Her Way: How an Obscure Mariachi Singer Went from Quinceañeras, to the World Series, to Kendrick Lamar

Summary

Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: Her Way: How an Obscure Mariachi Singer Went from Quinceañeras, to the World Series, to Kendrick Lamar

Release Date: January 21, 2025
Host: Pablo Torre
Guest: Dara Barrera

Overview

This episode follows the extraordinary journey of Dara Barrera, a Mexican-American mariachi singer who transitioned from performing at quinceañeras and small parties in Los Angeles to singing at the World Series and featuring on Kendrick Lamar’s chart-topping album. Her story, as uncovered by Pablo Torre, weaves together themes of cultural heritage, perseverance, the American immigrant experience, family, sports lore, and the unlikely confluence of mariachi and hip-hop music on the world stage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Dara’s Unexpected Stardom and the Kendrick Lamar Connection

• Dara’s Life Pre-Fame:
  • Sang at weddings, birthdays, funerals, and quinceañeras, “with all my heart because I love my work... I love to sing” (03:00).
  • Reflected on her career’s ups and downs and her unwavering passion for music: “I never give up because this is my passion, to sing. That's what I do.” (02:30).
• The Crazy Impact of GNX:
  • Dara’s life changed dramatically after being featured as the opening voice on Kendrick Lamar’s album “GNX.”
  • “I haven't sleep well since November 22nd. When GNX album came out. It’s been crazy for me... I didn’t imagine this impact.” (01:28)
• Discovery Story:
  • Kendrick first heard Dara when she sang at a World Series tribute for Fernando Valenzuela (04:09).
  • Dara shared, “Thank you, Kendrick. Thank you, God, for this opportunity.” (02:19)

Quinceañera Fame and Newfound Recognition

• Dara recounts going to a quinceañera post-album release:
  • “The young people... were like all over me: ‘Can I take a picture with you? Can you sing the part with Kendrick Lamar?’” (03:30)
  • Noted the surreal blend of everyday life and sudden fame among a new, younger audience.

Mariachi as Emotion and Universal Culture

• Pablo highlights mariachi’s unique ability to express both happiness and sadness simultaneously (05:58).
• Dara: “Mariachi music is our culture from Mexico… la musica del mariachi es universal.” (07:01)
• Dara reflects: “We can play everything” (07:26), underscoring the genre’s versatility at any occasion.

Roots, Family, and the Immigrant Hustle

• Dara learned music from her mother and family:
  • “I started singing with my mom and my sister... My family’s party animal, all weekends… and I was like, 'I want to sing too.'” (08:01)
  • Sang in nightclubs and parties to “pay rent, to pay bills, to eat" after moving to Los Angeles.
• Dara’s perseverance: “Since I was little, dreaming that someday, something big is going to happen to me.” (08:55)

Sports, Fernando Valenzuela, and the Heart of LA

• Fernando as Cultural Icon:
  • Pablo unpacks Valenzuela’s legend: Rookie of the Year & Cy Young winner, World Series champion (11:18).
  • Dara’s family connection: her father played baseball with Fernando’s brothers in Sonora, Mexico.
  • Childhood memory: chasing autographed balls from Valenzuela as a kid (14:10).
• Singing for Legends:
  • Fernando was a restaurant regular at Dara’s gigs, developing a friendship.
  • He specifically requested Dara to sing at his Dodgers jersey retirement, despite “he didn’t like mariachi at all... he liked banda, you know, the big tuba.” (16:53)
  • Emotional performance at Fernando’s memorial, World Series opening: “I got there very emotional, very sad, because it was too fast. I didn’t think that he was gonna pass.” (20:08)
  • “I was singing... looking up to the cabin, and he wasn’t there… My skin were like, chill. Now that he's my angel... I feel sad but we won. Dodger theory. The World Series. Yeah.” (21:01)

Hip-Hop, Culture Clashes, and Unity

• Kendrick vs. Drake — Context:
  • Pablo highlights Dara’s entry into the “epicenter of the most visible cultural feud in North America” which escalated with the Kendrick/Drake rivalry, lawsuits, and media headlines (24:06).
  • Dara: “You know what? I’m not really listen to rap music... I always listen to mariachi Mexican music.” (24:59)
• In the Studio:
  • Dara was reassured in the studio: “No, we don’t want you to rap. We want your voice, your potente voice, your vibrato.” (25:29)
  • She recalls recording GNX’s opening line without knowing the song’s larger context (26:01).

Mariachi’s Demands and Generational Connection

• The Human Jukebox:
  • Dara jokes her friends call her a “jukebox” (28:45); she knows almost every mariachi/song request.
• Personal & Emotional Song Choices:
  • Sings “Guantanamera” (29:10) and “My Way” (30:32), noting that the latter makes her cry, especially when looking at her mother who is living with dementia.
  • Dara: “I just want to do a lot of things before she forgets who am I… before she forgets, who am I.” (32:21)
  • Music as therapy: “She can sing every, every song and she doesn’t forget the lyrics... that’s a very, very good therapy.” (33:07)

Representation, Empowerment, and the Dream

• Women in Mariachi:
  • Dara speaks about pride in representing Mexican women and the challenges faced:
    • “It’s very difficult to be a woman. There’s a lot of machismo... we’re having more opportunities now." (33:19)
    • “I feel very proud to have my Mexican flock... I just want to do the best so they can feel proud of me, too.”
• Super Bowl Aspirations:
  • Pablo: “I want to see you play the Super Bowl, Dara... you and Kendrick.” (34:36)
  • Dara: “Anything can happen. Imagine, first woman, Mexican mariachi at [the Super Bowl]... It’s gonna be historia.” (35:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I love to transmit that happiness or sadness... always looking for an opportunity to do something more big in my career. After this GNX album, it’s happening.”
  — Dara Barrera (02:30)
• “[Mariachi] puede unir cultura together... la musica del mariachi es universal.”
  — Dara Barrera (07:01)
• “He always telling me that he didn’t like mariachi at all... So when they retired his number, I asked him why you don’t bring Banda Recodo... He said, ‘I want you there with your group.’”
  — Dara Barrera (16:53)
• “I feel sad because he’s not here anymore, but I can feel that he’s doing a lot of things for... for us. We won. We won. Dodger theory. The World Series. Yeah.”
  — Dara Barrera (21:01)
• “We want you to do your voice, your potente voice, your vibrato.”
  — Kendrick’s camp, relayed by Dara (25:29)
• “Music doesn't have any boundaries. And there is no race, there is no color. Rap in mariachi, that's a beautiful example of how music can get together all cultures from all the world.”
  — Dara Barrera (28:02)
• “She only knows that she loves to hear me singing... She sings Beautiful is beautiful because now that she’s sick with dementia, she can sing every song and she doesn’t forget the lyrics... that's a very, very good therapy.”
  — Dara Barrera (32:57)
• “It’s very difficult to be a woman. There’s a lot of machismo that sometimes they don’t let us do. It’s changing… I feel very proud to have my Mexican flock... I just want to do the best so they can feel proud of me, too.”
  — Dara Barrera (33:19)

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Important Segments (Timestamps)

• [00:37] Dara’s intro — Pablo reveals the feature on Kendrick Lamar’s album
• [01:28] Dara describes the impact since the GNX release
• [03:30] Quinceañera gig after her fame — “you’re the one singing with Kendrick Lamar!”
• [04:09] How Kendrick discovered Dara at the Valenzuela tribute
• [05:35] Mariachi explained as culture — Dara on what mariachi means
• [14:10] Dara’s family and memories of Fernando Valenzuela
• [16:53] Dara chosen to sing at jersey retirement — “I want you there with your group”
• [20:08] Dara’s emotional World Series tribute for Fernando
• [24:01] Dara in the Kendrick vs. Drake cultural crossfire
• [25:29] Inside Kendrick’s studio and the recording process
• [28:45] Dara as a “jukebox” — the mariachi challenge
• [29:10] “Guantanamera” performance
• [30:32] “My Way” (A Mi Manera) and singing for her mother
• [33:19] Hope and pride for women and mariachi’s future
• [34:36] Dreaming of Super Bowl performance
• [35:50] Post-interview: LA fires, music and resilience — music as solace amid loss

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Tone & Style

Both host and guest are warm, thoughtful, and emotionally open. Dara is humble, effusive, and speaks with a blend of pride and vulnerability (her charming English is peppered with heartfelt Spanish), while Pablo is both inquisitive and empathetic, guiding the listener through the cultural, familial, and social gravity of Dara’s story.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode isn’t just the story of an obscure mariachi singer’s breakout. It is a tapestry of immigrant persistence, cultural unity, music as emotional ballast, and the unexpected ways authentic voices can resonate at the center of American life. In honoring her mother, her community, and her roots, Dara Barrera sings her own way—maybe next, as Pablo hopes, on the biggest stage of all.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[B]

If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky.

[A]

Right after this ad.

[C]

You're listening to Giraffe Kings.

[D]

Hold on, let me. Let me close the door.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[D]

Okay, okay.

[A]

This is really cool for me to have you on the show, Dara Barrera, because, you know, I've been walking around, I live in New York City and I've been walking around listening to your music for a couple weeks now. You've been the soundtrack to my everyday life.

[D]

Thank you for the invite and thank you for having me in your podcast. I'm very happy and nervous because, like I been telling everybody, my English, like Celia Cruz used to say, my English, nobody good looking. So I'm going to try to do my best and well, I'm happy to be here.

[A]

Your English is beautiful.

[D]

So far I've been practicing.

[A]

It speaks, though, to how crazy I imagine your life must have been since. Since November.

[D]

Oh, my God. I don't know if you can see my under eyes black. I haven't sleep well since November 22nd. When VNX album came out. It's been crazy for me. It's been like, oh, my God. I didn't imagine this impact.

[A]

Dara, you turn on Kendrick Lamar's new album and the first voice you hear is not Kendrick Lamar, it's you.

[D]

Yesterday, somebody whacked out my mural. Thank you, Kendrick. Thank you, God, for this opportunity.

[A]

How do you describe what you were doing before that album?

[D]

I've been doing a lot of things. Reality shows, working a lot, recording my music, my CDs. It's been like up and down, up and down. And it's been very difficult to me. But I never give up. I never give up because this is my passion, to sing. That's what I do. To live singing every weekend in weddings, quinceaneras, private parties, birthdays, funerals. And I do it with all my heart because I love my work, I love my job, because I love to sing. I love to transmit that happiness or sadness. And always looking for an opportunity to do something more big in my career. After this GNX album, it's happening.

[A]

How has the quinceanera business been since you debuted on GNX the other day?

[D]

I went to a quinceanera to play and the quinceanera was. Oh, my God. She's the one to sing with Kendrick Lamar and she's on the quinceanera. The young people. The quinceanera they were, like, all over me. Can I take a picture with you? Can I take a picture? Can you sing first? Can you sing the part when you with Kendrick Lamar? Okay, I'm mariachi, and I start singing like, Tien taquito prestantia. And they're like, oh, my God. It's crazy.

[A]

It's something that makes me wonder how Kendrick Lamar discovered you in the first place.

[D]

I was singing for a Fernando Valenzuela tribute at a World Series race game in Collier Stadium from Sonora, Mexico. Dera Barrera and Julian Torres, they contact me after that, and they told me to sing my style. I went, I sang, and the rest is Toria.

[A]

You know, when I told Dera Barrera, today's guest, that I'd been listening to her music while walking all around New York City at the top of the show, I wasn't referring to her music with Kendrick Lamar on gnx. What I was referring to was her earlier catalog, the kind of stuff that you're hearing underneath me right now, which I'd only discovered because Kendrick, who's about to play the halftime show at super bowl lvix, in case you hadn't heard, had somehow discovered her.

[D]

Mariachi music is our culture from Mexico. It's trumpets, violins, guitars, bass player, the big guitar on mix all together, all kind of rhythms, happy songs, sad songs.

[A]

Dera Barrera, like Kendrick, lives and breathes and embodies the city of Los Angeles, which is a city on fire in a country where the newly inaugurated president is now threatening mass deportations back to the place that Dera is originally from. And the fact that all of this is happening while Dera is finally enjoying a suddenly prosperous second act in her career, appearing on no less than three separate tracks on the biggest album of the year at age 49, seemed worth finding out about. I had questions for a person that I'd absolutely heard but knew very little about at this point, and it turned out to be a story about sports and family and this musical genre which is resonating uniquely, I think, at this moment, because mariachi can feel like the saddest thing you've ever heard, but also the happiest.

[D]

In Maria Chican puede unir cultura together to put culturas together. No matter if you're wherever you are, no matter colores, colores, nada. La musica del mariachi es universal.

[A]

It is a rare thing to have a genre that can be played in the opposite parts of the emotional spectrum.

[D]

We can play everything. We can play everything.

[A]

Yes, yes, you can now Be on a song reincarnated about Tupac. You can be on the closing track of gnx Gloria. You can have a co writing credit on all three songs.

[D]

I've been working since I was very young. Like around 16 years old, I started singing with my mom and my sister. I learned my first lessons with my mom because she used to play guitar and she taught me how to play guitar and sing. My abuelito, she was a singer too. My mom, my uncles, my tia, everybody, they sing. So when I was very young, little, well, my family's party animal all weekends, like they, they bring music and they start singing. So I always there with them. Hearing my mom sing and I was like, I want to sing too. I want to sing. When I moved from Mexico to here, to Los Angeles, we start singing every weekend in different nightclubs of south la. Gain money to pay rent, to pay bills, to eat. That's what I do to live. Since I was little girl, I was dreaming that someday something big is going to happen to me.

[A]

By the way, I listened to you on LA Voss.

[D]

Ah, yes, yes. Lavos, Mexico.

[A]

Goosebumps.

[D]

That was during the pandemic. And I was like here at home like a year doing nothing. So I was like, oh my God, I have to do something. I don't want to be home anymore. So I decided to go to Laos, Mexico and I left. When I go to, to reality shows, I don't go to like I want to, I want to have the first place. No, I just go there to enjoy, to learn, to get to know new people. I feel so blessed, so happy with this.

[A]

But as for why this story is truly a sports story, you should know that the person Dera Barrera was most excited to get to know was the athlete responsible in his own way for Kendrick discovering Dera in the first place. A true Los Angeles legend named Fernando.

[B]

Valenzuela has pitched a no hitter at 10:17 in the evening of June 29, 1990. If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky.

[A]

Fernando Valenzuela was a folk hero in the realest sense. And I need the kids out there to understand this part because he was a left handed pitcher who would kick his leg high into the air and gaze up towards the heavens before throwing a screwball that seemed to defy fitness physics and maybe that alone would be charming. But the guy also was the first and only player in the history of baseball to win the Rookie of the Year award and the Cy Young Award for best pitcher in all of baseball. In the same year 1981, which was also, by the way, the same year that he won the World Series with the Dodgers. And all of it was simply known as Fernando Mania.

[D]

Who's that out on the mound? He's a little bit round. It's Fernando. He looks so relaxed. He's the choppy Koufax that Fernando. Every hater's appalled when they see his group.

[A]

Fernando became an icon and eventually, in retirement, a radio announcer working up in a booth at Dodger Stadium, commenting on the games with his partner in Spanish. But before all of this, and here's the part that was key to Fernando's lore in Southern California, he and his parents, who were farmers, had lived in a town of roughly 500 or so people in Mexico's northwestern state of Sonora, a town called Echoaquila, which one visiting newscaster from a local LA affiliate described this way.

[B]

The Valenzuelas told me they were simple and primitive people as they invited me into their home. Fernando's room was just like he explained it to me, small, with one bed. That's where he and his five brothers slept. The six sisters all slept in another room. The baseball field was just a hop, skip and a jump from this house. And while he slept at home, it was on this baseball field he spent most of his time. The field had no backstop paper bases, no fences, and tree stumps were used as benches.

[A]

And this scene, the scene of this field in this tiny town was intimately familiar to somebody else, it turns out, a future singer named Deira Cornejo Barrera, who just happened to be born nearby.

[D]

So my dad used to play baseball too, with Fernando's brothers. I remember when I used to live in Sonora still, when I was like, around eight years. Eight years old. And when we knew that Fernando is here in Chihuahuaquila. Everybody, let's go, let's go if we can see him. And I remember Fernando used to come out in the door and he used to throw balls to us, to all the kids. We were running like crazy. Oh, we have a Fernando Valenzuela. So it was. I have very good memories of that. But I never met Fernando Valenzuela in person since, like, around seven years ago. Seven years ago, because another friend that works with Fernando, Pepe Iniges, they work together for the La Dienpe radio station. He introduced me. And one time I met Pep Peniguez in a birthday party that I went to play. They hired me. So, hey, tell Fernando that I'm Deira Cornejo. I know he knows who's my dad, blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah. And he told me, when you go to Dodger Stadium, call me and come in and say hi to us. And I'm going to introduce to Fernando Valenzuela. And yes, he was very serious at first. He was very serious. And I told him, oh, my God, I'm from the Yaguara, Sonora. My dad is Antonio Cornejo. Oh, yeah, I know who is your dad. He used to play very good baseball with his brothers. So we started to have a friendship, very, very nice friendship. And he was always telling us jokes, bad jokes, but I have to laugh out.

[A]

I want to explain Fernando Valenzuela to people who maybe aren't as familiar with baseball. He's somebody that my friend Bill Plaschke, who writes for the LA Times, called the most celebrated Dodger, the most popular Los Angeles Dodger ever, the most impactful Los Angeles Dodger ever.

[D]

And I was there to sing when they retired his number.

[A]

Yes, yes. So that was August 11, 2023. They finally retired the great Fernando Valenzuela's jersey.

[B]

Tonight we are here to honor, celebrate and retire the number 34 of Fernando Valenzuela.

[A]

How did you get booked for that gig?

[D]

Fernando always go. Went to see me at a restaurant that I always play on Sundays. And after he play golf, he, he get there very early to have breakfast and, and listen to our music and like, joking, like talking always with him, joking. I, I asked him, hey, take me to the others. I want to sing there. I want to, I, I need to sing there because everybody there, my friends, everybody, and I have to be there too. He always telling me that she didn't like mariachi at all. He always telling me, I don't like mariachi. I like banda, you know, banda, the big, that tuba, the very nice. He liked that. So when they retired his number, I, I asked him why you don't bring banda recordo, the most famous banda of Sinaloa, Mexico, very famous. Oh, no, because I, I want you to play. I want you there with your group. So one day he took somebody of the crew of the Dodgers. They called me. Fernando Valenzuela wants you to sing for the retire number. Your wife. Oh, my God, for reals? I was in the newspapers and the noticias. Oh, Dera Barrera from Via Juarez, Sonora. She was the singer that Fernando asked for to go to sing for his retired number. So I was everywhere, they were talking about me everywhere.

[A]

But a little more than a year after that, a year after Fernando Valenzuela's jersey retirement ceremony on October 22, 2024, the headlines across northwestern Mexico and Southern California were dominated by a different kind of news.

[E]

A sad night for Dodger fans and for all of baseball. Dodger legend Fernando Valenzuela has died. The team announcing the news tonight just days away from the Dodgers return to the World Series against the New York Yankees.

[A]

Fernando Valenzuela was just 63 years old when he died of septic shock in Los Angeles right before the start of one of the most highly anticipated and highly rated World Series in recent baseball memory. And when it came time for the Dodgers to figure out how to honor the most celebrated, most popular, most impactful player in their franchise's history before a game that everybody, by the way, in Los Angeles was absolutely gonna watch, team officials orchestrated one moment that was meant to be.

[D]

When Fernando passed, they called me right away, if I wanted to do the tribute, to sing there. And of course, I said yes. Not even thinking about, oh, it's the first game of the World Series, Yankees and Dodgers. I didn't think about that. I just think about that I want to sing for my friend. And I got there very emotional, very sad, because it was too fast. I didn't think that he was gonna pass.

[A]

To honor Fernando Valenzuela, who is truly one of the most important players in the history of sports in America. Did you know which song you wanted to start with?

[D]

Yes. Yes. I was singing there, looking at the cabin when he used to sit to connect the game with the Spanish radio station. And I will always go there to say hi. And I was singing and looking the videos and looking up to the cabin, and he wasn't there. And it was very, like, sad for me. The people who was, like, screaming his name when I put my voice very, very high, they were like. My skin were, like, chill. And now that he's my angel he's my angel and. And I feel sad because he's not here anymore, but I can feel that he's doing a lot of things for. For us. We. We won. We won. Dodger theory. The World Series. Yeah.

[B]

Start the party. Los Angeles, your Dodgers have won the World Series.

[D]

I'm sorry, you're not York, right?

[A]

I was gonna say that was painful. Painful for me, but now that I understand the backstory, it's hard not to root for. For you, Dara. I mean, in some sense, that is a dream. Okay, so there is another angle to this completely surreal story that we've been reporting that I cannot help but be curious about, especially from Dara's perspective, because this part of the story, first of all, is currently moving its way through the court system as we speak, culminating in what should be a historic moment in popular culture at the super bowl next month. And also because Dara Barrera, a woman who learned how to sing from her mother in this tiny, tiny town in Mexico, has implicitly taken a side in an extraordinarily public and extremely North American type of feud.

[D]

Oh, my God. I have new friends now. Kendrick Lamar fans are my friends now.

[C]

A war of words turning into a full blown feud between two of the biggest names in rap. Kendrick Lamar and Drake.

[E]

The Pulitzer Prize winner is definitely spiraling.

[C]

The two longtime rivals battling it out in a matter of days, releasing eight new songs one after the other. With the intensity heating up over the weekend.

[E]

Drake, you know that brother, he's gone ahead and filed a lawsuit against his own record company, Universal Music Group, for Kendrick LaMar's not like US attorneys for Drake say the song, which is aimed at the Canadian rapper, is an example of valuing, quote, corporate greed over the safety and well being of its artists. End quote.

[A]

And so, yeah, I just wanted to know in general, had you been following Drake vs. Kendrick, all of that before you became a collaborator of Kendrick?

[D]

You know what? I'm not really listen to rap music. I want to be honest. I always listen to mariachi Mexican music.

[A]

And that raised another question for me about the conversation that Dara Barrera had with Kendrick Lamar in his camp when they brought her, a true outsider to the genre, into their famously private studio for the first time.

[D]

I told them, you know what? I don't, I don't know how to rap. No, we don't want you here. We don't want you. We want you to do your, your voice, your voice, your potente voice, your vibrato.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

Okay.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

I put my headphones there. Okay. They put music and I start like singing and singing and singing and singing. And that's it.

[A]

The beginning of Whacked Out Murals, which is the first track on this album, of course. Can you translate what the words you're singing there, what they mean?

[D]

Siento qui tu presencia, Siento quito presencia. I feel your presence here. La noche de anoche Last night, night and we start crying. Yesterday somebody whacked out my mural. I didn't know what, what it's all about because I, I, I just went to record and I never listened to that song. So I was like, okay, what's gonna happen?

[A]

It sounds like you Were yorad. It sounds like you were. You were crying, too, when you heard I work.

[D]

I was crying, yes. Without knowing what is gonn.

[A]

Do you remember when you first realized, when you first learned that in fact you were going to be the first sound on gnx?

[D]

It was a surprise because I was like, I went to record, and then I didn't hear anything. I remember my friend called me and she told me, do you hear the new album? You're on it. And not only one song. You were on three songs. I was in Arizona with my aunt and my mom for a wedding. They don't know about rap music. So they asked me, okay, who is this guy? Oh, my God. He's the most famous of rap singers of the world. And I'm there in his new album.

[A]

Part of what I think people are learning, though, because of your collaboration with Kendrick, is that mariachi that Mexico is such an enormous part of, of course, Los Angeles, which is obvious to every Mexican person or anybody who is actually in Los Angeles. It's 50% Hispanic Los Angeles.

[D]

Yeah. And yet.

[A]

And yet people are sort of realizing now for real, like, wait a minute, Kendrick picked this mariachi singer, and now they're realizing the history that you guys share culturally.

[D]

He was bringing it all together, our music together. And music doesn't have any boundaries. And there is no race, there is no color. There is no frontiers, nothing. Rap in mariachi, that's a beautiful example of how can music can get together all cultures from all the world.

[A]

Something that I didn't appreciate, but I was doing a little bit of research about how many songs a good mariachi needs to know, because it's. Again, you play every type of event. Happy, sad celebrations, funerals. So about how many songs would you say?

[D]

You know, my friends, they always call me. Oh, my God. Data, you know a lot of songs. You're like a. You know what, Roccola. When you put money and put music.

[A]

Oh, a jukebox.

[D]

Oh, okay. You're a jukebox. Because, you know, every. Every. Every song in the world, they asked me for a song. Oh, yeah, I know it. I know it.

[A]

You mentioned Celia Cruz before, and I was like, okay, so she obviously knows Guantanamara. Of course.

[D]

That's an easy one. You want. You want me to sing it?

[A]

I would love nothing more than that.

[D]

I have my guitar here. I have my guit.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. It's such a beautiful song. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I got one more. Do you know any Sinatra? You got to Know some Sinatra?

[D]

Yes. My Way.

[A]

I did it My Way.

[D]

I record that song My Way, but Spanish. Oh. It's one of the songs that makes me cry every time I sing it. Yesterday somebody asked for that song and I was singing and looking at my. My mother, she was there and, like, I started, like, crying because she had dementia. So it's very sad to me because she's my fan, my number one fan, and she don't know what's going on, but she only knows that she loves to hear me singing. So I was singing it my way yesterday and I started crying because I feel very sad to see my mom there. And she was a singer when she was young. She sings professionally, too. And she's living the dream with me, the dream that she couldn't do more and she's leaving it with me. And I just want to do a lot of things before she forgets who am I? I just wanna do it for her because she always telling me, you have a lot of talent, mija. You think beautiful people love you. I want you to be more, like, famous and thinking everywhere. And I want to do it because before she forgets, who am I or I don't. I'm sorry. I get very emotional when I talk about my mom's dementia and he gets me my heart. So sometimes I just want, like, mom, come on, let's sing. Because it's a therapy for her and she loves to sing. She sings Beautiful is beautiful because now that she's sick with dementia, she can sing every, every song and she doesn't forget the. The lyrics of the songs. And that's a very, very good therapy.

[A]

What do you hope for mariachi as. As a form of music?

[D]

I just want to take my music all over the world. So with this DNX album of Kendri Lamar, I think is going to be more. Connecting more people, more people with our music together, Feel very honored and say proud, proud to be to that. I am Mexican woman. And the name of all my Mexican mariachi friends, women that we've been here working a lot, trying to take our music more up levels because we're a woman. It's very different. It's very difficult to be a woman. There's a lot of machismo that sometimes they don't let us do. It's changing. We're having more opportunities now, more so in name of all my friends, women, talented women that I know a lot a name of them. And I feel very proud to have my Mexican flock. And in Sonorense Mexicana, I Just want to do the best so they can feel proud of me, too.

[A]

I want to see you play the Super Bowl, Dara. I want you to be there. I want you and Kendrick to be there in New Orleans for the Super Bowl. Can we. We're praying together. This is what we're doing.

[D]

Yeah. I have this. Mira. I always. Every night, I play with. Every night. I always ask God to. To do the best for me, to let me do. If I gonna be there, I'm gonna be there. Because then. So I don't know. But I have it in my mind that, okay, anything can. Can happen. Imagine, first woman, Mexican mariachi at.

[A]

Me too, Dara. Me too. Me too.

[D]

It's gonna be historia.

[A]

And I'm pretty sure, Dara, that you're gonna do it your way.

[D]

My way. I mean, my man.

[A]

All right, so the episode isn't over yet. Thank you for sticking around. And the reason I'm still here is because I wanted you to know that after my conversation with Dara since several weeks ago now, her life did turn back to relative normalcy. She was still working every single weekend at quinceaneras and parties and restaurants. But then the LA fires broke out, and they were close enough that Dara could see the flames from her own front door not far from Altadena. And that night, she told us, felt like a horror movie. Her home ultimately wound up being okay, thankfully. But her clients, the people who had just been marveling, as we had discussed, at having this woman from the Kendrick Lamar album in front of them performing privately for them, they weren't all as lucky. And all of them began canceling their parties altogether because, of course, of course they had to do that. Which is how the other night, Deira found herself at the seafood restaurant where she regularly performs. And a customer approached and asked the human jukebox that is Dera Barrera to sing a song called Ami Manera, or as it's known in English, my way. And as Dara hit this chorus, and this was just as she told us that she would, she began to cry. She was thinking about the suddenness of loss. She told us she was thinking about the fires, about Fernando, about her neighbors, about Los Angeles, about her mother, the woman who had taught her to love music in the first place. And, yeah, sadness. Sadness and happiness. Sadness and happiness. They really can feel like two strings on the same instrument. And so what Dera Barrera did, all that Dera Barrera could do there in the corner of that restaurant is what she hopes to do in front of the entire world at the Super Bowl. Maybe if we're lucky. She sang. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out A Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.