December 19, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode, Diosa and Mala dive into their viewing of REBBECA, Becky G’s intimate documentary. This latest special candidly explores her roots, family, mental health, and the high-stakes year behind her debut Mexican regional album, Esquinas. From growing up in Inglewood to navigating grief, anxiety, heartbreak, and fame, this film reveals the woman behind the artist.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you had to name one artist who fits this description,
who would it be? The most famous pop star that
no one has ever heard of.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Well, when I heard that, I was shocked. I was
shocked to hear that someone said that about our girl, Becky.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
G, our girl, our hometown hero, La.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Girl born and raised. In Beckyg's documentary Rebecca, she opens
with this that someone said that about her, and I
think that it shows a really like humility.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah, because that's sort of a that's a blow. It's
a little nasty, but I don't think it's entirely inaccurate.
Becky G came up in Inglewood on YouTube at local
talent shows and contests. She became a pop star very
much of her own making, and with the help of
(00:58):
her family and her community and her collaborators, and her personality,
her passion, and her work ethic and all of her
years of climbing really shine through in her documentary. We
went to go see it. I loved it. I was crying.
I was weeping in the theater. And that's what we're
talking about today. On this episode of Lokatra is Rebecca,
(01:20):
the Becky G documentary.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The Latino girlies are having a moment in the documentary space,
and I'm so here for it, and I'm really excited
to talk more about what we learned about Becky and
her journey and who Rebecca is, because that's also the
heart of the documentary.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
So if you're interested and you want to know more
about Becky G. I learned a lot. Keep listening. For
those who maybe are not as familiar with Becky G.
Becky came onto the scene on YouTube with her raps.
She was rapping, she was putting out content, and I
remember the first time I heard of Becky G was
when she came out with that song Becky from the
(01:59):
Block and it's her like wrap remake cover of Jenny
from the Block famously by j Loo, and the music
video it's a very young Becky G. She's a teenager
and she's in Inglewood, in her hometown and in her
family home and surrounded by friends and family, and it's
a very very la very Inglewood video. And that's when
(02:22):
I first heard of Becky G. And now she's an
international pop star with a huge appeal and a big audience,
and she's touring and she's come out with this documentary
and I really grew to love her watching the film
in a way that I wasn't expecting walking in.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, I've been such a big fan of Becky G
for I would say the last five years. I remember
when early on in the podcast her song we were all
single at the time, and I think it was called
Mela oh Yeah, and that was such an anthem for
me for a while. It didn't last long. I didn't
(03:01):
stay single long, but that was definitely one of the
first songs that I heard from her, maybe seven years ago.
And then a couple of years ago she released her
album Esquinas Yes, and that was her first Mexican regional album.
I listened to that album start to finish, first song
to last song religiously. I did not grow up listening
(03:24):
to Mexican regional music, and it's not something I really
dive into even now as an adult, but that album,
it was I had this moment was like, oh my god,
it's Becky G. That's bringing me in to the genre. Wow,
it's been very male dominated right that. Yes, there are
women now, but I was like, Wow, it's a first
(03:44):
gen girl from La a Chicana that's bringing me into
the genre. And I think that speaks to the popularity
and why her fans feel so connected to her is
that she is creating music from a sense of pride
for her culture, her community, her roots, but doing it
(04:04):
in her way because she is first Jen and she
is from la and so there's so much of that overlap,
which I think is why she's a fan favorite. She's
a local girl for us, and she's I think really
special and really talented.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
And that really I think was evident in the theater
because that audience. Every time she would shout out Inglewood,
people would clap, they would cheer, like people know her
story and where she comes from and are really proud
that she's repping the way that she is and she's
on the big screen and she's touring, and I think
(04:40):
it's really telling. Also the way her take on Mexican
regional music maybe was met with some criticism, and she
talks about this in the documentary that people sort of
were calling her fake or that she was only starting
to sing in Spanish or embrace her Mexican hair because
(05:00):
it was convenient to her, And she walks walks us
through that experience of seeing the negative comments online and
hearing the criticism and the whole you know, the accusation
of like not being Mexican enough, and she talks about
how Eskeina's is a commentary on that phenomenon exactly, and
(05:23):
what she says in the doc is that Esquinas is
all about celebrating both sides of the street that raised her.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
She very much identifies as a two hundred percenter, which
I think is really interesting and I can definitely see
why that is so resonant with a lot of first
gen or even second gen of being one percent Mexican
or Latino, Latina, Latine and then being one hundred percent American.
(05:52):
I love that she embraces it in this way because
that is the experience for so many people where you're
not picking one, and there's this idea of being like,
you know, like we quantify our identity, Oh, I'm fifty
percent this, I'm fifty percent that right, and her very
standing on like, no, I'm both. And I think that
(06:13):
is also another reason why people identify with her so
so fiercely.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Oh yeah. So much of the concert footage had included
images of her fans holding up signs that said two
hundred percent soyveaki e vea yah. And I think that
she backed that up by showing so much like archival
family home videos from her time in Jalisco. She spent
(06:37):
a lot of time in Mexico growing up. It looked
like at her grandfather's house, and it seems like it
was there in Mexico where she was really tapping into
her Mexican heritage, into her relationship with her grandfather. That
was a very prominent character in the documentary was her
grandfather who has passed and how she dealt with the
(06:58):
passing of her grandfather. But her time in Mexico was
also definitely it looked like part of what launched her
singing because she was singing in front of her family
at family gatherings Injalisco. And so you can see that
in spite of this criticism that she's being like an
opportunist singing in Spanish, well, singing in Spanish in Mexico
(07:21):
has been a part of her life since she was
a little girl. It's very true to her and so
I really appreciate that she put out the work in
this way to also lay it out there for everyone
like this is who she is, this is where she's from.
It's not about writing a wave or cashing in or
singing in Spanish because it's convenient. It's actually her origins
(07:45):
and where she comes from.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And I think there's this reality for US Latino performing
artist where in some ways the music industry doesn't know
what to do with you because you're Latino and you're
not doing quote Latin music.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
And I think what's interesting too is she started rapping
right like that. That's kind of how she popped out
on the scene. And then in the documentary, her mom
identifies her first big hit, her first smash hit, as Shower,
which is a pop song. It's a straight up English
American top forty pop song. And then eventually she comes
(08:22):
out with Esquinas. And I think the automatic instinct to
say like, oh, you're just genre hopping is so narrow minded,
where instead we can say like, wow, what range that
a singer, songwriter, vocalist can rap and singcr ridos Mexican
regional in Spanish and can do top forty pop Like
(08:45):
that's range.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It is range. It is range. And I think what
I love about also the documentary, and you already mentioned,
is the archival footage and it just reminds me again
continuously from the Selena documentary now to the beckyg documentary.
How important archival footage is. The current life that you're
(09:09):
living will be archival footage years from now. And to
know that that really informed this story and her story
and how it informed the documentary, I think is so incredible.
And not only that, but also hearing from her family firsthand,
from her mother, her siblings, eventually her father, which is
(09:30):
I think a whole piece that I definitely did not
know anything about.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Oh my god, I mean, gut wrenching, really really painful
family history in a lot of ways that Becky G
lived through a while becoming Becky G while launching her
own career, and her mother Alex total.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Battie gorgeous, stunning.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Beautiful lady. And Becky is the oldest of of four siblings,
and she's part of this big family and they all
seem to just be very tight and they like really
support her. And it's clear that she was always like
the little girl who was singing. She was the singing
little girl in the family and at school, she was
getting up at the pep rallies and the talent shows,
(10:19):
and she was the girl who would sing and she
just always had that passion and that flare and that fire,
and she loved to perform, and it's incredible that so
much of it is on video. Yeah, it's really awesome.
And I think that like if you are that person.
I know sometimes i'm that person who's like always filming
(10:41):
in the moment, it's like annoying, like, oh, you're always filming,
But like you said, years later, it's oh, my god,
so so happy that we have that, that those moments
that we can now treasure them because we documented them.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, and you know, not to get too tangential and existential,
but there's this notion that we're always online, we're always documenting.
We as in the current society that is online and
creating content. But if we think back on our families
and our family parties, the VHS camera yeah was everywhere.
(11:17):
You know that documenting is not something new, and there's
now we look down on it in some ways because
I think it's so accessible, like go, put your phone down,
be in the moment. But when I look back and
I think back on family parties and growing up and
seeing all the pictures, there was always someone with a
video cam, a cam quarterer, you know, yes, the big
(11:39):
old cam quarters.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, my grandpa had a huge one that you brought
out for every holiday.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And that was just part of it. And no one
was making a fuss about it. Nobody was saying be present.
Maybe you didn't want to be recorded, but it would
definitely wasn't looked down upon. And so watching the documentary
gave me that perspective. Of course, after watching Selena's documentary
a couple of weeks ago and the our couple footage
being used there, it just is making me reframe the
(12:04):
way we think about documenting and the way we being
resistant to that to looking down on it. You're not
being present, You're documenting everything. Stop recording. Actually no, I'm
gonna keep doing it.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Keep doing it. And it's not only the good, happy,
fun times that were recorded. Because I was so I
don't know even the word to use, not impressed, not shocked,
but I was just really kind of an awe of
how much of like her father's addiction was captured on
(12:37):
like old home videos. And this is something that was
a big through line in the documentary was her father
and his struggles with alcoholism, with hard, hard, hard drugs
that only got harder actually as Becky got older, and
(12:59):
some of that some of those memories of him being
drunk and him being out of his mind, or him
being just unable to be fully present. They had captured
on camera and played it back in the documentary, which
was also very wild to see that they had so
much of it. And then we meet her dad, who
(13:20):
I think now is like in Recovery, but Becky talks
about basically becoming the breadwinner for the family at a
young age as her career was taking off and she
was gigging and becoming a star, and how her support
of the family eventually had to be modified so that
she wasn't paying for her dad's life anymore, but only
(13:42):
paying for his treatment, and then they eventually had to
stage like an intervention and cut him off and became
basically estranged from their father, which you can see in
the documentary impacted her greatly.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I thought it was a really beautiful narrative that were
able to respectfully craft. The narrative itself is not beautiful.
I should restate that that they were able to capture
this really complex, nuanced reality that her father was living
through and by way they were all experiencing, and they
(14:16):
were able to tell this story without villainizing him, without
it was very much he was struggling. This is how
it affected him, this is how it affected us, and
this is what it looks like now. And so I
thought it was a very respectful way of talking about
substance abuse and how it can really impact a family.
(14:41):
And I thought that that journey was a really powerful
thing and a very vulnerable thing for them to all
put out there.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, and her mom, Becky's mom, Alex, talks about how
her husband's addiction was substances and her addiction was to him,
and how the marriage lasted for twenty five years, but
eventually she had to choose the family and the kids
(15:12):
and being a mother over the relationship with the father
of her children and her husband, and that was very
powerful as well. And so the documentary also started to
veer into the concept of not only addiction and mental health,
but love and relationships and going from the relationship between
(15:33):
Becky's parents and Becky says in the documentary, like the
first heartbreak that she experienced was from her father through
the eyes of her mother, and because of his addiction,
Mom chose the kids and the family, and in a way,
he chose his addiction. And so then you have a
moment where Becky's mom says that she doesn't expect perfection
(15:56):
from her kids, and she also doesn't expect perfect from
the people who love her kids. So now enters Sebastian,
Becky's long term partner, and the audience booze right away,
I mean immediately when Sebastian comes onto the screen.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Don't go anywhere, look amotives. We'll be right back, yeah,
I mean. And in case you haven't been following this polemika,
basically between Becky G and her fiance, we don't actually
know if they're still engaged or if they're even still together,
(16:35):
but definitely the documentary implies that they are working on
things that it's really hard to work through something in
your private life when you are a public person, and
they're both public. He's an athlete, he is soccer player,
(16:56):
and they had a very very public relationship. They were
adorable together. They shared their engagement online and then there
were rumors of him cheating and he released a statement
and apology. This was a couple of years ago, and
Becky G's approach was actually not to release a statement
(17:17):
and actually not to say anything. As we know, being
a woman is really challenging.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yes, period, Yes, point blank.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
And no matter the decision you make, there's going to
be someone that has something to say about it. And
especially if you're online, especially if you're in the public.
If she stayed with him, there was negative feelings. If
she didn't, there were also negative feelings about it. And
you know, I don't really have an opinion on that,
(17:47):
and I don't I think that we should all touch
grass when it comes to that. But how many of
our homegirls are mothers Arthias or primas have stayed you
know many and it is not an indication, it's not
a character flaw of our moms, ur pritty Masardias and
(18:08):
in this case, potentially Becky. We don't know. I think
she says a lot without saying too much in the documentary.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And in the documentary they display some of the comments, yeah,
that people were posting with regards to the cheating scandal
and Sebastian, and she talks about how there were people
who claimed that Becky didn't know her own worth or
her value because she stayed with him after the revelation
(18:39):
that he cheated after he had proposed to her. And
I think that was like a big part of it too,
is he proposed to her. It's interesting too that like
folks would then take that, which is so tragic for
someone if you've if you've just been proposed to, and
now cheating has taken place. I mean, what a mind fuck,
(19:00):
what a whirlwind. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, But
to then turn it around and somehow make it about
Becky not loving herself enough is really horrible and unfair.
And relationships are very very complicated, and it sounds like
Becky has been with Sebastian since she was like nineteen,
like her whole adulthood. So I can see how it
(19:23):
would be very difficult, especially as someone who is in
the place that she's in her career and she's touring
and she is a public figure. It's probably very scary
to think about letting go of that relationship that she
grew up.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
In, and it probably I can imagine that relationship feeling
very grounding to her, and that also being part of
maybe why would potentially be hard to let go of
then dating now you are who you are, yes, I
mean at this point I would imagine you would have
to date another celebt, celeb artist.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Pop star, yeah, or like a Joe Schmoes with an
office job. Yes, there's only two options, which is great,
which is honestly amazing, which is fabulous.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Yeah, maybe maybe try, maybe, maybe try, maybe try.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I think that definitely with the relationship, with the release
of her album, she definitely shows us what it's like
to be a public figure, an artist and be online
because she is. Also, it appears in the documentary that
she is still someone who posts for herself, who reads
(20:38):
her comments.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Oh yeah, she reads the comments.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
She sees. You know, there are celebs. I can imagine
Beyonce has a posting team and like that's it. They
post and she does not know anything, right, But Becky
Gee is definitely still reading the comments. She's like, twenty
eight you grew up online too, So she's definitely still online.
And so she shows us what it's like to be
on the receiving end of the comments. And it's not
(21:01):
a couple comments, it's thousands of comments. Also, it shows
us like, you never know if your comment is going
to end up in a documentary. It's true names were
blurred out, no names were actually shown, but the comment
is shown.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, your nasty little.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Comment could be in a documentary.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Could be a regal cinemas. It's true, and you can
see the frustration that Beggy feels. She says at one
point like, oh my god, I hate the Internet, like
get this away from me. I can't read any more
of this. But it also seems to fuel her and
it doesn't seem to stop her. And I think there's
something to that as well. And I think this piece
(21:41):
also about her age. You know, she talks about how
now she's in her late twenties, but when she entered
into her contract, she was very very young, and she
doesn't come at least in the documentary, it doesn't sound
like she comes from a performing arts family or like
a showbiz family, an industry family. She is like the first.
(22:03):
She is paving the way. And so that also means
I think that maybe she didn't have all of the rights,
support or protections when she started signing contracts and when
she entered into her current contract, because Becky said just
enough about her contract without saying too much, and her
(22:23):
main piece of advice was, if you want to do
this and you want to work in this industry, you
need to talk to an entertainment attorney, not your cousin's
neighbor's Prima's real estate attorney friend, like, who's doing it
as a favor? You need to talk to a real
attorney to help you review your contracts. And then she says,
(22:45):
what was industry standard then when I signed? Is not
industry standard now? So I think that she was dropping
some hints for us that maybe she's not getting paid
what she should be getting paid at this point. Maybe
she entered into a contract without the best legal advice,
and maybe that is now impacting her at this stage
of her career.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
And I think this goes back to the top of
the conversation and the top of the documentary the biggest
pop star You've never heard of? And this has been
my big question as someone who's followed Becky g her
music career for several years now, is why is she
not at the height of gottle G. Why is she
not at the height of Nati Natasha like the other
(23:27):
pop stars or artists in Latin music that have come
up kind of around the same time. Why is she
not reached that height because she's so talented. It's not
for lack of talent, it's not for lack of work, ethic,
lack of support, or drive, and it makes me question
if it is a label issue, if it's something in
(23:50):
her contract. We don't know, but it for me answered
that question that doubt of well, why hasn't she reached
the success of that her peers have. She's definitely in
that circle, we know that, but we see some of
her creative peers at different heights. I think also there's
this like, I want to root for the local girl.
(24:10):
Oh yeah, I want to root for the girl who's
still going to Randy's Donuts and who is hiring or
working with the middle school choir and taking them to
the oscars to perform with her. You know, That's what
I want to root for. And so for me, it
definitely brought that full circle of biggest pop store, you've
(24:31):
never heard of, my contract and industry standard is not
the same that it was then that it is now.
So to me, it was a really big circle in
that way. Don't go anywhere, Lokomotives.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
We'll be right back, and we're back with more of
our episode. Yeah. I really appreciate that it was a
very grounded documentary. I thought she was very realistic. I
thought that she really highlighted struggles to not only get
to where she is, but to go beyond where she is.
(25:06):
And this question I think that we hear so often
of like what happened to so and so? They were
a one hit wonder, they were so talented, why aren't
they bigger? Well, because it's it goes beyond the talent
of the artists. It's not enough, like you need a
machine behind you.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You need like sometimes you can have a machine and
they're still not working for you.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
For you, like you really have to have luck and
the right resources and the right contract and the right
forward momentum. And I think that Becky g like for her,
this guy's the limit. I think that the documentary also
highlights that she can really sing and she's she's working
with her vocal coach and doing her vocal.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Exercise training and training.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, and I think that when you hear her singing
that her voice sounds like it's a very poppy voice.
But yeah, she does have the perfect voice for pop music.
And I think it's just very natural. That's her tone.
That's just what she sounds like. And you hear her
singing like off the record but on camera, and that's
(26:12):
how she sounds. That is her voice and so I
think that she has a lot of range. I think
that she could do whatever she wants musically, Like she
can definitely genre bend. I love that she's leaning into
the Spanish language, and I think like sky's a limit
for her. So as long as she keeps pushing and
her fans continue to support and she's able to like
(26:34):
get out of whatever limited contract she's in, I think
that she can go really, really far.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
The documentary has a limited screening, so we were able
to watch it this past week. By the time y'all
are listening, and will not be in theaters. But my
hope is that it's going to get acquired or bought
by a streamer or released to more theaters so that
more people can see it because it is such a
beautiful documentary. And I think, regardless if you're in the industry,
(27:01):
her story just relates. It's universal. It's the hard working girl,
the hardworking young adult, the hardworking woman who is trying
to bring her family up with her who is still
grounded and connected to her family, to her culture, to
her roots. Take the pop star out of it, right,
(27:22):
Like that is a universal story. And it's a latinas story,
so many of us are the first in our family
to do something or thinking making decisions, career decisions based
on how it will affect the family. Will it benefit
the family good or bad?
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
That can definitely impact you. But I think that is
also why it's such a beautiful story and why we
felt it really deeply, because aside from the music and
the artistry of it, there is definitely the universal piece
of it where she's talking about her mental health and
the tools that she's had to developed of having a
father with substance abuse, her grandfather and the grief of
(28:01):
it and being bicultural. So definitely like so many beautiful
things that you could walk away with.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
So I really feel like this documentary is not just
a documentary about a pop star. This is a very
la story. I mean Englewood family, culture, grief, mental health work,
all of it shows up in a big way in
Beckyg's story.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
I've been saying this for years. I would love for
Beckyg to join us on Look at Radio.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Oh my god, yes please.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I'm putting that out there. I've been putting it out
there with our team for years now, but I'm putting
it out there to the listener. Would love, love, love
to have beckyg on to talk about one anything she wants,
two anything she wants, anything from the documentary. There's so
much she I'm definitely rooting for her, will continue to
(28:57):
root for her. And if you are able to still
catch the documentary maybe at a future date, definitely do.
And I've just been loving that we've been we've been
covering these documentaries these last couple of weeks, from the
Selena Losinos now to the Becky g documentary. Gottlege's documentary
(29:18):
came out over the summer. There's just documentaries are definitely
having a moment. And you told me that there's also
some industry insight to why that is.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Also documentary is booming, and I think Netflix with it's
it's venturing into documentary series and putting out documentaries episode
by episode with Tiger King and Chimp Crazy, and I
mean there's been a whole, a whole array of documentaries
(29:50):
and I mean it was what was that. Making a murderer?
Making a Murderer really put Netflix, I think, on the
map because I remember tuning in episode by ep and
it really set Netflix apart as a streaming platform. And
I think that there's some overlap between our interest in
vlogging and social media and following everyday people in their
(30:14):
lives on their channels online and reality TV and streaming
documentary series that are like overlapping. There's an overlap taking place,
So we want to watch a story on screen, but
we are less interested, I think, in things that are
fabricated and AI generated, and more interested in the raw
(30:37):
human experience. We want to see real people on our screens,
whether it's on our phones or on the big screen
in a theater. So I think that documentaries really having
a moment, a moment. I love that Latinas are showing
up in documentary and I hope to see more of it.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Our documentary next.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
The Lookout Thought documentary is next. We haven't talked about
a look at a documentary for years. Yes, and we
have our own archival footage. We have been documenting ourselves
on the mic on camera for a long time now.
We have tons of material and we are always like ideating, ideating,
ideating and putting it out there. So yes, maybe you'll
see a doc series about Latinas in podcasting one day soon.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
One day soon. All right, locomot is, thank you for
tuning in to another Capital Radio We'll catch you next time.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Bessitos lok Ata Radio is executive produced and hosted by
me Bosa and me Mala, also edited by me Viosa
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Logal Landi
If you had to name one artist who fits this description,
who would it be? The most famous pop star that
no one has ever heard of.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Well, when I heard that, I was shocked. I was
shocked to hear that someone said that about our girl, Becky.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
G, our girl, our hometown hero, La.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Girl born and raised. In Beckyg's documentary Rebecca, she opens
with this that someone said that about her, and I
think that it shows a really like humility.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah, because that's sort of a that's a blow. It's
a little nasty, but I don't think it's entirely inaccurate.
Becky G came up in Inglewood on YouTube at local
talent shows and contests. She became a pop star very
much of her own making, and with the help of
(00:58):
her family and her community and her collaborators, and her personality,
her passion, and her work ethic and all of her
years of climbing really shine through in her documentary. We
went to go see it. I loved it. I was crying.
I was weeping in the theater. And that's what we're
talking about today. On this episode of Lokatra is Rebecca,
(01:20):
the Becky G documentary.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The Latino girlies are having a moment in the documentary space,
and I'm so here for it, and I'm really excited
to talk more about what we learned about Becky and
her journey and who Rebecca is, because that's also the
heart of the documentary.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
So if you're interested and you want to know more
about Becky G. I learned a lot. Keep listening. For
those who maybe are not as familiar with Becky G.
Becky came onto the scene on YouTube with her raps.
She was rapping, she was putting out content, and I
remember the first time I heard of Becky G was
when she came out with that song Becky from the
(01:59):
Block and it's her like wrap remake cover of Jenny
from the Block famously by j Loo, and the music
video it's a very young Becky G. She's a teenager
and she's in Inglewood, in her hometown and in her
family home and surrounded by friends and family, and it's
a very very la very Inglewood video. And that's when
(02:22):
I first heard of Becky G. And now she's an
international pop star with a huge appeal and a big audience,
and she's touring and she's come out with this documentary
and I really grew to love her watching the film
in a way that I wasn't expecting walking in.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, I've been such a big fan of Becky G
for I would say the last five years. I remember
when early on in the podcast her song we were all
single at the time, and I think it was called
Mela oh Yeah, and that was such an anthem for
me for a while. It didn't last long. I didn't
(03:01):
stay single long, but that was definitely one of the
first songs that I heard from her, maybe seven years ago.
And then a couple of years ago she released her
album Esquinas Yes, and that was her first Mexican regional album.
I listened to that album start to finish, first song
to last song religiously. I did not grow up listening
(03:24):
to Mexican regional music, and it's not something I really
dive into even now as an adult, but that album,
it was I had this moment was like, oh my god,
it's Becky G. That's bringing me in to the genre. Wow,
it's been very male dominated right that. Yes, there are
women now, but I was like, Wow, it's a first
(03:44):
gen girl from La a Chicana that's bringing me into
the genre. And I think that speaks to the popularity
and why her fans feel so connected to her is
that she is creating music from a sense of pride
for her culture, her community, her roots, but doing it
(04:04):
in her way because she is first Jen and she
is from la and so there's so much of that overlap,
which I think is why she's a fan favorite. She's
a local girl for us, and she's I think really
special and really talented.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
And that really I think was evident in the theater
because that audience. Every time she would shout out Inglewood,
people would clap, they would cheer, like people know her
story and where she comes from and are really proud
that she's repping the way that she is and she's
on the big screen and she's touring, and I think
(04:40):
it's really telling. Also the way her take on Mexican
regional music maybe was met with some criticism, and she
talks about this in the documentary that people sort of
were calling her fake or that she was only starting
to sing in Spanish or embrace her Mexican hair because
(05:00):
it was convenient to her, And she walks walks us
through that experience of seeing the negative comments online and
hearing the criticism and the whole you know, the accusation
of like not being Mexican enough, and she talks about
how Eskeina's is a commentary on that phenomenon exactly, and
(05:23):
what she says in the doc is that Esquinas is
all about celebrating both sides of the street that raised her.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
She very much identifies as a two hundred percenter, which
I think is really interesting and I can definitely see
why that is so resonant with a lot of first
gen or even second gen of being one percent Mexican
or Latino, Latina, Latine and then being one hundred percent American.
(05:52):
I love that she embraces it in this way because
that is the experience for so many people where you're
not picking one, and there's this idea of being like,
you know, like we quantify our identity, Oh, I'm fifty
percent this, I'm fifty percent that right, and her very
standing on like, no, I'm both. And I think that
(06:13):
is also another reason why people identify with her so
so fiercely.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Oh yeah. So much of the concert footage had included
images of her fans holding up signs that said two
hundred percent soyveaki e vea yah. And I think that
she backed that up by showing so much like archival
family home videos from her time in Jalisco. She spent
(06:37):
a lot of time in Mexico growing up. It looked
like at her grandfather's house, and it seems like it
was there in Mexico where she was really tapping into
her Mexican heritage, into her relationship with her grandfather. That
was a very prominent character in the documentary was her
grandfather who has passed and how she dealt with the
(06:58):
passing of her grandfather. But her time in Mexico was
also definitely it looked like part of what launched her
singing because she was singing in front of her family
at family gatherings Injalisco. And so you can see that
in spite of this criticism that she's being like an
opportunist singing in Spanish, well, singing in Spanish in Mexico
(07:21):
has been a part of her life since she was
a little girl. It's very true to her and so
I really appreciate that she put out the work in
this way to also lay it out there for everyone
like this is who she is, this is where she's from.
It's not about writing a wave or cashing in or
singing in Spanish because it's convenient. It's actually her origins
(07:45):
and where she comes from.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And I think there's this reality for US Latino performing
artist where in some ways the music industry doesn't know
what to do with you because you're Latino and you're
not doing quote Latin music.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
And I think what's interesting too is she started rapping
right like that. That's kind of how she popped out
on the scene. And then in the documentary, her mom
identifies her first big hit, her first smash hit, as Shower,
which is a pop song. It's a straight up English
American top forty pop song. And then eventually she comes
(08:22):
out with Esquinas. And I think the automatic instinct to
say like, oh, you're just genre hopping is so narrow minded,
where instead we can say like, wow, what range that
a singer, songwriter, vocalist can rap and singcr ridos Mexican
regional in Spanish and can do top forty pop Like
(08:45):
that's range.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It is range. It is range. And I think what
I love about also the documentary, and you already mentioned,
is the archival footage and it just reminds me again
continuously from the Selena documentary now to the beckyg documentary.
How important archival footage is. The current life that you're
(09:09):
living will be archival footage years from now. And to
know that that really informed this story and her story
and how it informed the documentary, I think is so incredible.
And not only that, but also hearing from her family firsthand,
from her mother, her siblings, eventually her father, which is
(09:30):
I think a whole piece that I definitely did not
know anything about.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Oh my god, I mean, gut wrenching, really really painful
family history in a lot of ways that Becky G
lived through a while becoming Becky G while launching her
own career, and her mother Alex total.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Battie gorgeous, stunning.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Beautiful lady. And Becky is the oldest of of four siblings,
and she's part of this big family and they all
seem to just be very tight and they like really
support her. And it's clear that she was always like
the little girl who was singing. She was the singing
little girl in the family and at school, she was
getting up at the pep rallies and the talent shows,
(10:19):
and she was the girl who would sing and she
just always had that passion and that flare and that fire,
and she loved to perform, and it's incredible that so
much of it is on video. Yeah, it's really awesome.
And I think that like if you are that person.
I know sometimes i'm that person who's like always filming
(10:41):
in the moment, it's like annoying, like, oh, you're always filming,
But like you said, years later, it's oh, my god,
so so happy that we have that, that those moments
that we can now treasure them because we documented them.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, and you know, not to get too tangential and existential,
but there's this notion that we're always online, we're always documenting.
We as in the current society that is online and
creating content. But if we think back on our families
and our family parties, the VHS camera yeah was everywhere.
(11:17):
You know that documenting is not something new, and there's
now we look down on it in some ways because
I think it's so accessible, like go, put your phone down,
be in the moment. But when I look back and
I think back on family parties and growing up and
seeing all the pictures, there was always someone with a
video cam, a cam quarterer, you know, yes, the big
(11:39):
old cam quarters.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, my grandpa had a huge one that you brought
out for every holiday.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And that was just part of it. And no one
was making a fuss about it. Nobody was saying be present.
Maybe you didn't want to be recorded, but it would
definitely wasn't looked down upon. And so watching the documentary
gave me that perspective. Of course, after watching Selena's documentary
a couple of weeks ago and the our couple footage
being used there, it just is making me reframe the
(12:04):
way we think about documenting and the way we being
resistant to that to looking down on it. You're not
being present, You're documenting everything. Stop recording. Actually no, I'm
gonna keep doing it.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Keep doing it. And it's not only the good, happy,
fun times that were recorded. Because I was so I
don't know even the word to use, not impressed, not shocked,
but I was just really kind of an awe of
how much of like her father's addiction was captured on
(12:37):
like old home videos. And this is something that was
a big through line in the documentary was her father
and his struggles with alcoholism, with hard, hard, hard drugs
that only got harder actually as Becky got older, and
(12:59):
some of that some of those memories of him being
drunk and him being out of his mind, or him
being just unable to be fully present. They had captured
on camera and played it back in the documentary, which
was also very wild to see that they had so
much of it. And then we meet her dad, who
(13:20):
I think now is like in Recovery, but Becky talks
about basically becoming the breadwinner for the family at a
young age as her career was taking off and she
was gigging and becoming a star, and how her support
of the family eventually had to be modified so that
she wasn't paying for her dad's life anymore, but only
(13:42):
paying for his treatment, and then they eventually had to
stage like an intervention and cut him off and became
basically estranged from their father, which you can see in
the documentary impacted her greatly.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I thought it was a really beautiful narrative that were
able to respectfully craft. The narrative itself is not beautiful.
I should restate that that they were able to capture
this really complex, nuanced reality that her father was living
through and by way they were all experiencing, and they
(14:16):
were able to tell this story without villainizing him, without
it was very much he was struggling. This is how
it affected him, this is how it affected us, and
this is what it looks like now. And so I
thought it was a very respectful way of talking about
substance abuse and how it can really impact a family.
(14:41):
And I thought that that journey was a really powerful
thing and a very vulnerable thing for them to all
put out there.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, and her mom, Becky's mom, Alex, talks about how
her husband's addiction was substances and her addiction was to him,
and how the marriage lasted for twenty five years, but
eventually she had to choose the family and the kids
(15:12):
and being a mother over the relationship with the father
of her children and her husband, and that was very
powerful as well. And so the documentary also started to
veer into the concept of not only addiction and mental health,
but love and relationships and going from the relationship between
(15:33):
Becky's parents and Becky says in the documentary, like the
first heartbreak that she experienced was from her father through
the eyes of her mother, and because of his addiction,
Mom chose the kids and the family, and in a way,
he chose his addiction. And so then you have a
moment where Becky's mom says that she doesn't expect perfection
(15:56):
from her kids, and she also doesn't expect perfect from
the people who love her kids. So now enters Sebastian,
Becky's long term partner, and the audience booze right away,
I mean immediately when Sebastian comes onto the screen.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Don't go anywhere, look amotives. We'll be right back, yeah,
I mean. And in case you haven't been following this polemika,
basically between Becky G and her fiance, we don't actually
know if they're still engaged or if they're even still together,
(16:35):
but definitely the documentary implies that they are working on
things that it's really hard to work through something in
your private life when you are a public person, and
they're both public. He's an athlete, he is soccer player,
(16:56):
and they had a very very public relationship. They were
adorable together. They shared their engagement online and then there
were rumors of him cheating and he released a statement
and apology. This was a couple of years ago, and
Becky G's approach was actually not to release a statement
(17:17):
and actually not to say anything. As we know, being
a woman is really challenging.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yes, period, Yes, point blank.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
And no matter the decision you make, there's going to
be someone that has something to say about it. And
especially if you're online, especially if you're in the public.
If she stayed with him, there was negative feelings. If
she didn't, there were also negative feelings about it. And
you know, I don't really have an opinion on that,
(17:47):
and I don't I think that we should all touch
grass when it comes to that. But how many of
our homegirls are mothers Arthias or primas have stayed you
know many and it is not an indication, it's not
a character flaw of our moms, ur pritty Masardias and
(18:08):
in this case, potentially Becky. We don't know. I think
she says a lot without saying too much in the documentary.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And in the documentary they display some of the comments, yeah,
that people were posting with regards to the cheating scandal
and Sebastian, and she talks about how there were people
who claimed that Becky didn't know her own worth or
her value because she stayed with him after the revelation
(18:39):
that he cheated after he had proposed to her. And
I think that was like a big part of it too,
is he proposed to her. It's interesting too that like
folks would then take that, which is so tragic for
someone if you've if you've just been proposed to, and
now cheating has taken place. I mean, what a mind fuck,
(19:00):
what a whirlwind. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, But
to then turn it around and somehow make it about
Becky not loving herself enough is really horrible and unfair.
And relationships are very very complicated, and it sounds like
Becky has been with Sebastian since she was like nineteen,
like her whole adulthood. So I can see how it
(19:23):
would be very difficult, especially as someone who is in
the place that she's in her career and she's touring
and she is a public figure. It's probably very scary
to think about letting go of that relationship that she
grew up.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
In, and it probably I can imagine that relationship feeling
very grounding to her, and that also being part of
maybe why would potentially be hard to let go of
then dating now you are who you are, yes, I
mean at this point I would imagine you would have
to date another celebt, celeb artist.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Pop star, yeah, or like a Joe Schmoes with an
office job. Yes, there's only two options, which is great,
which is honestly amazing, which is fabulous.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Yeah, maybe maybe try, maybe, maybe try, maybe try.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I think that definitely with the relationship, with the release
of her album, she definitely shows us what it's like
to be a public figure, an artist and be online
because she is. Also, it appears in the documentary that
she is still someone who posts for herself, who reads
(20:38):
her comments.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Oh yeah, she reads the comments.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
She sees. You know, there are celebs. I can imagine
Beyonce has a posting team and like that's it. They
post and she does not know anything, right, But Becky
Gee is definitely still reading the comments. She's like, twenty
eight you grew up online too, So she's definitely still online.
And so she shows us what it's like to be
on the receiving end of the comments. And it's not
(21:01):
a couple comments, it's thousands of comments. Also, it shows
us like, you never know if your comment is going
to end up in a documentary. It's true names were
blurred out, no names were actually shown, but the comment
is shown.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, your nasty little.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Comment could be in a documentary.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Could be a regal cinemas. It's true, and you can
see the frustration that Beggy feels. She says at one
point like, oh my god, I hate the Internet, like
get this away from me. I can't read any more
of this. But it also seems to fuel her and
it doesn't seem to stop her. And I think there's
something to that as well. And I think this piece
(21:41):
also about her age. You know, she talks about how
now she's in her late twenties, but when she entered
into her contract, she was very very young, and she
doesn't come at least in the documentary, it doesn't sound
like she comes from a performing arts family or like
a showbiz family, an industry family. She is like the first.
(22:03):
She is paving the way. And so that also means
I think that maybe she didn't have all of the rights,
support or protections when she started signing contracts and when
she entered into her current contract, because Becky said just
enough about her contract without saying too much, and her
(22:23):
main piece of advice was, if you want to do
this and you want to work in this industry, you
need to talk to an entertainment attorney, not your cousin's
neighbor's Prima's real estate attorney friend, like, who's doing it
as a favor? You need to talk to a real
attorney to help you review your contracts. And then she says,
(22:45):
what was industry standard then when I signed? Is not
industry standard now? So I think that she was dropping
some hints for us that maybe she's not getting paid
what she should be getting paid at this point. Maybe
she entered into a contract without the best legal advice,
and maybe that is now impacting her at this stage
of her career.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
And I think this goes back to the top of
the conversation and the top of the documentary the biggest
pop star You've never heard of? And this has been
my big question as someone who's followed Becky g her
music career for several years now, is why is she
not at the height of gottle G. Why is she
not at the height of Nati Natasha like the other
(23:27):
pop stars or artists in Latin music that have come
up kind of around the same time. Why is she
not reached that height because she's so talented. It's not
for lack of talent, it's not for lack of work, ethic,
lack of support, or drive, and it makes me question
if it is a label issue, if it's something in
(23:50):
her contract. We don't know, but it for me answered
that question that doubt of well, why hasn't she reached
the success of that her peers have. She's definitely in
that circle, we know that, but we see some of
her creative peers at different heights. I think also there's
this like, I want to root for the local girl.
(24:10):
Oh yeah, I want to root for the girl who's
still going to Randy's Donuts and who is hiring or
working with the middle school choir and taking them to
the oscars to perform with her. You know, That's what
I want to root for. And so for me, it
definitely brought that full circle of biggest pop store, you've
(24:31):
never heard of, my contract and industry standard is not
the same that it was then that it is now.
So to me, it was a really big circle in
that way. Don't go anywhere, Lokomotives.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
We'll be right back, and we're back with more of
our episode. Yeah. I really appreciate that it was a
very grounded documentary. I thought she was very realistic. I
thought that she really highlighted struggles to not only get
to where she is, but to go beyond where she is.
(25:06):
And this question I think that we hear so often
of like what happened to so and so? They were
a one hit wonder, they were so talented, why aren't
they bigger? Well, because it's it goes beyond the talent
of the artists. It's not enough, like you need a
machine behind you.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You need like sometimes you can have a machine and
they're still not working for you.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
For you, like you really have to have luck and
the right resources and the right contract and the right
forward momentum. And I think that Becky g like for her,
this guy's the limit. I think that the documentary also
highlights that she can really sing and she's she's working
with her vocal coach and doing her vocal.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Exercise training and training.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, and I think that when you hear her singing
that her voice sounds like it's a very poppy voice.
But yeah, she does have the perfect voice for pop music.
And I think it's just very natural. That's her tone.
That's just what she sounds like. And you hear her
singing like off the record but on camera, and that's
(26:12):
how she sounds. That is her voice and so I
think that she has a lot of range. I think
that she could do whatever she wants musically, Like she
can definitely genre bend. I love that she's leaning into
the Spanish language, and I think like sky's a limit
for her. So as long as she keeps pushing and
her fans continue to support and she's able to like
(26:34):
get out of whatever limited contract she's in, I think
that she can go really, really far.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
The documentary has a limited screening, so we were able
to watch it this past week. By the time y'all
are listening, and will not be in theaters. But my
hope is that it's going to get acquired or bought
by a streamer or released to more theaters so that
more people can see it because it is such a
beautiful documentary. And I think, regardless if you're in the industry,
(27:01):
her story just relates. It's universal. It's the hard working girl,
the hardworking young adult, the hardworking woman who is trying
to bring her family up with her who is still
grounded and connected to her family, to her culture, to
her roots. Take the pop star out of it, right,
(27:22):
Like that is a universal story. And it's a latinas story,
so many of us are the first in our family
to do something or thinking making decisions, career decisions based
on how it will affect the family. Will it benefit
the family good or bad?
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:38):
That can definitely impact you. But I think that is
also why it's such a beautiful story and why we
felt it really deeply, because aside from the music and
the artistry of it, there is definitely the universal piece
of it where she's talking about her mental health and
the tools that she's had to developed of having a
father with substance abuse, her grandfather and the grief of
(28:01):
it and being bicultural. So definitely like so many beautiful
things that you could walk away with.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
So I really feel like this documentary is not just
a documentary about a pop star. This is a very
la story. I mean Englewood family, culture, grief, mental health work,
all of it shows up in a big way in
Beckyg's story.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
I've been saying this for years. I would love for
Beckyg to join us on Look at Radio.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Oh my god, yes please.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I'm putting that out there. I've been putting it out
there with our team for years now, but I'm putting
it out there to the listener. Would love, love, love
to have beckyg on to talk about one anything she wants,
two anything she wants, anything from the documentary. There's so
much she I'm definitely rooting for her, will continue to
(28:57):
root for her. And if you are able to still
catch the documentary maybe at a future date, definitely do.
And I've just been loving that we've been we've been
covering these documentaries these last couple of weeks, from the
Selena Losinos now to the Becky g documentary. Gottlege's documentary
(29:18):
came out over the summer. There's just documentaries are definitely
having a moment. And you told me that there's also
some industry insight to why that is.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Also documentary is booming, and I think Netflix with it's
it's venturing into documentary series and putting out documentaries episode
by episode with Tiger King and Chimp Crazy, and I
mean there's been a whole, a whole array of documentaries
(29:50):
and I mean it was what was that. Making a murderer?
Making a Murderer really put Netflix, I think, on the
map because I remember tuning in episode by ep and
it really set Netflix apart as a streaming platform. And
I think that there's some overlap between our interest in
vlogging and social media and following everyday people in their
(30:14):
lives on their channels online and reality TV and streaming
documentary series that are like overlapping. There's an overlap taking place,
So we want to watch a story on screen, but
we are less interested, I think, in things that are
fabricated and AI generated, and more interested in the raw
(30:37):
human experience. We want to see real people on our screens,
whether it's on our phones or on the big screen
in a theater. So I think that documentaries really having
a moment, a moment. I love that Latinas are showing
up in documentary and I hope to see more of it.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Our documentary next.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
The Lookout Thought documentary is next. We haven't talked about
a look at a documentary for years. Yes, and we
have our own archival footage. We have been documenting ourselves
on the mic on camera for a long time now.
We have tons of material and we are always like ideating, ideating,
ideating and putting it out there. So yes, maybe you'll
see a doc series about Latinas in podcasting one day soon.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
One day soon. All right, locomot is, thank you for
tuning in to another Capital Radio We'll catch you next time.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Bessitos lok Ata Radio is executive produced and hosted by
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