Many were taken back when they played Kendrick Lamar’s surprise album GNX and the first voice they heard is a woman singing in Spanish: “I felt your presence here last night, and we started to cry.”
Well, that voice belongs to 49-year-old mariachi singer Deyra Barrera from Tucson, Arizona. Barrera became good friends with Mexican baseball player Fernando Valenzuela over the years after meeting at Tepeyac Café in L.A., according to Rolling Stone. So when the Dodger great died in October just as the L.A. ball club was set to meet the Yankees in the World Series, the mariachi singer was tapped to sing in honor of her dear friend before Game 1. Lamar happened to be in attendance, and the rest is history.
She’s featured on three songs on her latest album “GNX.”
She began recording just a few days later.
“This is (a) huge, huge thing happening in my life. My whole life dreaming to do many things with the music, with Mexico with the ranchera music…”
Barrera is from Sonora, Mexico, not far from where Fernando Valenzuela’s hometown. For just over 30 years, she’s been singing her favorite music in Southern California and around the country.
She said working with Kendrick Lamar, and fusing the two genres of mariachi and rap, just simply works.
“I think everyone is talking good things about that collaboration and I’m very happy for that,” Barrera said.
Her family home in the San Gabriel Valley is decorated with portraits of some of Mexico’s greatest mariachi singers.
As she sings a ballad in the living room, she says she’s hoping this will come of her work with the rap superstar.
“I hope many doors open for my career and doing more things that I’ve been dreaming of for many years.”
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