Her Way

EPISODE 194: How Kendrick Lamar's mariachi singer became a sports story.

Odds are that you don’t know the name of the person at the center of today’s episode. Which makes sense! Before interviewing Deyra Barrera, I didn’t either.

But thanks to the fact that she’s the very first thing you hear on the biggest album of the year — GNX, by Kendrick Lamar — you probably do know her voice.

Deyra, like Kendrick, lives and breathes Los Angeles. A city on fire, in a country where the newly inaugurated president is now threatening mass deportations back to the place she’s originally from.

All of this is happening, mind you, while Deyra is finally enjoying a suddenly prosperous second act in her career — which has largely been spent playing quinceañeras, and funerals, and restaurants — at age 49.

This trajectory alone is an unforgettable story. A bona fide sports story, also, involving Fernando Valenzuela, the Dodgers, and, hopefully, Super Bowl 59.

But the other reason I really wanted to do this episode is because the perfect soundtrack for it is the musical genre Deyra has mastered: mariachi.

Which can feel like the saddest thing you’ve ever heard, I think… but also the happiest.

(Please listen through to the end!)

DKN/YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

Gracias,

Pablo