Lupita Infante Is Honoring Her Family Legacy and Carving Her Own Path

As she carves out her own path, the singer Lupita Infante carries on the legacy of one of Mexico’s most iconic 20th century figures. The granddaughter of Pedro Infante is making a name for herself in música Mexicana and also blazing a trail for women in the male-dominated scene. But as an independent artist, she feels she’s working extra hard, despite what some people think her last name has afforded her.

“Whereas other legacy artists maybe did get handed off this baton from hand to hand, and then for me, it’s like someone tossed the damn baton somewhere, and I’ve been trying to look for that shit,” Infante tells Rolling Stone from her home studio. “I like that my story is different. It’s a challenge.”

Pedro Infante was one of Mexico’s leading men during the country’s Golden Age of Cinema in the Forties and Fifties. Before his untimely passing at 39 in 1957, he had Lupita’s father, Pedro Infante, Jr. The younger Infante carried the mantle for his family until his death in 2009. After growing up in a humble household in Downey, Calif., Lupita picked up the pieces of the Infante legacy and started to rebuild it from scratch. She funded part of her Grammy-nominated album La Serenata in 2019 by driving for Uber and Lyft. 

“When Pedro Infante passed away, my dad, Pedro Infante Jr., was only seven, so, I feel like even he didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with his dad and just getting those fatherly talks and advice,” Lupita says. “And then, when my dad passed away, I was 22, so I wasn’t really in the music industry yet. I was just working on my craft and that kind of thing, but I feel like I never really had solid advice like, ‘Oh, these are the steps. You should do this. Let me guide you.’ I didn’t really find that until I got my professional management six years ago. It’s been a journey for me to find that guidance because I didn’t really have that through family.”

Not only is Infante bringing her last name back to the forefront of música Mexicana, but she is also using her platform to highlight the women of her family and make space for more female voices in the genre. In 2023, she paid homage to the women from Mexico’s film history with her album Amor Como En Las Películas de Antes, which reimagined them from damsels in distress to chingonas (or bad ass women). She also breathed new life into and put a feminine touch on Pedro’s Infante’s classics through the live EP Puras de Mi Abuelo, Vol. 1, which includes her gorgeous cover of “Cien Años.”

“I come from arguably the most Mexican person in Mexico, who kind of taught us how to be a Mexican, and in his case, a Mexican man,” she says. “But then again, even having that figure that teaches you through film  who we are, [it is] Mexican as man. If you look at the women in Mexican film, I feel like we have come a long way since. I try to reflect that in my music like, ‘Okay, as women, where are we going? How are we expressing ourselves? How are we showing our power, our independence?’”

Lupita has tried to show different sides of herself through her music, and this month, she decided to share a new take on her holiday mariachi music. She  worked with producer Angelique Calvillo to remix “¡Navidad! ¡Navidad!” into an upbeat banger for the posadas, offering another layer to her sound. “Music is such a joyful part of life, so just bringing that magic to Christmas, I think it’s important,” she says. It also keeps her connected to her family: In fact, after the song’s release, she’s planned a toy drive and a performance at Momo Rodriguez’s Comedy Posada toy drive on Friday in Bellflower. The event recalls a special tradition of her grandfather’s. 

“There’s a very well-known story that my grandfather at his home in Cuajimalpa, he had people lining up on Dia de los Reyes, and then he would give out toys to everyone who would show up,” she says. “He would give out just things to make the kids happy. And in that spirit of giving, we are doing a toy drive.”

As for the coming year, she hopes to collaborate with Majo Aguilar, the niece of Pepe Aguilar, and Camila Fernández, the granddaughter of Vicente Fernández, next. Through her music, she wants to keep working with and uplifting the voices of women while making a mark of her own. 

“The music [that’s coming] is just so good,” she said. “It’s fire and I’m excited about it. It took me a long time to really find that voice that says, ‘I’m powerful. I’m here. No one’s going to stand in my way.’”