Yolanda Pérez is an American singer who specializes in banda music

Banda music

Banda is a brass-based form of traditional music. Bandas play a wide variety of songs, including rancheras, corridos, cumbias, baladas, and boleros. Bandas are most widely known for their rancheras, but they also play modern Mexican pop, rock, and cumbias...

. She is sometimes known by the stage name "La Potranquita", (Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

: "little filly

Filly

A filly is a young female horse too young to be called a mare. There are several specific definitions in use.*In most cases filly is a female horse under the age of four years old....

"), a name taken by her father from his home city of Zacatecas

Zacatecas

Zacatecas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Zacatecas is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is Zacatecas....

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.

Perez was born in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Her family later moved to Montclair, California. She graduated from Montclair High School in 2001. When she was 11 years old, Perez won a music contest held in the Los Angeles-area Lynwood

Lynwood, California

Lynwood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States of America. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 69,772, down from 69,845 at the 2000 census. Lynwood is located near South Gate and Compton in the southern portion of the Los Angeles Basin. Incorporated in...

. As part of the prize package, she recorded an album that launched her musical career . She has since recorded several more albums. Her career was especially enhanced when she signed with the Fonovisa label, part of the Univision

Univision

Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...

 Music Group.

Perez followed in the footsteps of her father and grandparents who were also exponents of banda music. Her minor-label albums exhibited all the traditional characteristics of banda, but from Déjenme Llorar (2003) onwards she has combined the banda sound with modern elements such as rap

Rapping

Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...

 as well as introducing set-piece dialogues into some tracks. Her music also shows other influences from hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 and R&B

Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 artists - this has led her to include Spanglish

Spanglish

.Spanglish refers to the blend of Spanish and English, in the speech of people who speak parts of two languages, or whose normal language is different from that of the country where they live. The Hispanic population of the United States and the British population in Argentina use varieties of...

 phrasing in some lyrics, such as in the duet Estoy Enamorada with Don Cheto

Don Cheto

İDon Cheto, known as "el hombre del vozarrón", is a Mexican entertainer and musician.He was born on September 21, 1962 in La Sauceda, Michoacan, Mexico....

. Perez therefore, while continuing to exemplify traditional banda, has placed her own stamp and interpretation on this genre.

Perez has also performed public service announcements and has been involved with other charitable work. In 2006 she volunteered to help with the "Got Milk" campaign, explaining that Latin American women tend to worry about outer beauty but need to also focus on their diet.

Discography

• Exitos: La Basurita / Cuentas Claras
• Con la Banda Costa Grande
• La Potranquita de Zacatecas (Kimo's Music, 2001)
• Dejenme Llorar (Fonovisa Records, 2003)
• La Potranquita Con Banda (Kimo's Music, 2004)
• Aquí Me Tienes (Fonovisa Records, 2004)
• Esto Es Amor (Fonovisa Records, 2005)
• Te Sigo Amando (Fonovisa Records, 2007)
• Todo De Mi (2008)