Amandititita

Amandititita, whose complete name is Amanda Lalena Escalante Pimentel, performs as a Latin pop vocalist devoted to cumbia and descends from pioneering Mexican rocker Rodrigo Gonzalez. After the passing of her iconic father, she relocated with her family from Tampico to Mexico City. At fourteen she took up writing, eventually joining the Sociedad de Escritores de Mexico and enrolling in assorted courses and workshops. Her experiments spanned poetry, short stories, magic realism, and finally theater, yet an episode of writer’s block prompted her to experiment with songwriting instead. A short period performing with the all-girl group Mi Grupo Favorito preceded a stretch of uncertainty about her direction, during which she accepted a position at an advertising agency that supplied both rent money and the means to commission instrumental tracks for her lyrics—a quirky, sardonic blend of storytelling, humor, and sociological commentary. Numerous songs from those sessions appeared on her national debut album, Amandititita, which reached Sony-BMG executives following repeated attempts. In 2008 the self-titled record established the idiosyncratic newcomer as the self-proclaimed queen of “anarcumbia,” or anarchic cumbia, a style merging cumbia, rock, and pop that produced the regional Mexican hit “La Muy Muy.”