Becky G Finds Her Whole Self in a Single Word on “Chula”

On BARAJA BENDITA’s fifth track, one term of endearment carries the confidence, softness, and bilingual identity Becky G spent five albums building toward.

Becky G built “Chula” around a word most Spanish speakers hear a dozen times a week and rarely stop to unpack. The track lands fifth on BARAJA BENDITA, the singer’s fifth studio album, released August 14 through RCA Records. Written solely by Gomez with no featured guests, the two-minute cut sets a kizomba pulse against R&B phrasing, produced by Botlok and vocal producer Carlos A. Molina, the same engineer who has shaped her vocal takes since 2021’s “Fulanito.”

stir

“Chula” shifts depending on who says it and where. It can mean pretty, it can mean cool, it can be a term of endearment reserved for someone close. According to a track breakdown of BARAJA BENDITA, the song leans into that ambiguity rather than settle on one definition, treating the word as an entry point into affection, beauty, and self-possession all at once. The same breakdown frame the track as evidence that softness and strength don’t have to sit on opposite ends of a song, since the writing lets vulnerability and confidence occupy the same two minutes without one canceling the other out.

That frame tracks with how Gomez has talked about the album overall. Reporting on the rel describes BARAJA BENDITA as an attempt to stop dividing herself into separate boxes, one lang, one sound, one persona, and instead let every version of who she is show up on the same tracklist. “Chula” becomes something like a thesis statement in min: a compliment turned into a statement of ownership, sung by an artist who has spent nearly two decades being asked to pick a lane.

in

“Chula” is one of the more unexpected turns on a 17-track project that moves through bachata on “Te Va a Doler,” merengue on “Mal Tiempo,” and reggae on “Bandera Blanca.” Outlets covering the album’s release have singled out “Chula” specific for blending kizomba with R&B, a pair that sits apart from the house and deep-bass club tracks and reggaetón cuts elsewhere on the record. The album itself takes its title, roughly “blessed deck of cards,” from a running metaphor about choice and fate, with Gomez casting each song as a card she’s laying on the table on her own terms.

verd

“Chula” has already made the jump to the stage. It appeared on the setlist for Gomez’s July 29 show in Toronto, listed as a live debut alongside “Marathon,” “Patrona,” “CNTRL,” “Glitch,” and “Oasis,” the same night she also worked shortened versions of older singles like “Por el Contrario” and “Cuando Te Besé” into the run. That show followed a headlining set at Coachella earlier in the year, a show that drew attention for how directly it leaned into her Mexican roots and spotlighted regional Mexican music alongside her pop catalog, the same instinct toward holding multiple identities at once that “Chula” distills into a single word.