Martha Heredia

Martha Heredia Rivas (born February 1, 1991) is a Dominican singer and the winner of the fourth and last season of the television program Latin American Idol. Heredia wanted to be known artistically as La Baby (The Baby), notwithstanding this, she has rarely been referred in this way.

Martha Roseli Heredia Rivas was born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, on February 4, 1991. Heredia is the daughter of Felipe Heredia and Maritza Rivas. At the age of 13 Heredia discovered she had potential for singing and songwriting. At the age of 15, with her brother Luis Felipe, they created a group called Una Vía singing hip hop, reggaeton and other genres of urban music. Heredia later had the opportunity of working in the United States of America where she created and wrote her own songs. Since her rise to fame after Latin American Idol, Heredia has become a successful artist working in the USA and in the Dominican Republic.

At 18, Heredia traveled San José, Costa Rica to audition for the fourth season of Latin American Idol. She did well on her audition and later traveled to Argentina, where she was amongst the top performers of a Latin American Idol workshop. Her next test was to earn the most votes out of the 12 performers on the show. For two months, Heredia was very successful all the way up to the final between Heredia and Eduardo Aguirre of Costa Rica, where she performed with Franco de Vita. On December 10, 2009, after receiving more than 50% of the total number of votes, Martha Heredia became the new Latin American Idol.

Heredia released her first single Música in January 2010, was supposed to record her first production with Sony BMG, however, as of 2013 it was not produced and/or released, prior to her arrest for drug trafficking.

While driving from her home city Santiago, to the Dominican Republic capital of Santo Domingo, and more specifically driving through Villa Altagracia town, Martha crashed her vehicle, causing the death of a 16-year-old Haitian student who was walking home. Martha herself suffered minor lesions, but after the incident became unavailable to both media outlets and also Dominican authorities.

On 22 February 2013, Heredia was arrested while attempting to board a plane bound from the Dominican Republic to New York. About 3.9 pounds of heroin were found in the heels of three pairs of her shoes.

On 12 August 2014, Heredia pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and was sentenced of seven years’ imprisonmentt and the payment of a fine of RD$ 100,000 (about US$ 2,135).