Amandititita

Daughter of pioneering Mexican rocker Rodrigo Gonzalez, Amanda Lalena Escalante Pimentel, or Amandititita, for short, is a Latin pop singer specializing in cumbia. Following the death of her iconic father, she and her family moved from her hometown of Tampico to the Mexican capital. At 14, Amandititita began to write and would eventually enlist at the Sociedad de Escritores de Mexico, as well as sign up for various writing courses and workshops. She dabbled in poetry, short stories, magic realism, and ultimately theater, but a bout with writer's bloc moved her to try her hand at songwriting. Following a brief stint with the all-girl group Mi Grupo Favorito and faced with indecision about what to do with her life, Amandititita began to work at an advertising agency, where she made enough money to pay the rent and hire someone to make tracks for her lyrics — a quirky, sardonic mixture of storytelling, humor, and sociological commentary. Many of these tracks ended up on her national debut, Amandititita, which came to the attention of Sony-BMG executives after much trial and error. One of 2008's most idiosyncratic new artists, Amandititita used her self-titled disc to position herself as the self-proclaimed queen of "anarcumbia," or anarchic cumbia — a fusion of cumbia, rock, and pop that yielded the regional Mexican hit "La Muy Muy."