Jenni Rivera‘s posthumous album Misión Cumplida is right here, and producer Pavel Ocampo breaks down a few of its most distinguished songs.
Released on Friday (June 30) beneath Sony Music Latin, Misión Cumplida contains 16 tracks with the distinctive sound of La Gran Señora of regional Mexican music. Songs comparable to “Q.T.M.L. (El Corrido de la Diva)” present the temperament that made her distinctive, whereas “El Que Hoy Está En Tu Lugar” exhibits off her unequalled boldness and “Pedacito De Mí”, devoted to her youngsters, reveals her tenderness. There are additionally new variations of “Engañémoslo” and “Aparentemente Bien.”
Ocampo, lead producer of Banda MS, was chosen to deliver to fruition the recordings that Rivera left incomplete, and to present the proper sound to others, with the assistance of Sergio Lizárraga and the youngsters of the late Diva de la Banda.
“We worked together with Sony Music, Jenicka, Johnny, Jacqie and Chiquis. This led to very good results,” Ocampo tells Billboard Español, explaining that they needed to “clean up” noises of individuals speaking and different sounds to rescue the enduring singer’s voice. “The challenge was to keep Jenni sounding like Jenni.”
Misión Cumplida arrives on time to rejoice Rivera’s birthday — she who would have turned 54 this Saturday (July 1). The chart-topping singer of No. 1 Billboard hits comparable to “De Contrabando” and “Dos Botellas de Mezcal” died in a airplane crash on December 9, 2012 on the age of 43.
Below, Ocampo breaks down 5 important songs from Jenni Rivera’s Misión Cumplida.
“Misión Cumplida”
“‘Misión Cumplida’ (Mission Accomplished) is my favorite because of what it represents and the way they discovered it. It was a 30-minute audio that showed the creative process. It wasn’t a studio recording, it was about how she was creating it. The feeling of hearing Jenni singing after 10 years was amazing. The title also says a lot of things. For this one, [her son Johnny] suggested we include a piano part and that gave it a special touch.”
“Q.T.M.L. (El Corrido de la Diva)”
“‘Quisieran Tener Mi Lugar’ (They Would Like to Have my Place) is a song that represents her, her style, her way of thinking and her way of being: a woman of strong convictions. In this song we respected her way of composing and musicalizing. It is very much her, starting with the title.”
“Pedacito De Mí”
“Pedacito De Mí’ (Little Piece of Me) was also written by Jenni and is one of the audios that were in storage and were not designed to be part of an album. In fact, the song was not finished. It is a very special song because it is the connection between Jenni and her children, it is pure love. On the musical side, we wanted to respect the idea she had; in those audios they sent us, we could appreciate the creative process and her ideas and that is what we worked on.”
“Aparentemente Bien”
“In the case of ‘Aparentemente Bien’ (Apparently OK), it’s a song that the Rivera family had already released [in 2019] and they asked us to do a new version. I think this one has more of Jenni’s essence. The previous one sounds very good, but I think this one was particularly challenging because there was something [before]. We wanted the song to sound more like Jenni and achieving that was very satisfying.”
“Engañémoslo”
“I really like ‘Engañémoslo’ (Let’s Fool Him) for the melody, for what it says, for the way she sings it. This one does have vocals designed for recording because in reality, it had already been recorded. The challenge was similar to that of ‘Aparentemente Bien’: to make a new concept of something that had already been released. Sergio and I were given the opportunity to be part of this production and we did it with great pleasure, and hopefully it won’t be the only time we work with them. We feel very fortunate that they have taken us into account to create the album of an icon of Mexican and Latin music.”
Listen to all of the songs from Misión Cumplida right here:
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