Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2023: Rookie of the Year — Peso Pluma

For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2023 all next week. Before that, a tribute to the artist who crashed the mainstream for the first time in the biggest way this year: Mexico’s rapidly growing superstar Peso Pluma, one of the year’s preeminent global hitmakers.

During his first-ever interview with Billboard back in March, when he was that month’s Latin Artist on the Rise, Peso Pluma expressed determination to not only be a No. 1 artist, but also to globalize música mexicana, taking the decades-old genre to new international heights. “I’m up for the challenge,” the then-23-year-old emerging artist said.  

Today, he’s done exactly that. Peso Pluma, undeniably the current face of regional Mexican music, has played a significant role in leading the genre’s seismic growth in the United States and beyond with his corridos, punctuated by his raspy vocals and a more modern sound, powered by guitars and brass instruments. This year alone, he’s placed over 20 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 – highlighted by his blockbuster collab with Eslabon Armado “Ella Baila Sola,” and his album Génesis, which made history when it debuted and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, the highest ranking for a Mexican music album on the tally.  

Since that March interview – when Peso was making waves with “Por Las Noches,” “AMG” with Natanael Cano and Gabito Ballesteros and “PRC” with Cano, all hitting the top 10 on the Hot Latin Songs chart – Peso only doubled down on his global mission and, in a matter of months, had gone from hometown hero to global phenomenon.  

Born Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija in Jalisco, Mexico, Peso Pluma (which translates to “featherweight” in English) came on the U.S. radar with his first hit “El Belicón,” in collaboration with Raúl Vega, which entered the Hot Latin Songs chart in April 2022. Then, he was also performing shows in Mexico to a crowd of approximately 500 people.  

That would quickly change for him with 2023. After signing a record deal with Prajin Records in 2022, founded by Mexican American executive George Prajin (also Peso’s manager), Peso was collaborating with artists outside of his genre, which was key in his plan for globalization. He recorded with Colombian hitmaker Ovy on the Drums (“El Hechizo”), Argentine rapper Nicki Nicole (“Por Las Noches Remix”) and Mexican reggaetón artist Yng Lvcas (“La Bebe Remix”), the latter of which peaked at No. 11 on the Hot 100 in April.  

But there was one team-up that marked a before and after in Peso’s year, and maybe for all of 21^st century música mexicana: “Ella Baila Sola” with Eslabon Armado. Perhaps this year’s biggest Latin song, “Baila” could’ve been just another viral hit on TikTok, but while it did garner over 5 million creator videos, the dance-ready sierreño song also crossed over to streaming and radio — making history by peaking  at No. 4 on the Hot 100, the highest ranking for a regional Mexican song on the tally. It also became the first Mexican music song to dominate the Billboard Global 200 chart (which it did for six weeks), and spent a total of 19 weeks atop the Hot Latin Songs chart. To date, it has 617.3 million on-demand official streams in the United States.  

By now, all eyes were on Peso, who was turning anything he touched to gold. He only kept the momentum going when he joined Becky G during her Coachella set in Apri, where the pair performed their duet “Chanel.” Just a week later, they’d do it all over again at the Latin American Music Awards. Shortly after, Peso was New York-bound for a historic television appearance: At the end of April, hebecame the first regional Mexican artist to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he sang “Ella Baila Sola.”  

It seemed that fans and industry alike couldn’t get enough of Peso, with his signature corridos and quirky mullet-like haircut. He was now being sought after by hitmakers such as Eladio Carrión, El Alfa and producer extraordinaire Bizarrap, with whom he teamed up with for “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 55.” Following the release of the track, Peso became the first artist to ever lead both the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. lists simultaneously with different songs, “Ella Baila Sola” and “Vol. 55,” cementing him as one of the premier Spanish-language hitmakers of the moment.  

By June, Peso – who was on the road with his first-ever U.S. tour, dubbed La Doble P – was at the summit of música mexicana, which was having a record year. According to Luminate, regional Mexican music consumption in the United States up 42.1% year to date through May 25 – on track with Mexican music’s exponential and global growth over the past five years.  

Armed with a hefty stack of hits, Peso could’ve kept on releasing singles throughout 2023, since it was a formula that had worked for him. But he didn’t take the easy way out. On June 29, he unleashed Génesis, his third album, though the new level of anticipation for it made it feel like his debut. The 14-track set only scored more records and more hits for Peso debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart — the highest rank ever for a música mexicana album on the chart – and placing a historic 25 simultaneous titles on the Hot Latin Songs chart (dated July 8), breaking Bad Bunny’s record of 24. 

Peso Pluma’s popularity had broken language and genre barriers, penetrating the American pop mainstream like only a select number of Spanish-language acts have been able to. ASAP Rocky has confirmed a collab with Peso is on the way, Post Malone wore a Peso Pluma t-shirt during one of his shows in Mexico and boxing legend Mike Tyson is a self-declared Peso fan. As a sign of the times, Peso became the first Mexican artist to ever perform on the MTV Video Music Awards in September – performing corridos in a space where regional Mexican music had never previously entered. He was also this year’s Billboard Latin Music Awards big winner, taking home eight awards, and the 24-year-old artist is up for best música mexicana album at the Grammys for Génesis in February.  

After wrapping his first U.S. trek performing 54 shows across the country, Peso returned to his hometown of Guadalajara in November, where he kicked off the Latin American leg of his La Doble P Tour, playing for a crowd of 25,000, a far cry from his days performing for 500 fans. Stateside and back home, Peso was a force to be reckoned with — even after banners signed by a cartel appeared in Tijuana demanding he cancel his show in that city (which he did), he went on to perform massive sold-out shows in key Mexican markets such as Monterrey and Mexico City.  

After this breakthrough year, with streaming and touring numbers to back him up and a strong catalog of collabs inside and outside his genre, Peso’s set himself up for international domination — which he already got a taste of late last month when he performed back-to-back sold-out arena shows in Spain, Chile and Argentina. Ending the year as Spotify’s fifth most-streamed artist globally, right after Drake, Peso’s massive year and unlikely success is a momentous win for Mexican music and its artists, proving that this “regional” style of music can indeed be global.  

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