Naturally, she got to work on a crossover album that stood to make an even bigger star, but, tragically, her life was cut short on March 31, 1995-16 days before her 24th birthday-when she was shot dead by Yolanda Saldivar. But it was that LP, which went on to become one of the best-selling Latin albums of all time in the United States, that clued label execs into just how big a previously untapped market had grown. influences-by the the time she'd released of Amor Prohibido, her fourth album, in 1994. Selena Quintanilla had already conquered the male-dominated world of Tejano music-a genre born out of a fusion of Mexican, European, and U.S. Arlene Richie/Media Sources/Media Sources/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images The Queen of Tejano
