Before her first single topped Billboard’s Hot Latin chart, Yahritza Martinez shared her immense singing talent with teammates on the Davis soccer bus.
At practice recently, Pirates senior captain Seri Nugent recalled how a year ago Martinez, then a freshman, consistently dazzled her peers on road trips. Since then, she’s gone viral on the TikTok social media platform multiple times, signed with a label, released an EP and collaborated with one of her musical inspirations.
Soccer, once her first priority, took a backseat while Martinez and two older brothers dove into a promising musical career as Yahritza y Su Essencia. But just weeks before the season started in August, Martinez realized she still needed the sport, and the team welcomed her with open arms.
“I just decided to play soccer because that’s like my therapy to get things out of my head, or if I’m stressed it also helps me,” Martinez said. “I was thinking of myself ’cause I felt like I was thinking too much about my work.”
Finding her place
Based on what he saw as an assistant last season, first-year coach Cristian Gonzalez knew Martinez could be a valuable asset.
She played a wing forward position and scored two goals in her first season despite missing some games with an ankle injury. Senior Jenessis Cortes, now a freshman at Columbia Basin College, became close with Martinez and gave her advice, pushing her to improve.
“She taught me how to be more confident when I play soccer,” Martinez said. “She was the one who took me everywhere and we would hang out, like family and stuff. We still do now.”
Gonzalez saw the potential for Martinez to follow Cortes’ path to play at the next level, whether in junior college or a four-year school. Growing up competing against her brothers, Armando — known as “Mando” — and Jairo gave Martinez a certain toughness Gonzalez said she carries with her on and off the field.
But with music becoming a much bigger part of her life, Martinez wondered whether she could fit soccer into a busy schedule. About three weeks before the season started, she determined it would be possible, although things would need to be slightly different.
Martinez vowed to be fully committed whenever she could join the team, but she needed Gonzalez to know she might not always be present. He accepted her conditions as long as she could let him know with a reasonable amount of warning.
“She talked with her teammates and they were accepting,” Gonzalez said. “They understood this doesn’t happen very often, but at the same time you’re a crucial part to our team.”
Nugent said they didn’t want to take the experience of high school soccer away from Martinez, who quickly settled into an expanded leadership role. She scored three goals in a 13-0 win over Wapato last month and Gonzalez said she’s become a creator for both herself and her teammates.
A trip to Seattle last week for some recording sessions meant missing practices, but she’s played through injuries to compete in all 13 Davis games this season. Martinez said she feels safe among the people she knows well on the soccer field, where she’s trying to pass on her knowledge to younger players.
“I just mess around with the girls and make them feel comfortable with the whole team, just (boost) their confidence,” Martinez said. “I cheer them on. Every time they don’t know how to do something I teach them because I know how it is here.”
She took on a new challenge when she moved back to the midfield Tuesday at Wenatchee. Although the Pirates lost 3-0, Gonzalez said even Wenatchee’s coach mentioned the significant improvement since Davis fell 7-0 in the first meeting between the two teams.
Nugent said Martinez’s leadership has played a role in that growth thanks to her strong communication skills. Those same qualities allowed her to thrive as a musical sensation, along with the natural singing talent Gonzalez remembers experiencing for the first time at a birthday party last winter.
“Everyone was like, what’s happening right now?” Gonzalez said. “That’s when it clicked, like, oh, this is actually — this could become something pretty big.”
Newfound celebrity
A couple of months later, millions more people discovered Yahritza and her band.
After growing a fanbase and attracting the attention of a record label through music they’d shared on TikTok since 2021, Lumbre Records released their first single, “Soy El Unico”, in late March. It quickly shot up to No. 1 in the Latin Hot 100 and Martinez became the youngest Latin artist ever to appear in the top 20 of the all-genre Billboard Top 100.
As of Saturday, the song has more than 87 million plays on Spotify.
Martinez and her brothers worked quickly to release their debut EP “Obsessed”, featuring three covers and two original songs. Music writers took notice of their unique sound, giving Yahritza y su Essencia glowing reviews in publications such as Rolling Stone and the Los Angeles Times..
The band performed in Los Angeles and continued to grow its following, as well as its reputation. Earlier this month they released another well-received single and music video, “Inseparables”, a collaboration with 17-year-old sensation Ivan Cornejo, whose song Martinez went viral covering in late 2021.
“I was excited because I was in the studio with somebody who inspired me,” Martinez said. “The song came out pretty well.”
It’s no surprise when Martinez returned to classes at Davis this Fall, blending in felt more difficult. She said freshman started asking for photos in the hallway, and she’d sometimes see herself pop up on their TikTok videos.
Gonzalez said the soccer team and perhaps Martinez herself did not realize the extent of her fame until two fans recognized her during a match at Moses Lake in late September. The stands quickly filled up, then some fans started wandering over to the Davis bench and even tried to go on the field during the game.
Martinez acknowledged that it can all be overwhelming at times, particularly when it affects the team trying to load the bus for the ride home. But when time allows, she doesn’t mind leaving the bus and going back out for fan interactions.
Writing music, playing soccer and staying on top of her studies means a full schedule, which Martinez said often keeps her up until about 1 a.m. But Gonzalez said she’s determined to accomplish everything she can, knowing these high school days won’t last forever.
Plans for next year include putting out a full-length album and playing more shows, possibly before the school year ends. As for soccer, Nugent’s confident Martinez will keep playing hard this season and remain the same person she’s always been, even when the world around her suggests otherwise.
“People want to take pictures and stuff with her and it feels different because we don’t see her like that,” Nugent said. “We just see her as our teammate. Like, oh, it’s Yahri.”
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