Ritchie Valens
E344187
Ritchie Valens was a pioneering Mexican-American rock and roll musician whose 1950s hits like "La Bamba" helped shape Chicano rock and influence later Latin-infused rock bands.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Ritchie Valens canonical | 24 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3286641 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ritchie Valens Context triple: [Los Lobos, influencedBy, Ritchie Valens]
-
A.
Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly was a pioneering American rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist of the 1950s whose innovative style and songwriting profoundly influenced later popular music.
-
B.
Johnny Rico
Johnny Rico is the fictional protagonist and Mobile Infantry soldier in Robert A. Heinlein’s "Starship Troopers," best known from the 1997 film adaptation.
-
C.
Alan Freed
Alan Freed was an influential American disc jockey credited with popularizing the term "rock and roll" and helping to bring the genre into mainstream culture in the 1950s.
-
D.
Chico Del Vec
Chico Del Vec is a rapper best known as a member of the Brooklyn hip hop collective Junior M.A.F.I.A.
-
E.
Bobby Troup
Bobby Troup was an American jazz pianist, songwriter, and actor best known for penning classic tunes like "Route 66" and for his work in film and television.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ritchie Valens Target entity description: Ritchie Valens was a pioneering Mexican-American rock and roll musician whose 1950s hits like "La Bamba" helped shape Chicano rock and influence later Latin-infused rock bands.
-
A.
Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly was a pioneering American rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist of the 1950s whose innovative style and songwriting profoundly influenced later popular music.
-
B.
Johnny Rico
Johnny Rico is the fictional protagonist and Mobile Infantry soldier in Robert A. Heinlein’s "Starship Troopers," best known from the 1997 film adaptation.
-
C.
Alan Freed
Alan Freed was an influential American disc jockey credited with popularizing the term "rock and roll" and helping to bring the genre into mainstream culture in the 1950s.
-
D.
Chico Del Vec
Chico Del Vec is a rapper best known as a member of the Brooklyn hip hop collective Junior M.A.F.I.A.
-
E.
Bobby Troup
Bobby Troup was an American jazz pianist, songwriter, and actor best known for penning classic tunes like "Route 66" and for his work in film and television.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Mexican-American musician
ⓘ
guitarist ⓘ human ⓘ rock and roll musician ⓘ singer ⓘ songwriter ⓘ |
| activeYearsEnd | 1959 ⓘ |
| activeYearsStart | 1958 ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs | Ricardo Valenzuela ⓘ |
| associatedWith | The Day the Music Died ⓘ |
| burialPlace | San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States ⓘ |
| causeOfDeath | airplane crash ⓘ |
| coPassengerInFatalCrashWith |
Buddy Holly
ⓘ
J. P. Richardson ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| dateOfBirth | 1941-05-13 ⓘ |
| dateOfDeath | 1959-02-03 ⓘ |
| ethnicGroup | Mexican American ⓘ |
| filmAboutSubject |
La Bamba (1987 film)
ⓘ
linked to:
La Bamba
|
| fullName | Richard Steven Valenzuela ⓘ |
| genre |
Chicano rock
ⓘ
rock and roll ⓘ rockabilly ⓘ |
| heritage | Mexican descent ⓘ |
| hometown |
Pacoima, Los Angeles, California, United States
ⓘ
linked to:
Pacoima
|
| inductedInto | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ⓘ |
| influenced |
Carlos Santana
ⓘ
Chicano rock ⓘ Los Lobos ⓘ |
| instrument |
guitar
ⓘ
vocals ⓘ |
| knownFor |
pioneering Chicano rock
ⓘ
popularizing a rock and roll version of La Bamba ⓘ |
| languageOfPerformance |
English
ⓘ
Spanish ⓘ |
| notableWork |
Come On, Let’s Go
ⓘ
Donna ⓘ La Bamba ⓘ |
| occupation |
musician
ⓘ
singer ⓘ songwriter ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth |
Pacoima, Los Angeles, California, United States
ⓘ
linked to:
Pacoima
|
| placeOfDeath | near Clear Lake, Iowa, United States ⓘ |
| portrayedBy | Lou Diamond Phillips ⓘ |
| recordLabel | Del-Fi Records ⓘ |
| stageName | Ritchie Valens ⓘ |
| yearOfRockAndRollHallOfFameInduction | 2001 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Ritchie Valens Description of subject: Ritchie Valens was a pioneering Mexican-American rock and roll musician whose 1950s hits like "La Bamba" helped shape Chicano rock and influence later Latin-infused rock bands.
Referenced by (24)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Los Angeles, California, United States
subject linked to:
song "Donna" by Ritchie Valens
subject linked to:
song "Donna" by Ritchie Valens
subject linked to:
song "Donna" by Ritchie Valens
subject linked to:
song "Donna" by Ritchie Valens
subject linked to:
song "Donna" by Ritchie Valens