An inimitable star, Jenni Rivera more than earned her title as La Gran Señora during her lifetime. One of the greatest música mexicana acts of her generation, the California-born singer broke gender and genre barriers alike during her career, rising to prominence and amassing a devoted fanbase enchanted by her powerful performances, both in studio and live. The tragedies of her loss remain compound and personal, even as her impact continues to be felt in banda, corridos, mariachi and beyond. Now, more than a decade since her award-winning Joyas Prestadas volumes and her death in a plane crash at age 43, Rivera’s children have come together to present Misión Cumplida, the first posthumous full-length from this legendary artist. “We’re very much viewing this as a beginning of a culmination of my mom’s discography,” her son Johnny Lopez tells Apple Music about what he describes as Jenni Rivera’s final album of original material in Spanish. “It has to live up to her in every way possible.” To that end, he provided the material to Banda Sinaloense MS de Sergio Lizárraga, who would in turn provide the formidable musical arrangements to accompany these previously unheard vocals. Working with an admittedly finite selection of material, Lopez took it upon himself to sequence the project, building a logical framework and cohesive listening experience that Rivera’s fans will assuredly appreciate. “When I hear it, I hear every version of Jenni, from the beginning of her career to the very end,” her daughter Jacqie Rivera says. “You get the badass woman. You get the woman who’s been through trials and tribulations. You get the woman who still believes in love. You get the mother.” Below, read more about some of the tracks, in the words of her children. “Engañémoslo” Johnny: “This is left over from her La Gran Señora sessions. We only gave [Banda MS] my mom’s vocals for this one specifically, but they intuitively took it back to the original version my mom had, modernised it and made it very powerful. One of my favourite things about this track is the harmonies on it. They just sound so beautiful, like an extension of her. And I love that we have a song like this, because so many of her hits are songs like ‘Querida Socia’ or ‘De Contrabando’, so to have this side of Jenni on the album is a big blessing.” “Que Me Entierren Cantando” Johnny: “This was released as a duet with my Tio Lupe, and we decided to have her solo version on the album. It’s a Chalino Sánchez song, so it’s been covered so many times, but you look over different covers of it, and you always hear either banda or norteño. On our track, we have a full banda and a little bit of accordion. It’s a perfect combination for me, because my mom loved both Ramón Ayala and Chalino Sánchez so much, so it’s mixing those two covers together.” Jacqie: “This reminds me of ‘Cuando Muere una Dama’. The lyrics really get to me.” “Motivos” Jacqie: “For my mom, the reason her fans loved her was because she was so open about everything she’s gone through, her heartbreak in relationships. She was successful in many different things, but in the area of love, it was always tragic. I think the song shows she still believed, no matter what. It’s showing that side of her, that her heart still believes in love. She still has that hope. And as a woman, I can totally identify.” Johnny: “I love the arrangements on this one a lot, especially. It makes me want to go on a beach in Mazatlán and listen to it.” “Aparentemente Bien” Johnny: “As her son and her encyclopedia, I feel like I know my mom’s biography like the back of my hand. I can honestly say it’s the most vulnerable song she ever recorded, and that’s probably why she kept it in the archives. It was just too real. It’s the climax of the album, and that’s what we’re building to. We placed it number eight on the tracklist, and eight is a number of love. Every time I hear that song, I think of it as for the love of her life that she didn’t get to be with, and it touches that part of me.” “Pedacito de Mí” (feat. Chiquis and Jacqie Rivera) Johnny: “It was a song that she wrote for me, but now I feel like it just applies for all of us. The only people that would be able to record this with the same emotional value that she intended it with would be my sisters. It’s just a full-circle moment for all three of them, and I’m really, really blessed that all of them are on it.” Jacqie: “It was a healing process for me, as her daughter. I grew up very resentful towards my mom’s job. I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t be home as often. The lyrics of the song are very much like that: ‘You don’t understand the things that you’re living, but I do it because I love you. I make these sacrifices because I love you. You’re a piece of me.’ Now that I’m a mother, and I’m doing a job where I’m away from my kids so much, it’s put a new grace in my heart for my mom. So, I’m feeling it as a daughter, but then I’m also singing it to my children. It’s really emotional for me. When we were recording the song, I broke down. I was crying because it was just so much healing inside of me that was going on.” “Misión Cumplida” Johnny: “It’s a love song, but in a bigger picture sense, I feel like she can’t believe that she became this artist, that she conquered all this that she never necessarily set out to do. I felt like it fit perfectly.” Jacqie: “It is a love song when you hear it, but in the way we’re seeing it, it’s like her singing it to her fans. It’s like a thank-you to the fans for making her who she became.”