Jenni Rivera, Gone

Count me as among the tens of thousands who didn’t know about Jenni Rivera until she died. My heart-throbs of Mexican music were a generation or so, ago [Flor Silvestre, Lola Beltran.]  But reading about her in a NY Times editorial, after her death in an airplane accident, made me notice.  I’ll be dialing up her tunes on my grooveshark account.

…she was a superstar in the border-straddling world of Mexican regional music, an immigrant’s daughter from a musical dynasty who sold millions of albums, became a TV celebrity and led a personal life straight out of a telenovela. ..

…on May 29, 2010, when tens of thousands of protesters converged on Phoenix to denounce Arizona’s radical new immigration law. Other big musicians stayed away, or just signed the petition. Ms. Rivera showed up. She walked five miles in scorching heat, and ended up dehydrated, with a migraine. When a worried organizer texted her — “are u still marching?” — she replied: “Of course. … I’m a gangster chick.” She went on to play a full concert and gave a speech, spread widely on YouTube, for immigrant rights and justice for the community she sprang from and never left.