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Selena was no ordinary queen. She was the queen of Tejano music. Her empire included music fans from the United States and Mexico and beyond. Her songs crossed international borders and sung in English and Spanish.
To help celebrate the day of her birth, I asked San Antonio photographer Al Rendon, who knew her well, to take us back to the days when Selena ruled the Tejano radio waves and media.
Rendon began following Selena's career when she earned recognition at the Tejano Music Awards in the late 1980s. Selena, who had started her band, Selena y Los Dinos, when she was eleven years old, was a rising young star by her early teens.
In 1992, the recording company Capital Records EMI Latin had a problem-no one liked the photos proposed for the new album which was due in the stores that spring. Thus, Rendon got his big break to photograph Selena for the cover of her upcoming album, Entre a mi Mundo. (Come into my World).
On a cold winter day, Selena's bus pulled up to the studio that Rendon had rented for this emergency situation. The band was on its way to a venue, and there wasn't much time. Rendon remembers that Selena came in with only her family. She brought along several outfits that she had designed herself.
Rendon could not have known at the time, but this album would be her breakthrough...