A P.F. Changs fortune cookie predicted Deyra Barrera’s Friday: “Tomorrow will be a very important day for you.”
That morning, the 49-year-old mariachi singer from Tucson, Arizona, woke up to a text from a friend, telling her that Kendrick Lamar had surprise-released GNX — and Barrera’s vocals opened the album. Barrera was shocked.
“My skin gets goosebumps because all of this happened so quickly for me,” she tells Rolling Stone, minutes after Lamar dropped the project.
“I felt your presence here last night,” she sings in the first few seconds of the album, channeling her ranchera bravado over an operatic choir. “And we start to cryyyy.”
By then, Barrera had only listened to the LP’s track “Wacced Out Murals.” During our call, she learned that her vocals were also featured elsewhere on the album including Tupac tribute…
