Selena's Musical Legacy

En español | Sixteen years after her murder, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez's mark in the musical industry is still felt. On Oct. 20 she won a Billboard Mexican Music Award in the Digital Download Artist of the Year category. She had also been nominated for Female Artist of the Year.

The ceremony, which took place in Los Angeles, will be aired on Telemundo Oct. 27. Along with this posthumous recognition comes more news for Selena fans: An album of 10 of her previously unreleased songs will be issued next year.

"It means a lot that even all these years after her death, she is still so loved," says Selena's father, Abraham Quintanilla.

Known simply as Selena, the Tejana star was only 23 when she lost her life at the hands of her fan club's president. Yolanda Saldivar shot Selena after the star accused her of embezzling money from boutiques she managed for Selena. Yet her achievements include two gold albums, a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album and a nomination for another, and seven number one songs on Billboard's Latin charts.

Much like earlier Tejana singers such as Lydia Mendoza and Chelo Silva, Selena gained a following throughout the United States and Mexico. But unlike most of her predecessors, who sang solely for Spanish-speaking audiences, Selena made more than a ripple in the world of English-language recording. At the time of her death in March 1995, Selena was beginning to cross over into mainstream pop music. Her fame has only grown since then.

The summer after she was killed, her album Dreaming of You, which included Spanish and English songs, debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. She was the first Latina singer to debut at the number one spot. The album sold 175,000 copies the day it was a released, a record for a female pop singer, and two million copies that year. The 1997 biopic of the singer's life, Selena, starring Jennifer Lopez, garnered the star a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

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