also worked tirelessly . . .
—CHRIS PEREZ, SELENA’S GUITARIST AND HUSBAND
Selena spun and danced across the stage, her feet and hips moving to the beat. It was a sound check, and her sister, Suzette, was tapping on the drums while her brother, A. B., tuned his guitar. Selena danced by and caught the eye of their new guitarist, Chris. He gave her a grin that said, “I have a secret.” Selena grinned back, her heart pounding so hard she was sure the band could hear it.
Did they know? Could they tell?
Selena and Chris were in love.
Her father would be furious if he knew! He was a Jehovah’s Witness and didn’t approve of his teenage daughter dating. Selena and Chris had to hide their feelings even though they were together practically 24/7. It was driving her crazy.
As she danced, Selena hummed nonsense words to herself, “Bidi bidi bom bom . . .” It was the sound of her pounding heart.
Chris’s guitar chimed in, playing a riff to go with her silly lyrics. She let out a laugh and sang it again.
“Bidi bidi bom bom…”
Next, her sister added a drumbeat. Then her brother called to Chris, “What key are you in?”
“B flat,” he answered. The band jammed, and Selena danced and sang more silly words. She couldn’t remember the last time she was so happy.
That night, during the concert, between songs, A. B. shouted to Selena, “Hey, let’s play that song you were doing in sound check.”1 Selena’s face lit up.
As the band did their best to remember the improvised melody, Selena turned to Chris and her words poured out. She sang about a girl so in love that each time she sees her man, her legs tremble and her heart goes crazy, pounding with excitement. “Bidi bidi bom bom” echoed through the stadium.
Selena’s ad-libbed lyrics shocked Chris. He knew how she felt about him, but she sure wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it! A stadium full of fans—plus her entire family—was listening.
The applause at the end was deafening. They loved it!
Selena could tell she’d written another hit song—maybe her biggest hit yet.
And she was right. Years later, when she finally recorded “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” it became one of her most beloved and lasting hits. But she wasn’t able to hide her pounding heart for that long. Just a few months after first playing the song together, she and Chris eloped.
Selena was practically born singing back in 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas. Her Mexican American parents recognized and nurtured her talent from her earliest years. Abraham, her father, worked at a chemical company to support his family, but at night, he played guitar while his tiny daughter sang along. He could tell immediately that Selena had a gift: “Her timing, her pitch were perfect; I could see it from day one.”2
Tejano music is bouncy and upbeat, and unique to Texas. It was created over 100 years ago in the Rio Grande region, along the border between Texas and Mexico. The unique sound reflects the people of the region: a mix of traditional Mexican folk music, polka, jazz, and country and western.4
When Selena was seven, her father started a family band: Selena was the lead singer, her brother, A. B., played guitar, and her sister, Suzette, played drums. He taught them Tejano music, which was popular in their area. Tejano songs are sung in Spanish, but Selena didn’t speak it—she had to learn the lyrics phonetically. It wasn’t until later, in her twenties, that she finally learned to speak Spanish and could understand what she was singing!
Selena’s parents opened a restaurant where the band performed every weekend. Soon, they also began playing at weddings and parties. But when the price of oil dropped and oil workers in the area lost their jobs, the family had to close the restaurant and move to Corpus Christi, Texas. Without the restaurant income, the band was the only thing supporting the family. Selena said, “We were literally doing it to put food on the table.”3
Selena had other passions besides singing. She was also a natural athlete, but what she really loved was fashion. She loved to draw clothing designs and dreamed that one day she would design clothing professionally.
The band got a new name, Selena y Los Dinos (“Selena and the Guys”), and played any paying gig they could get: dance halls, weddings, skating rinks. Selena’s father bought a beat-up bus they called “Big Bertha” to tour in. The name change may have caused them some difficulty, though, as only men perform Tejano music traditionally. Selena and her band were often turned down for gigs because their lead singer was a girl. For years, the family barely scraped by.
When Selena was nine, Selena y Los Dinos recorded their first album, which got played on local Spanish radio stations. Slowly, she and the band landed more gigs, gained fans, and became more successful. At last, in 1986, fifteen-year-old Selena’s hard work started paying off. At the Tejano Music Awards, she won Best Female Vocalist and Performer of the Year. Selena had become Tejano’s biggest star.
Although Selena was an excellent student, she and the band were on the road so much that she had to quit school in eighth grade. Later, she did complete high school through a correspondence course.
But Selena wanted the rest of the world to hear her music as well, not just Tejano fans. When she was eighteen, she and the band signed a contract with record company EMI. They also signed a new guitar player, Chris Perez. Working closely together onstage and in rehearsals, Chris and Selena fell in love. But Selena’s father wouldn’t let her date, especially someone in the band—he didn’t want his daughter to ruin her squeaky-clean image. The couple hid their feelings for as long as they could, but in 1992, they snuck off to a Corpus Christi courthouse and got married. They didn’t tell their families until it was done.
Selena won the Tejano Music Award for Female Vocalist of the Year a stunning nine years in a row! From 1989 until her death in 1995.7
Just as Selena’s love life was taking off, so was her career. Between 1989 and 1995, she recorded six albums, each more successful than the last. Her 1990 album Ven Conmigo (Come With Me) went gold, making her the first female Tejano artist to have a gold record.5 In 1992, she did it again with Entre a Mi Mundo (Enter My World), which also went gold. Her 1993 album, Live!, won a Grammy for Best Mexican American Album (the first Tejano album to do so).6 Amor Prohibido (Forbidden Love), released in 1994, was the first Tejano album to hit number one on Billboard’s “Top Latin Albums” chart, a position it held for ninety-eight weeks (a record that still stands) and became one of the bestselling Latin albums in the United States.8 While touring for that album, Selena broke attendance records at arenas in Houston and Miami.
Selena had many causes she cared about. She visited schools and encouraged kids to get an education and to stay away from drugs. Additionally, she helped raise money for people with HIV. “She was a very loving person,” said her father. “She was concerned about so many issues in the Hispanic community, education, drugs, AIDS. She was just so busy.”12
The girl from small-town Texas jumped from Tejano icon to all-around music superstar in just a few years. Fans loved the energy and excitement Selena created onstage. They loved her style. The president of EMI said, “Selena is the closest artist I’ve got to Madonna. I love artists who know where they want to go and how to get there. She’s definitely a pop star.”9
Selena explored other passions as well. She designed her own clothing line and opened two boutiques, called Selena Etc., in Corpus Christi and San Antonio. Selena had an eye for fashion and her business boomed, earning her more than five million dollars. Selena was ranked as one of the twenty wealthiest Hispanic musicians in 1993 and 1994.10
If you want to learn more about Selena and her life, check out the 1997 movie Selena, starring another famous Latina singer—Jennifer Lopez!
We’ll never know how high Selena might have climbed. On March 31, 1995, an employee she suspected of embezzling money from her company shot her to death. Fans were stunned. “It’s a real tragedy. We’ve lost a heroine,”11 said the publisher of Teleguia magazine. Sixty thousand mourners came to her funeral, many traveling from out of the country. Two weeks after the singer’s death, Texas governor George W. Bush declared her birthday, April 16, Selena Day in the state.
Although Selena’s life was cut short, her contributions live on. She has sold more than sixty million albums worldwide, and her impact on music and fashion has made her one of the most famous and beloved Mexican American performers of all time.
HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?
I will rock the world by becoming a singer. I hope to one day write and sing songs that will touch people’s hearts, just like the people who have inspired me to follow this dream of mine.
NATALIA BECERRA 
AGE 10