Alicia Villarreal

Alicia Villarreal
Background information
Birth name	Martha Alicia Villarreal Esparza
Born	August 31, 1974 (1974-08-31) (age 35)
Origin	Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico
Genres	Latin
Years active	1995–Present
Labels	Universal
Associated acts	Grupo Límite, Cruz Martínez

Alicia Villarreal (born Martha Alicia Villarreal Esparza on August 31, 1974, in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico) is a Mexican Latin Grammy award-winning singer.

Biography

Villarreal first performed the song Mundo De Juguetes at Pipo, a national TV show her parents took her to. Her first professional performance was at a church fundraiser.

In 1995, Grupo Límite, group of Musica Grupera with her as lead singer, started touring with the more famous Grupo Bronco. Among their songs were "Acariciame", "Te Aprovechas" and "Solo Contigo". Grupo Limite released six albums altogether, including a live CD recorded in Mexico City.

In 2001, Alicia released her first solo album in the ranchera style titled Soy Lo Prohibido. It launched the single Te Quedo Grande la Yegua. In it, she sings to her man, telling him that she is too much woman for him to handle.

In 2004, after parting ways with her bandmates, she released her second solo album entitled Cuando el Corazón se Cruza. The album was produced by her current husband, Cruz Martínez, and they wrote several of the songs together. The album has garnered her several awards^{[citation needed]}.

Alicia Villarreal performed for the highly televised Selena Vive, where she performed Si Una Vez. She later released this song along with 2 other new songs Punalada Trapera and Ya No Hay Amor on a dual disc of the album Cuando El Corazón Se Cruza. The dual disc also contained 5 remixes to her previous songs and a collection of all her music videos. The dual disc was released in Mexico in 2005.

In 2006, she released her third solo album titled Orgullo De Mujer with the lead single Insensible a Ti. The single was the theme song for one of the novelas.

After nearly a three year hiatus, Villarreal announced that she is in the studio recording her 4th solo album to be released in 2009. The album entitled La Jefa was released June 23, 2009 with the lead single titled "Caso Perdido". The album debuted at number one on Billboard's Regional Mexican Albums and overall at number four on its Latin Albums chart. La Jefa has received mixed reviews from critics as lead promotional track "Caso Perdido" did not meet success of prior single releases.

Personal Life

Alicia Villarreal had a daughter, Melanie Aidée, in 1999 with Arturo Carmona.^[1] She is currently married to Cruz Martínez Owner / Producer of international band Los Super Reyes. In December 2005, she gave birth to a son, Cruz Angelo Martinez and Felix Estefano Martinez born on February 2006.

Controversy

Lately she has been part of an ongoing controversy with the late Selena's Brother AB Quintanilla over the rights to use the name "Kumbia Kings" the band that her husband and ab launched back in 1999 and that ended after some financial disagreements between the two,and even though she is no longer a friend of Selena's family Alicia keeps performing the song "Si Una Vez" which is one of Selena's biggest hits and when she was asked on why she keeps including such a hit during her shows, (by the way written by AB Quintanilla) all she had to say was: "Selena will always be the queen of tejano and it's not her fault for the kind of family that she had"

After three months of the release of her 4th album "La Jefa," Alicia Villareal was involved in another controversial scandal as several former fans of hers in Mexico came together to burn her new album and several of her pictures. They claimed that the title of the album "La Jefa" (The Boss) was inappropriate since she is no one's boss, and has done very little to try to regain her popularity or promote her recent album as one of Mexico's successful female entertainers. This incident gained much publicity on entertainment television shows like, "El Gordo y La Flaca," "Escandalo TV," "Primer Impacto," and "La Tijera" where they confirmed that her latest single and album were a commercial flop.

Discography

Solo albums and singles

External links

• Official MySpace
• Official Facebook

References

This article about a Mexican singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e