Just a few years ago, a budding mariachi singer set foot on a world-renowned stage with only hopes of soon recording her first major studio album and dreams of making it in music. This weekend Lupita Infante returns to Hollywood Bowl as a Grammy-nominated artist to once again join Mariachi USA, the music festival that helped launch her career.
“After that experience in the first performance at the Hollywood Bowl for Mariachi USA (in 2018), a lot of doors started opening for me,” says Infante. “It was just, you know, part of the building blocks to my career.”
Infante is the special guest of the 32nd annual edition of Mariachi USA, which is welcoming back concert goers to the famed venue after more than a year of a pandemic and a previous edition that took place in the virtual world. She joins a concert that screams women’s power in a music genre that for a long time was dominated by men. Headliners include the all-female Mariachi Divas and Mariachi Nuevo Mujer 2000 and this year’s fest will pay tribute to iconic ranchera singer and actress Lucha Villa.
Infante herself is part of recent generations of female singers and musicians who have kept transforming mariachi and normalizing women’s presence in the popular Mexican music genre. In Infante’s case, she’s been doing it from this side of the border. And while she’s the descendant of one of Mexico’s most beloved stars, before becoming a professional singer she held regular jobs to earn a living and even worked as a ridesharing driver to pay for her college education.
Lupita Infante was born and raised in Downey, California, the daughter of the late actor Pedro Infante Jr. and granddaughter of the legendary singer/actor Pedro Infante. But she had to fend for herself in her artistic pursuit. Her father died in 2009, her grandfather in 1957.
“Sometimes people ask me, ‘Did you meet your grandfather?’” says Infante. “And I (am) like, ‘No.’ You know…my father was only seven when (his father) passed away.” Just like her father, Lupita says, she had to build a career on her own.
In fact, it was several years after her dad died that the singer made one of the most important choices in her life: pursue a career in music. She enrolled at UCLA to study ethnomusicology and worked at a senior citizen center to pay for school, sometimes singing for the elderly who knew of her famous progenitors. The future professional singer also worked as a Lyft driver while attending college, though she recalls rarely serenading passengers. At UCLA she joined a student mariachi band and; one year before graduating, in 2016, Infante also put out an independently-produced album proudly released at a restaurant in her hometown.
It would be until a few years later that her hard work would start to pay off. Infante met Rodri J. Rodriguez, the promoter and founder of Mariachi USA, who invited the relatively unknown singer to perform at the festival in 2018. “I was just beginning my professional career as a singer,” she recalls, adding that Rodriguez “truly was the first person who kind of opened the door for me and gave me an opportunity.”
The following year, Infante released her first major studio album La Serenata, which earned her a Grammy nomination and also a Latin Grammy nod.
“So, returning now to Mariachi USA, after all of these amazing things that have happened since the first time, is truly… an honor,” says Infante. “It’s very celebratory for me and I feel, you know, I’m in a different place in life and my career, and I’m just really happy to be able to share that with Mariachi USA fans who are going to be there.”
The singer will perform songs from her award-nominated album along with Mariachi Divas and a new song she wrote a few weeks ago. With another set of songs with a different band, Infante will join the tribute to Villa, this year’s honoree. The octogenarian artist, who won’t be attending the concert, is known for classic hits like “Media Vuelta,” “La Cruz del Cielo” and “Viva Quien Sabe Querer” and also starred in films El gallo de oro, Me cansé de rogarle and Mecanica Nacional, which won her an Ariel Award for Best Actress. “I think Lucha Villa is…one of the greats” of Mexican music, says Infante. “We are honoring her and everything she’s done for women in mariachi music.”
Mariachi USA will take place Sunday, Aug 22. Other performers include Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlán, Mariachi Los Reyes, Mariachi Los Toros and the dance ensemble Mi Tierra Ballet Folklorico.
For more information and tickets, visit https://ticketmaster.com.
Featured Photo: Lupita Infante (Credit: Mariachi USA)