How Ximena Sariñana Found Herself With Her New Album ¿Dónde Bailarán Las Niñas?
Ximena Sariñana is back after five years with her latest album ¿Dónde Bailarán Las Niñas? and she’s celebrating all things sisterhood and self-love
Photo: Instagram/ximenamusic
Ximena Sariñana is back after five years with her latest album ¿Dónde Bailarán Las Niñas? and she’s celebrating all things sisterhood and self-love. She won’t call the last five years a hiatus since she was touring and collaborating on projects but the Mexican singer has definitely experienced some changes, the biggest one being the birth of her daughter.
With her latest album, released March 1, Sariñana is definitely having fun exploring new sounds and — as the title implies — it’s “a soundtrack to an all-girls dance party.”
“I feel that when you dance and have an awesome night out you get to feel that way and it’s definitely the mindset I was in and still am when I created this album,” She tells HipLatina.
Sariñana gained fame with her debut album Mediocre, which released in 2008 and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album with hit singles “Vidas Paralelas” and “Normal.”
The Guadalajara-born singer is 33 and embracing what it means to have fun while managing her career, marriage, and motherhood while alternating between Mexico City and Los Angeles, where parts of the album were recorded. The theme developed as she began working on the album with producer Juan Pablo Vega and songwriters/producers Andrés Torres and Mauricio Rengifo, the team behind the hit song “Despacito.”
Having always been a fan of urban music, Sariñana was hesitant to experiment with new rhythms and relied on her producers to help ensure she didn’t lose her essence in the process. Her dance/reggaeton-inspired single “Que Tiene” reached #8 on Spotify’s Global Viral Chart and the singer attributes its success to it being a reminder “that we shouldn’t care too much about what others think of us.”
The latest single and personal favorite, “Lo Bailado” is an ode to the well-known phrase “Lo bailado nadie te lo quita,” celebrating what is gained even in loss. The album has been two years in the making with a six-month break in between where she gave birth to her daughter.
Sariñana collaborated with Girl Ultra, Francisca Valenzuela, and IZA in the tracks “No Sé”, “Pueblo Abandonado,” and “Fácil de Amar” (Chega Pra Ça) respectively. Despite her success, she’s still considered an “indie” artist in the U.S. and finds the lack of representation in the industry troubling. One of her goals is to counteract the poor representation of Latinas in music.
It’s just always been more complicated for women because there are [fewer] women in the industry,” Sariñana told Pacific Standard. “You’re constantly the only woman in the room, or the band, or the tour, or the meeting. It’s not healthy for us to not acknowledge that that happens.”
Sariñana says that ¿Dónde Bailarán Las Niñas? was the first album where she felt free to express her femininity. The album is already the ninth-most popular Latin American album on iTunes, and she’s currently on a major tour across North and South America with the newest member of the family in tow, naturally.
“I want people to share this album. I think it’s an album that tastes best when you listen to it with other people, like in a reunion with friends or a night out,” she says
A child actor from a young age whose parents are director and screenwriting couple Fernando Sariñana and Carolina Rivera, Sariñana started off starring in popular telenovelas such as, Luz Clarita and María Isabel, before dedicating herself to the art of making music. She attended Mexico City’s Academica de Música Fermatta and Berklee College of Music in Boston and since then has released two albums in addition to Mediocre, including her self-titled English-language album in 2012 and No Todo lo Puedes Dar released in 2014. Now she’s settled into a more empowered sense of herself and hopes the lyrics shine through.
“I think I was going through a moment in my life where I was really coming to terms with the woman in me and accepting myself fully,” she says. “I wanted to pay tribute to myself and to all the female relationships in my life by making female forward songs that you can identify with.”
