"Maria Maria" is loosely based on the play West Side Story, where the main character is named "Maria." In the song, Maria has moved to East LA and become a big Carlos Santana fan. She dreams of making the world a better place, and has won the heart of the singer. The song incorporates all the hallmarks of a Santana song: silky guitar licks, a love story, and a call for justice and equality. And also, lots of Latin flavor.
Some Spanish words and phrases are peppered into the lyric, including this refrain sung by Carlos Santana, which roughly translates to "now I come, beautiful woman": Ahora vengo mama chula In 1999 many hit songs included some Spanish, but just enough to spice them up. One of the biggest hits that year was "Livin' La Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin, which seems Spanglish but really has just the three Spanish words in the entire lyric: "la vida loca."
The vocals are by an R&B duo called Product G&B. Santana returned the favor in 2001 when he played on the track "Dirty Dancin'" from their first album, Ghetto And Blues. Unfortunately for Product G&B, the album was never released. They were signed to Arista Records (Santana's label), who decided not to release the album after putting out two singles from it that promptly tanked. Because it cost so much to promote and distribute an album, record companies would cut their losses by refusing to release records that didn't show promise, and the artists were then forced to distribute them through bootlegs or find another record company to pick it up. The unreleased album contained this song.
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