Coahuila’s Viviana Monserrat Quintana Rodríguez has won the hearts of every woman fighting against gender violence in Mexico.
Meeting her in person feels like a hug; her gaze, smile, and voice convey that she believes in you, that she stands by you, and that you are not — and will never be — alone. She has been in the music industry for years, but in 2020, she launched “Canción sin miedo” (Song without Fear), and everything in her life changed. She became a reference and safeguard for every woman who heard her powerful voice.
From the very beginning, “Canción sin miedo” addresses the subject of fear so that it is not us, the women, who are afraid, but rather the state that has failed to confront the terrible acts of violence and the rising number of femicides happening in the country. The song has resonated throughout the nation and has even been sung at feminist public events in various Spanish-speaking countries and the United States.
Since childhood, music has flowed through Vivir’s veins. “They enrolled me in some singing classes, and the teacher said I was very in tune. He told my parents, and from then on, they supported me so I could pursue my dream of becoming a singer,” she told Mexico News Daily, expressing gratitude to her parents for allowing her to explore various disciplines, sports, and studies to find her calling in music.
“Songs are important in culture. If we promote songs about hate, suffering, and revenge, that is what we are promoting,” she continues.
Vivir Quintana has empowered millions of women to defend freedom, equality, and respect for women. In her life and work, she not only talks about sisterhood, but practices it every day. Today, she has the largest all-female crew in all of Latin America. “[I have] an all-women mariachi band, my entire band is made up of women, my crew —engineers — all of them are women. It’s about creating jobs for women, and it’s not easy because we live in a world promised to men. I was talking to a friend, and we were saying, ‘they wanted to erase our intuition,’ they tried to turn us against each other and make us believe that we don’t also own this world.”
Vivir Quintana’s talent has been internationally recognized, and in 2022, she contributed to the soundtrack of the movie “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” with the song “Árboles bajo el mar.” Here, the song stays true to the theme of resistance that characterizes Vivir’s music, as the lyrics speak of origins, of mothers, of ancestors, and of how diversity blooms into beautiful outcomes. The song is a collaboration with another great Mexican singer, the Zapotec feminist rapper Mare Advertencia Lirika.
Vivir has now ventured into the realm of traditional Mexican music known as “corridos”. In her new album, she explores the stories of 10 women currently imprisoned in Mexico for defending themselves against their aggressors. She uses the medium and pride of popular bands to shed light on another form of violence — systemic violence — that endangers the lives of every Mexican woman: gender-based violence. ‘Al Tiro’ is the first release from this album and is already available on all streaming platforms. “Musically, it wasn’t complicated for me. The most challenging part was the story’s background: what words to use, how to compose this story in a poetic way to convey the urgency of eradicating this kind of violence in our country,” Vivir adds.
Camila Sánchez Bolaño is a journalist, feminist, bookseller, lecturer, and cultural promoter and is the former Editor in Chief of Newsweek en Español magazine.
