Jessi Uribe on Making Grammys History: ‘This Puts Colombia’s Música Popular on the Radar’

Jessi Uribe was putting up the Christmas tree with his children at his home in Colombia when he received the news that he’d been nominated for the 2025 Grammys. 

Not only does it mark his first nom at the coveted awards show, but he’s making history along the way as the first artist of música popular Colombiana (or Regional Colombian) to be in the best Música Mexicana album (including Tejano) category with his 2023 LP De Lejitos.

“I didn’t even know what to do when my manager called me crying,” he tells Billboard. “I thought he was playing a joke on me. I’m very happy. I didn’t expect it. We have worked a lot on la música de despecho (heartbreak music) in Colombia and nobody imagined it.”

Since 2008, Uribe has become one of the biggest proponents of música popular, which fuses ranchera and the string music known as carrilera in Colombia. The genre — initially known as música de carrilera or música de cantina — was born more than five decades ago in the country’s coffee region, and first gained traction in small towns and local bars with the help of genre pioneers including Darío Gómez, Luis Alberto Posada and El Charrito Negro. 

Now, for the first time in the genre’s history, it’s represented in a Mexican music category at the Grammys against three Regional Mexican powerhouses: Chiquis, Carín León, and Peso Pluma. 

“My style is very romantic and I’m very attached to my roots,” he explains. “I feel that Mexican people take that with a lot of respect. I’ve had the opportunity to work with Espinoza Paz, Carín León, Alejandro Fernández, Joss Favela, people who know that I love ranchera music and that I have been a part of it since I was a child. It’s an achievement that even though I’m not Mexican, I’m in a genre that is my life as well. A Colombian who makes ranchera? I think it seemed strange but also nice to the Academy.”

For Uribe, this nomination goes beyond a personal achievement. “[This nomination] puts música popular on the radar of many countries and of people who perhaps saw us as a weak genre abroad,” he says. “I feel that they now see the genre with a little more respect. We are very united in regional Colombian, and this is a dream that [my colleagues] live with me and that we achieved together.”

Following the 67th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday (Feb. 2), Uribe will have a concert at the Hard Rock Live on Feb. 21 in Hollywood, Fla., and says a new album — that he worked on with Favela in Mexico, and includes a collab with Grupo Firme — is on the horizon. 

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