María Natalia Lafourcade Silva (born 26 February 1984 in Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican pop-rock singer and songwriter who since her debut in 2003 has been one of the most successful singers in the pop rock scene in Latin America. Her band's name is Natalia y La Forquetina. Lafourcade's voice has been categorized as a lyric soprano.
Lafourcade's parents were musicians. Her father is the Chilean musician Gastón Lafourcade and her uncle is writer Enrique Lafourcade.
She attended Instituto Anglo Español, a Catholic middle school, and studied painting, flute, theater, music, acting, piano, guitar, saxophone and singing. When she was 10, Natalia sang in a Mariachi group.
She grew up in Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico, where she studied music with her mother,María del Carmen Silva Contreras, imitating artists like Gloria Trevi and Garibaldi. Her mother studied piano career with a specialty in musical pedagogy and is the creator of the Macarsi Method for musical training and the integral and human development of children and educators, which she adapted and practiced in Natalia as a result of an injury she received on the forehead by a horse, with the purpose of helping her in her rehabilitation through music.
In 1998, Natalia was part of a girl trio called Twist. The group was unsuccessful and they split up the following year.
When she was 17, Loris Ceroni gave Natalia the opportunity to be in a pop/rock group under his guidance, but when she wasn't sure, he encouraged her to go solo. Ceroni produced her first LP under the label of Sony Music. It was recorded in Italy and was cowritten with Aureo Baqueiro. Sabo Romo played in 2 songs. Natalia Lafourcade is a mix of pop, rock, bossa-nova and Latin rhythms. It features the songs "Busca Un Problema", "Elefantes", "Te Quiero Dar", "Mírame, Mírate", and her biggest hit, "En El 2000".
In 2003, she was nominated for a Latin Grammy in the Best New Artist category for her debut album. Also, she collaborated on the soundtrack of the Mexican movie Amar te duele and "Un Pato" for the movie Temporada de patos. Lafourcade was nominated for Rock New Artist at the 16th Lo Nuestro Awards, losing to fellow Mexican singer Alessandra Rosaldo.
In 2011, Lafourcade won the Best New Producer of the Year award in the Indie-O Music Awards, for her work with Carla Morrison's Mientras tu dormías album.
In 2005, she released Casa, her second album, but this time as Natalia y La Forquetina (the name of her band). Produced mostly by Café Tacuba's Emmanuel del Real, Casa presents a more mature, rock-oriented sound while retaining pop and bossa-nova influences on a few tracks, such as lead single "Ser Humano" (pop-rock) and its follow-up "Casa" (pop-bossa-nova). Aureo Baqueiro returned to produce the few tracks not produced by del Real.
In June 2006, after a tour through Mexico and parts of the U.S., on June 2, Lafourcade announced she would leave La Forquetina to once again work as a solo artist. Natalia y la Forquetina's final show was played on August 18, 2006 in San Luis Potosí. Following the group's break-up, Casa won the Latin Grammy for Best Rock Album by a Duo or Group with Vocal in September.
Also in 2006, a documentary about the band, showing the group on the road and their travels, was aired on MTV Tr3s in the fall of 2007.
Natalia Lafourcade has also appeared on other songs with various other artists. These include Liquits' "Jardin", Kalimba's "Dia de Suerte", Control Machete's "El Apostador", and Reik's rendition of a Lafourcade song "Amarte Duele". Also she along with her former band have appeared on various compilation disks with previously unreleased tracks such as "Y Todo Para Que" on Intocable's X and on the Tin Tan tribute album, Viva Tin Tan, with the hit "Piel Canela". In 2011, she made "Quisiera Saber", a music video with Los Daniels.
After over a year that Natalia departed from La Forquetina, she recorded an instrumental album called The 4 Seasons of Love under Sony BMG label. She also wrote the Lyrics for "Tú y Yo" from Ximena Sariñana's self-titled album.
In 2008 she performed on Julieta Venegas' MTV Unplugged album and DVD. Both musicians have been described recently as having a hipster audience.
In 2009 she released the album Hu Hu Hu, a top 10 album in Mexico. The album was produced by Emmanuel del Real (who produced "Casa" in 2005), Marco Moreno and Ernesto García. It was nominated for Best female Pop Vocal Album at the 2009 Latin Grammy Awards (won by Laura Pausini) and Best Latin Pop album at the 2010 Grammy Awards (won by La Quinta Estación). Club Fonograma also named the album the 2nd best of 2009,[5] and the 7th best of the decade.
In 2012 she released a tribute album to Agustín Lara called Mujer Divina.
Her next album, Hasta La Raíz, was released in March 2015. "Nunca Es Suficiente" (It's Never Enough), the first single off the album, was released on February 10th. The track "Hasta La Raíz" was No. 5 of the Viral 50 Global Spotify Chart and the No. 1 on the Viral 50 México chart.