SAN ANTONIO — The Queen of Tejano, Selena Quintanilla Perez, was announced this week as one of the Recording Academy's Special Merit Award honorees for 2021.
Selena will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award alongside Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Lionel Hampton, Marilyn Horne, Salt-N-Pepa, and Talking Heads. The Lifetime Achievement Award celebrates performers who have made outstanding contributions of artistic significance to the field of recording, according to the GRAMMY Award's website.
The honorees will be recognized at the 2021 GRAMMY Awards, which takes place on January 31, 2021.
Selena's sister, Suzette Quintanilla, posted about the achievement on her Facebook page Tuesday with a quote from her sister:
“The goal isn’t to live forever, but to create something that will...” -Selena Quintanilla
This is not the first time Selena has been honored at the GRAMMY Awards. Her 1993 album, Live, won Best Mexican-American Album at the 36th Annual GRAMMY Awards, marking the first time a female Tejano artist won the category.
Selena was tragically murdered in 1995 at the age of 23, but has remained a cultural icon and is still celebrated more than 25 years after her death.
A new Netfix series that debuted in December chronicles her life and rise to fame. UTSA announced over the summer that it would host a Selena university course in the fall of 2020. She has also been recently honored with a line of gas station cups, H-E-B reusable grocery bags and a Spurs tie-in clothing line. She was also honored with a line of cosmetics from MAC.