Monday, February 3, 2020

100% Authentic - The ultimate mash-up #MariachiEntertainmentSystem

On Friday (1/31) one of my Facebook friends shared this video:

A cover of Take On Me done by Mariachi Entertainment System.  I played it for everyone.  I reposted it.  I tweeted about it.  I love it.

As I was singing at the top of my lungs along with Baby Lala and DH, I was thinking what exactly is it about this that I love so much? 

We are about 8 days out from the news of Kobe Bryant's death.  It felt sad.  While I was never a massive Kobe fan, I'm simply not a fan of the NBA, the news that one of his children passed with him hit me hard.  I could not help but to feel or image the pain of his widow.  Not only losing your husband but losing your child; how do you survive?   So sad; then Friday, this ray of happiness hit by FB feed. 

Still, that isn't the only thing about it that I love.  Yes you can see Mariachi Entertainment System (MES) is having fun and in general, the song is fun but it is the mash-up of cultures that warms my soul.  Growing up in a very Mexican house in the deep East Texas woods, I felt like I didn't belong to either side.  This song is the blending of my sides. 

MES didn't change it into something unrecognizable.  They just did it in their personal style.  So often people make covers that sound exactly like the original (so what's the point?) or they try to create a whole new beast unrecognizable to people who loved the original.  This is 100% authentic to everything. 

Being the mom to 2 Blaxican girls, we try to tell them to be authentic to themselves.  GymGirl and Baby Lala are both Black and Mexican not half of anything but 100% themselves and this song feels like the embodiment of that idea.  I can't make the world see the girls as whole in both Black and Mexican; the world sees them as half or will once the girls tell people they are both.