Destined for Stardom: How Ángela Aguilar Powers Her Family’s Musical Legacy
Written by djfrosty on June 3, 2024
Ángela Aguilar was destined for stardom.
As third generation of the Aguilar musical dynasty — her father is Mexican music icon Pepe Aguilar, and her grandparents are the legendary Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre — Ángela inherited the vibrant falsetto from her grandma, her grandfather’s knack for storytelling and her father’s passion for mariachi. She also inherited the great responsibility that comes from being part of a musical dynasty, especially when her last name is synonymous with regional Mexican royalty.
“To know just how much my grandma and grandpa had to work for their success, it makes me proud of where I come from,” the 20-year-old singer-songwriter says from her home in Texas, where’s she’s spending a day off from touring with her father, her brother Leonardo Aguilar and her uncle Antonio Aguilar Jr., in the family’s Jaripeo Hasta Los Huesos Tour, which continues the legacy of the equestrian shows pioneered by her grandparents in the 1960s. “To this day, I don’t want to disappoint our last name. I want to do the best of my abilities to represent in a respectful way.”
Ángela made her onstage debut at just three years old while she and her family accompanied her father on tour. Five years later, she released her first album at the young age of eight. It was a joint album with her brother Leonardo titled Nueva Tradición (which translates to New Tradition), that was powered by banda, mariachi and norteño sounds. At that moment, she says, she really understood that she was part of something bigger than herself.
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“When I was three years old, I really thought the stage was my playground but when I released my first album, that was my realization of, ‘Oh my gosh, this is way bigger than I thought.’ I felt I had become less of an individual and more of an institution, and that was more important to me,” she explains.
Born in Los Angeles, Ángela is a fixture in música mexicana, one of a handful of women that have forged their own path in the decades-old genre that continues to be overwhelmingly dominated by men. So far, she has landed three No. 1 songs on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Airplay chart — including “Dime Como Quieras” with Christian Nodal, which ruled the tally for five weeks — and four top 10 hits on Latin Airplay, including her first No. 1 on that chart, “Por El Contrario” with Leonardo and Becky G. She also scored a Latin Grammy best new artist nomination in 2018.
On the touring front, she’s perhaps the most successful regional Mexican woman today with back-to-back U.S. arena tours (Jaripeo Sin Fronteras and Jaripeo Hasta Los Huesos) since her father launched the family show concept in 2018. In the middle of it all, in 2023, she went on her eight-date Piensa En Mí Tour, a solo trek across the U.S.
“Singing is a very lonely career because you go on stage and sing in front of 20,000 people and then you go back to a hotel room and you’re all by yourself,” Ángela shares. “But I have the privilege of having three people in my family that experience the same thing I do every single night. I get to learn from them every weekend.”
Most recently, Ángela released Bolero, a nine-song set produced by her father in honor of the genre that originated in the 19th century and inspires her ever expanding musical palate. With this LP, she doubles down on her effort to expose a new generation of fans to the styles that soundtracked her childhood home.
“That’s been my message for many years; wanting the younger generation to appreciate the music,” she says with pride. “I think people often question whether I’m singing the music I want to sing but I am. Truly this is my biggest passion. And I’ve inherited not only the passion for it but also the love passed on from generations of fans because I’m part of this musical dynasty. You don’t need to be part of one but when you are, it’s beautiful.”