How Becky G reclaimed her voice in Baraja Bendita

This past February, Becky G was decked in a tiger-print Roberto Cavalli coat, preening for photos on the streets of Milan: a 13-hour flight away from LAX, and more specifically, her hometown of Inglewood, which she has fiercely repped in her music for the last 20 years.

After sitting front row during Cavalli’s runway show at Milan Fashion Week, Becky and her entourage broke away to film the video for the song “Marathon.” The lead single from her new fifth studio album, “Baraja Bendita,” it’s a brisk pop-meets-hip-hop track, fitted with an Afrobeats bounce.

As Becky’s crew staged her takeover of a residential Milanese neighborhood, one verse in particular remained top of mind for her: “They wanna move like me/They wanna step like me/I told that bitch, ‘Catch up!’”

She repeated the lines back to me at her manager’s home in Los Angeles. There, she set the stage for her Aug. 14 album release, followed by her first of 10 dates on the North American leg of Karol G’s Viajando Por El Mundo Tropitour, which happened to begin Aug. 15 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

Dressed in leather and a custom “PATRONA MAMI” tee by Chicano fashion designer Willy Chavarria — for whom she walked her first-ever runway show at Paris Fashion Week last January — Becky sashayed fiercely across the stage at SoFi, flanked by dancers in blond wigs. She regaled scores of screaming Latinas with new tracks, like the honeyed “Chula,” then closed it with the single that first introduced the world to her: her 2013 J.Lo callback song, “Becky From the Block.”

The original music video saw the girl once known as Rebbeca Gomez spitting bars, figuratively, in front of the Kia Forum across the street.

“There’s this idea that we’re not supposed to leave where we’re from,” said Becky, now 29. “It’s really big in our community. People say, ‘You’ve changed.’ But this song said, ‘I never left!’ I’m always in motion. And the community is always around me.

“I could be ‘Becky From the Block’ on any block, anywhere,” she added.

Becky G wears Gucci jacket, pants and boots and Spinelli Kilcollin rings.

Becky’s star has risen exponentially since the days of her debut, which she followed up the next year with her bubblegum pop hit “Shower.” Her lateral move from RCA Records to Sony Music Latin set forth a four-album parade of Latin pop fusion records — the last being her 2024 música mexicana album, “Encuentros” — during which she blossomed into a more confident artist in both English and Spanish.

In 2023 she was named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30, then in 2025, Time magazine’s 100 most influential people; in 2026 she received Billboard’s Global Impact Award. But as she raked in the accolades, she also began to unpack the guilt she carried while spending time away from home, as well as her tight-knit Mexican family, in pursuit of pop stardom.

It’s in “Baraja Bendita,” a 17-track, genre-hopping victory lap of an album, that she finally relaxes that lifelong tension. “I was in such a state of play that I hadn’t [experienced] in a really long time,” she said. “In the ‘Esquinas’ and ‘Encuentros’ eras, I revisited so many things in my childhood and did some necessary healing. I still carry all those versions of me, but they don’t weigh as much anymore. So I made much more room for discovery and exploration.”

The idea of the “Baraja Bendita” — a lucky deck of playing cards in Spanish — sprang forth from a chance encounter a few years ago with the great Latina actor Constance Marie. She famously landed her breakout role as Selena Quintanilla’s mother, Marcella, in Gregory Nava’s 1997 biopic, “Selena.”

“I remember when I met Constance for the first time,” said Becky. “I grew up watching [her] in ‘George Lopez’! She was like, ‘I’m so proud of you, how do you feel?’ I was like, ‘I just feel so lucky, you know?’”

Marie, apparently, was not satisfied with Becky’s response. “She said to me: ‘You’re not lucky. None of this is luck. This is earned.’
And it shifted something in me. We have a lot of examples in our industry of the overnight success [story]… And artists who got in years worth of reps before that big break moment. I once thought ‘Man, I was dealt such a s— hand!’

“We don’t control the cards that we’re dealt, but we do control how we play them,” Becky continued. “And I’ve played one hell of a hand at the cards that I’ve been dealt.”

In 2026, Becky is betting on her international pop viability. “Baraja Bendita” arrives in the same year that her past collaborators broke industry milestones that strictly English-language pop stars could only dream of: first Bad Bunny with his Super Bowl halftime show, followed by Karol G’s headlining set at Coachella, at which Becky made a cameo appearance to sing their joint reggaeton single, “Mamiii.”

Becky G wears Roberto Cavalli dress, Diomādis leather breastplate, Spinelli Kilcollin earrings and rings and Stuart Weitzman heels.

At long last, it seems even the non-Latino world is ready and eager for Latinos to take bigger stages. Why not the third-generation Chicana, whose entire career has been in service of bridging the gap between cultures?

But for many Latinos in the U.S. — or, what Becky calls “200-percenters” — the labor required to be the cross-cultural bridge can come at the expense of freer expression and fresher ideas. Though Becky cherishes her past works of reggaeton and puro pop en español in LPs like “Mala Santa” and “Esquemas” — or her return to her música mexicana roots in “Esquinas” and “Encuentros” — her latest record is the sharpest reflection of her own authentic experience. As the quintessential L.A. Chicana, she’s the girl who was raised on banda and baladas, but who also landed a major label record deal at 14 by rapping to Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “Otis” on YouTube.

While this cultural syncretism may seem unremarkable to most Californians, it’s only recently that major labels in the U.S. have begun to loosen up on the antiquated practices of segregating music by genre, language and race or ethnicity. But also, an increasing number of Latin artists are staking their own claims to complexity, such as Fuerza Regida, who detoured their corridos into Jersey club, or DJ duo Røz, who pepper their festival sets with electro-rock flirtations. It’s ushered in a more creatively liberating moment, one that Becky has worked diligently toward since she was a teen.

“Growing up in this industry is tough,” said Becky. “[People] have no problem telling you who you should be, how you should sing, how you should dress…. I’ve gotten resistance in the past, [but] now I can really own all parts of myself and not have to explain it. ”

To better reflect her eclectic taste, she worked with an array of producers this round, such as Carly Rae Jepsen collaborator Kyle Shearer, who notably produced Becky’s 2019 smash “Sin Pijama” with Natti Natasha; Shearer returned to mix the U.K. garage-glittered album opener, “5’5.”

The Grammy-winning Sierra Leonean producer Elkan helmed “Marathon,” while Deputy manned the mixing board on eight songs — including Becky’s scorching trap number “Glitch” (her mother’s favorite) and the closing boss babe anthem “Patrona,” the ante of which was upped by mariachi horns and Afrobeats.

“He is a bit of a 200-percenter in his own experiences,” said Becky of the Trinidadian American producer, whose real name is Jamil Pierre. “Someone who also enjoys jumping from box to box and saying, ‘Haha, you can’t catch me!’ It’s not threatening to someone like him. I felt so safe to explore those [sounds].”

“My approach was to create songs that are fun, mixed in with high urgency,” said Deputy. “We wanted to sonically push boundaries and create what’s next while maintaining Becky’s foundation. We had long, vulnerable conversations…. It all led to the unapologetic and fierce sound.”

“Patrona” was most unapologetic in its lyricism. “Patrona/Do what the f— I wanna/Big Daddy’s my persona,” sings Becky with a warlike swagger.

The song was born of the realization that, as a professional entertainer and family breadwinner from the age of 9 — born to loving but woefully unprepared teen parents — Becky stepped in as head of the household. Inside the studio, she shared a therapeutic conversation with Deputy, as well as songwriters Sara Schell and A.Chic, who related similar experiences.

“All of us played a provider role in our family systems,” said Becky. “When the revelation first hits, you feel shame. People will shame you [even though] we all have some type of ‘daddy’ or ‘mommy’ issues. I couldn’t control that — I was a child!”

But in “Patrona,” she explained, “I’m reclaiming that part of me. I know now that we want ‘Big Daddy’ on stage and in the boardroom, but we don’t want Big Daddy in romantic relationships, or friendships, you know? I was overcompensating in every personal dynamic in my life.”

Prior to recording “Baraja Bendita,” Becky publicly and thoroughly unpacked the baggage of her upbringing in the 2025 Netflix documentary, “Rebbeca.” Shot in 2023, it chronicled her rise from all-American pop radio starlet to proud Latina diva, now with a tour bus of her own. But it also delved into her family’s struggles with poverty, as well as her estranged father’s battle with addiction.

In the documentary, her father, Frank, reunited with her backstage at one of her shows — and he passed on a family heirloom from her late grandfather, whom she serenaded with mariachi songs as a child. Later onstage, in the shadow of her hot pink cowboy hat, she began to weep.

“Shout out to my therapists,” said Becky with a laugh. “There were so many things in the documentary that people said, ‘Maybe you [shouldn’t] put that in there!’ But it was a massive opportunity for me to look inward. I’m not gonna say, ‘Control-alt-delete this person as if they never existed.’ That’s not real life. I wanted to own all the parts.”

That same year, she also broke off her engagement to soccer player Sebastian Lletget, who she’d dated for nearly seven years, after accusations of infidelity floated on the internet. In an April interview on the podcast “Call Her Daddy,” Becky said they had since reconciled.

“There’s still real work being done,” she told The Times. “It’s not a fairy tale.”

Becky G wears Vaquera dress, Other People’s Property ring and Marc Jacobs shoes.

Online, fans and critics alike left indignant comments on Becky’s social media — dressing her down for presenting as an empowered woman, while welcoming back a penitent Lletget.

But if there’s anything we’ve learned from the baddest divas of our time — from Shakira to Beyoncé — it’s that there is no level of beauty, fame and success in the world that could inoculate any mortal woman from experiencing betrayal or heartbreak.

While the doc was in production, said Becky, “it hadn’t been decided if we were gonna make it to the other side. I felt like being honest about the question mark that it was at the time was super important. Being an artist and having to confront all these obstacles was necessary to share. Like, dam …. I did that!”

Becky hasn’t weathered these storms alone, though: She’s forged a network of powerful allies in music. Apart from her decorated history of featured singles, which includes tracks with superstars Pitbull, Daddy Yankee and Peso Pluma, Becky is increasingly using her collaborations to rally for more pan-Latino solidarity — especially as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continue their incursions on Latino and immigrant communities across the country.

Ahead of her landmark set at Coachella, Karol G began to voice concerns for the rights of immigrants in the U.S. But after talks with her colleagues, she braced herself for potential retaliation from the government. She invited Becky to sing with her onstage; as a U.S. citizen, Becky felt compelled to use that privilege to speak out during the live broadcast on both weekends. Her mic was inexplicably muted just after she told the crowd in Spanish: “To all our immigrants, we love you.”

“I was born here. I have rights that my friends do not have, even though we [in the U.S.] might expect them to speak on things in a way that hits the mark for us,” said Becky of her Coachella appearance. “[The] system has no issue retaliating. We know what they do,” she said, referring to foreign artists whose visas have been revoked or denied in the U.S.

“Karol wore a heavy crown to be the first-ever Latina headliner, so to be called in as backup…. I was like ‘Yessir, let’s go! During her set I [was] crying in the corner, people were like ‘Are you OK?’ She’s just such a loving person who loves to share everything. And when I said, ‘Que viva Colómbia, que viva México, y a todos nuestros inmigrantes, queremos mucho …’ it was with thanks to my immigrant friend, during one of the most historical moments, not just for her career, but for our entire community.

“And,” added Becky, “one of my favorite flexes ever is that I have the key to the City of Coachella. Like, hello? How am I not going to show love to the real Coachella? The people who set up the festival, clean up the festival and live there 365 days a year?”

Earlier this summer, she chased that desert high by releasing a pointed video for her single “Epa.” Shot inside the famous L.A. night market El Mercadito, Becky met the frisky pace of dembow with nimble dance moves — and a stone cold visual statement. Perched glamorously atop a block of ice, Becky proceeded to crush it with a hefty silver sledgehammer, inspired by a slogan on social media that reads: “HOT LATINAS MELT ICE.”

Since then, the video has been circulated by various activists and advocacy groups for immigrants, including the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. In August she joined forces with Santana and Edgar Barrera for the Latin rock jam “Mi Gran Amor,” a protest song that lambasts ICE for tearing families, and the country, apart.

“This is my battle cry for Latino joy,” she said of her new music. “To come from a place of pain and turn [it] into a celebration? That’s something that means a lot to me.”

Whether she makes reggaeton, hip-hop, corridos or just plain fun music for girls to live their fullest lives to, Becky offers her vision of global pop as both a tool for change and a balm for healing. Her rhythm, like her mission, remains something that anyone, from anywhere, can vibe with.