Latin Pop Star Becky G Loves a Beat Face, Sushi Takeout, and Keeping It One Hundred Percent Real
Becky G is really, really excited. About everything. Talking to her on the phone, her enthusiasm is so huge, so unfiltered, you’d think she was a new artist, just starting out. Actually, Becky G (born Rebbeca Marie Gomez) has been performing since she was 11 years old and signed since she was 14. Today, the 22-year-old is a Power Ranger, a beauty mogul, and, oh yeah, a mega Latin pop star whose recent-ish debut album, Mala Santa, you’re still listening to on the regular.
Ambitious? Yeah, that’s an understatement. But IRL, Becky G is just a girl from Inglewood, California, with a big laugh who wants to stay in and eat sushi with her friends. It’s sort of like the inner dichotomy she plays with on Mala Santa. (Translation: basically, the angel who can be bad sometimes.)
“On the album, there’s the santa side, which is to me what represents the angelic side of myself as a woman, that emotionally in-tune, vulnerable side,” she says. “That is demonstrated on the slower songs, the more emotional songs.”
And the mala side? “For me, it’s owning my sexuality and being proud of it,” she explains. “And not letting people use it against me.” “There are so many different sides to us,” she continues. “And great things are used in a negative way, like, ‘Oh, women are so emotional.’ Imagine not feeling anything.” Becky G would rather feel ev-er-y-thing than nothing at all. And clearly, fans are into it. Mala Santa peaked at 85 on the U.S. Billboard 200 charts and at number three on Billboard’s U.S. Top Latin Albums chart, and the album’s eponymous single achieved certified platinum status last fall.
But Becky G wasn’t always so self-assured, despite what her first single—2013’s “Becky From the Block”—would have you believe. The true-to-her-roots, West Coast hip-hop riff on Jennifer Lopez’s classic anthem, which she dropped when she was 16, was followed by the release of her hit pop single “Shower” a year later. It was the sort of track that was impossible to escape—it played on loop on your car radio, at the gym, in your head. It was the level of single success that even veteran divas dream of. It was also when she started to lose herself.
“The truth is, the song was bigger than me,” she says. “Yeah, it was a hit song. Anybody could’ve sung that song and it would’ve done well because it was catchy and it was super happy and it was a summer jam.” “Shower” went on to receive multiplatinum certification and a spot in the top 20 of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Naturally, record execs jumped to recreate the song’s success with more mainstream-style hits like “Can’t Stop Dancin’” and “Break a Sweat” plus collabs with Pitbull and David Guetta and a tour with Fifth Harmony. But none of that exploded as much as expected. “It’s because there’s already a Katy Perry, there’s already a Demi Lovato,” says Becky. “I’m just Becky, and I started with urban roots, so I had to hit pause.”
Don’t get it twisted though: For Becky G, “hitting pause” didn’t mean stopping or even slowing down. Instead, she pivoted to acting, appearing in two episodes of Empire in 2015 and starring as Yellow Ranger Trini in the 2017 Power Rangers remake.
After Power Rangers wrapped, she was ready to turn back to music but knew it would only work if she did it her way. So she decided to conquer her fear of singing Spanish music onstage. It’s not like she’d never done it before: Becky G has been belting out Jenni Rivera, Selena Quintanilla, Jennifer Lopez, and Shakira tracks at family parties, karaoke nights, that sort of thing since she was a kid, just never professionally. “My fear was that people were going to have negative comments,” she explains. “Like, ‘She’s not Latina enough. She was born in America; she’s not Mexican. She doesn’t speak Spanish perfectly.’”
That fear faded into the background when she realized a lot of fans—who she calls Beasters—felt like she was, without a doubt, “enough.” Becky G has always identified with her Mexican roots just as much as her American ones but clearly goes back and forth between feeling like a member of both worlds and neither. “I knew that if I went into this with my mind open, with my heart open, and with only good intentions, I could actually end up being part of this bridge that we need so badly,” she says.
BTW, that bridge extends all the way to your makeup bag too. You already know: Becky G is la reina de beat faces. She’s collaborated with ColourPop, aka Gen Z’s favorite color cosmetics brand, a whopping four times. (Oh, and did I mention that at 16, Becky G was casually Covergirl’s youngest-ever spokesmodel? No biggie!) “ColourPop is such a great brand—the thing that got me was it’s a quality brand that’s affordable for my fans,” she says. “I’m very aware of my audience. That working-class woman who busts her ass to make a dollar and wants to make sure that whatever it is that she’s investing in is good-quality stuff.”
A post shared by Becky G (@iambeckyg) on Dec 12, 2019 at 10:59am PST
And Becky G knows no one can make her fans click “add to cart” quite like she can: Leading up to the launch of her most recent Hola Chola ColourPop collection, she posted photo after photo of herself in the ’90s-inspired roller lip gloss, powder bronzers, and shadow palettes on Instagram.
Speaking of @IAmBeckyG—if you haven’t stalked your girl’s couple pics with L.A. Galaxy soccer player Sebastian Lletget, what are you even doing with your Wi-Fi? Their favorite things to do together: eat aforementioned sushi, watch movies, work out, and “have really deep conversations with each other.” I’m surprised at the chill level, and Becky jumps to explain. “Being an athlete is very different from being an artist, but there are a lot of things that align, like the sacrifice of the time away,” she says. “There’s this understanding that’s like, ‘Okay, I was just on tour for a month and a half, and I kind of just want to stay home and do nothing.’”
It’s that understanding—that freedom to ask for what you really want without worry—that makes their relationship work. “You have to know that person will never judge you or make you feel bad for who you are or what you do,” she continues. “I would never want to get in the way of what he’s made for himself, and I know he feels the same way about me.”
When you stop and think about it, that’s exactly how Becky G got it all: the hits, the Beasters, the acting gigs, the beauty contracts, the boyfriend. She learned to get out of her own way—and away from her fears, the what-ifs, invisible haters—and hand back control to Becky From the Block.
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