Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Queen of Tejano (tex-mex) music was born on April 16, 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas. She began singing at the age of six and as a result her father Abraham Quintanilla Jr founded the singing group Selena y Los Dinos when she was only nine yrs old.
Unfortunately, soon after, the family went bankrupt and was evicted from their home. Taking their musical equipment in an old bus, they relocated to Corpus Christie, Texas. They performed wherever they could, including fairs and weddings.
Their efforts soon paid off when in 1985, the fourteen-year-old Selena recorded her first album, Alpha which won her the Female Vocalist of the Year Award at the Hispanic Music Awards, and Performer of the Year at the Tejano Music Awards. This would be the first of an unbroken run of Tejano Awards.
Selena's style developed with the Entre a Mi Mundo album, with the introduction of R&B elements, but it was the tejano-styled follow-up Selena Live which brought her the Best Mexican/American Album Grammy. Amor Prohibido was her most successful album. It spent over a year on the Billboard Latin charts and won six Tejano Music Awards. The album has subsequently sold five million copies in the US alone.
Selena's life was brought to a premature end when she was shot and killed in 1995, by Yolanda Saldívar the president of her fan club. Her death was so widely mourned that two weeks after her death, on April 12, George W. Bush, then Governor of Texas, declared Selena's birthday April 16 as "Selena Day" in Texas.
In 1997 a film of her life was made. The film starred Jennifer Lopez, whose characterization of the looks and mannerisms of the Queen of Tejano was so faithful that helped to launch her career.
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