12/19/2023 0 Comments Who sings everything changes but youThe second half of "Si Me Matan" gives voice to women not just scared, but defiantly hopeful. "So that's why the second part is all about the future, a better world. "It took me two years to understand that what I wanted was to keep my own hope," she says. In November 2022, Estrada won the Latin Grammy for best new artist, a prize she shared with Cuban-born singer Angela Alvarez.Īnd she says she finally figured out how to finish "Si Me Matan." She became a sensation in Mexican music, following behind other women like Natalia LaFourcade, Mon Laferte and Julieta Venegas, who broke into the international market. In the meantime, Estrada focused on her debut album, Marchita, which became a hit after its release in January 2022. "I remember having like five notebooks trying to finish that song." "The second part took me like two years to write because I was so angry," she says. But she didn't know where to take the song. "Like all women / I grew up scared / But even so / I went out alone / To see stars / To love life."Įstrada knew how to write about the fear inherent in being a woman. "If they kill me," she sings in Spanish over soft acoustic guitar. "I wrote that first part in a day," she says. "I had the courage to live my passion."Įstrada began writing. "I just wanted people to know that if they kill me, I was living my dream," she says. It allowed women to tell their own stories online or preempt the slander that might be told about them if the worst were to happen. "What shocked me the most was all the comments and the media trying to make her guilty of her own death," says Estrada. A recent wave of murders of women showed a disturbing trend in which authorities and social media users tried to blame the victim. One day, she saw a trending hashtag on Twitter: #SiMeMatan (If They Kill Me). In 2018, Estrada was traveling around Mexico mostly by herself to play small gigs where she could find them. Despite laws levying harsher punishments for gender-based violence, less than 1% of such crimes are prosecuted under the more severe penalties. An estimated 10 women or girls are killed by their partners or family members in the country every day, the United Nations says, citing Mexican government data. Gender-based violence continues to be rampant in Mexico. Getty Images for The Recording Academy Estrada performs in New York City on Jan. She dropped out and went home to pursue a career on her own. When she went to study jazz in Xalapa, Mexico, her teachers often dismissed her and she recalls them saying she was "just a pretty singer." She had to be careful who she was around, where she went, who she talked to online. Her mother told her she had to say "no" to men "thousands of times," until they understood no means no. It is nominated for best singer-songwriter song at the 2023 Latin Grammys, which takes place Thursday in Seville, Spain.Īs Estrada grew into her teenage years, the lessons kept rolling in. This fear is the basis for Estrada's "Si Me Matan," which means "If They Kill Me," an emotional song that has inspired defiance in women's movements across the Spanish-speaking world. "That's something that I can relate to with almost all the women I know." "It shocked me."Īs she grew into adolescence, Estrada, now 26, understood that being a woman, especially in Mexico, meant being vulnerable. "The guys were catcalling my mother and I saw her reaction and I felt she was so scared and uncomfortable with her body and ashamed," she says. She and her mother were walking by a construction site in her hometown Coatepec, in Mexico's Veracruz state. MEXICO CITY - When Mexican singer Silvana Estrada was as young as 5, she learned the first of many lessons about how the world would treat her as a woman.
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