Nothing But A G Thang

A few years ago Becky G was creating YouTube covers of Jay Z and Ke$ha songs. Today, she's working with Will.i.am creating her own hits, doing commercials for Covergirl, throwing shade on Empire - essentially becoming the new Latina Millennial icon. When her debut album drops this year, Becky's transformation from next big thing to BFD will be complete.

- Smriti Mundhra

Chin cocked defiantly forward, an arm posed confidently over her head, Becky G plants herself before a mirrored wall rocking an animal-print blouse and skin-tight leather pants. Today, she looks like a blend of Cookie Lyon and Selena Gomez—in other words, not the spunky teen in overalls who graced Latina’s cover two years ago. At 19, Rebecca Marie Gomez seems self-assured and even beyond-her-years sultry as she works the camera until the photographer gives the thumbs-up, indicating he got the shot. Becky exhales. “I can’t believe people pay so much money to be this uncomfortable,” she blurts out to a room full of fashionistas. She catches herself. “I mean, it’s a really beautiful blouse."

Back at her parents’ house in Lawndale, Calif., a part of Greater Los Angeles that’s regularly described as “the ’hood,” we remind her of something she told us two years ago: “I always thought I’d be the first person to walk onto a red carpet and be asked what I was wearing, and I’d say, ‘Marshalls!’ ”

She laughs. “Oh my God, of course I said that,” she says with a roll of her eyes. But a look around her modest but beautiful home suggests that, indeed, not much has changed in the past couple of years. Becky didn’t pull a Kylie Jenner when she turned 18: She still lives with her family, her shoe collection favors sneakers over stilettos, and, as she says, “I’m still babysitting my siblings.”

Of course, the hallway plaque commemorating her hit single “Shower” going double platinum tells a different story. “I think career-wise, obviously, it’s been kind of insane how much has really happened and how fast it feels like it’s going,” she says. “But it ’s been a really long time coming, you know?”