Yolanda Pérez doesn't always play by the rules – and the winners are likely her fans.

In 2004, the Los Angeles-born Pérez debuted with Dejenme Llorar (Let Me Cry) and earned a hit single with Estoy Enamorada (I'm In Love), a daring and winning combo of hip hop and banda featuring radio personality Don Cheto. Light-hearted and bouncy, the Spanglish track features an American teenager butting heads with her conservative Mexican father about the usual suspects: boys.

A year later, Pérez followed with more banda con hip hop on Aqui Me Tienes (You've Got Me Here) and reunited with Don Cheto on "La Reina Del Mall," an unofficial sequel to "Estoy Enamorada". In "La Reina," Pérez plays an updated Valley Girl madly in love with shopping for name brands – to the chagrin of her thrifty father. Will Smith, the rapper, would be proud of his legacy.

In 2006, after flirting with reggaetón on Esto Es Amor, Pérez ditched hip hop and R&B with the release of Te Sigo Amando (I'm Still in Love With You). She may have dropped a hint as to why in an interview with Vibe magazine: “My fans are very jealous when it comes to culture...[s]witching to R&B is seen as me trying to 'Americanize' myself."

But musical borders aren't the only ones she's had the courage to cross. She recounts an exchange with a fan that made her realize her interracial relationship was also pushing boundaries: "He said that I was his favorite artist in the world and that I could have had a baby from a white guy, Asian guy, but why did it have to be a black man? How can a person be so closed-minded?"

Pérez's new album, Todo De Mi (All of Me), was released last week. It features a cover of the classic quinceañera track "Abusadora" with Jesús "El Flaco" Elizalde. Yet despite the album's reliance on traditional banda, Pérez maintains she's carved out a niche in the sometimes fickle world of Mexican regional music: "I think that's the best gift that we can give our parents, to be able to stand out in a country that's not really our country... That's why they came here to begin with."

Last November, the popular Mexican banda music singer Valentín Elizalde, his manager and their driver were shot to death in an ambush as they exited a concert. Rumors, some official, hold that Elizalde was killed in retaliation for the lyrics in one of his narcocorrido songs, “A mis enemigos” (To my enemies). (The key to this theory is a video posted on YouTube, where videos of the crime scene and the singer's autopsy have also been posted.)

The violent episode is reminiscent of the death of banda singer Chalino Sánchez in 1992, who, after being gunned down in Culiacán, Sinaloa, became a folk hero. Over 25,000 mourners were said to have attended the 27 year-old Elizalde's burial last month in the town of Gusave, Sinaloa (population 277,402).

Universal Music has just announced Elizalde’s swan song, Lobo Domesticado (Domesticated Wolf), an album of songs recorded just prior to his death. The album will be released on Valentine's Day, February 14th, and includes songs written for him by Juan Gabriel and Joan Sebastian.