Latin pop singer Julissa has earned widespread recognition as a contemporary Christian music artist among Spanish-speaking audiences, above all across the United States. She entered the world in Chicago to parents of Puerto Rican descent and launched her professional singing career at sixteen by joining the ensemble Generación Escogida, an affiliation that first brought her into contact with producer Mike Rivera. Rivera would serve for years as her producer and musical director before becoming her husband, and under that partnership Julissa stepped out on a solo path whose first release was the 1999 album Regresará por Mí. The records that followed comprise Nació en Mí Corazón (1999), En las Alas del Amor (2000), Admisión General (2002), Corazón Latino (2003), Duetos (2004), Desde el Principo (2005), Mi Propósito (2005), Inolvidable (2006), and El Ritmo de la Vida (2007). When El Ritmo de la Vida appeared, it was issued alongside a book bearing the identical title. By then Julissa had risen to genuine stardom inside the Spanish-speaking Christian world, even hosting her own weekly program on the Gospel Music Channel titled Espíritu Latino. Further honors arrived in the form of Dove Award nominations from the Gospel Music Association for Best Spanish Album, one for Mi Propósito in 2006 and another for El Ritmo de la Vida in 2008.
