Music

On June 28, Mexican-American country singer MŌRIAH and artist Ana Bárbara turned a room filled with apprehension into a powerful moment of unity, prior to a boxing matchup between American boxer Jake Paul and Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. in Anaheim, California.

“The tension in the room was palpable,” MŌRIAH recalls, as the matchup came amidst heightened political strife. MŌRIAH and Bárbara met in Bárbara’s green room and felt “an instant connection and an immediate understanding of what we had the opportunity to do in that moment.” Bárbara took the stage first to perform the Mexican anthem.

“Almost every person in the arena sang every word,” MŌRIAH remembers, who then followed Bárbara onstage, to perform the American national anthem accompanied by a guitarist fusing the song with mariachi sounds. By the song’s end, Bárbara had joined MŌRIAH as they held hands and sang the final line together.

“It felt like the room just exploded with people applauding and screaming,” MŌRIAH  says. “For that brief moment, it was like, ‘This is what it looks like if we set those differences aside and we band together, we own both parts of who we are.’ That unity was so powerful, that we were like, ‘This is the beginning of something.’”

On her two new EPs, MŌRIAH also celebrates her full heritage and family. She will release the six-song English-language version, Nice Life, on Friday (Oct. 24) on F2 Entertainment, followed by its Spanish-language counterpart, Buena Vida, on Oct. 31.

She and acclaimed producer Paul Mabury (Lauren Daigle, MercyMe) began working on the songs nearly three years ago, shortly after Mabury attended MŌRIAH’s 30th birthday celebration—a joint party also honoring her grandmother, who was battling health challenges at the time.

“I brought in mariachis, and my friends learned a traditional dance,” MŌRIAH recalls. “The next time we were in the studio, my producer showed me a photo from that night and said, ‘This is beautiful. This is what we need to write about.’”

MŌRIAH was no stranger to releasing music, but those songs would mark a turning point in her artistry. She was raised in California, in a home where mariachi music was played at family gatherings and quinceañeras were celebrated. Summers were spent with family in El Paso, Texas. In 2014, her CCM album Brave reached No. 9 of Billboard’s Top Christian Albums chart. She also released the 2022 EP Curtain Call.

Her producer’s encouragement dovetailed with the music and journal entries MŌRIAH had been quietly creating backstage while touring churches across the country.

“I would sing songs that had been written for me, then go backstage and write about my family,” she says. “It’s funny to me now how I kept those two worlds so separate.”

Last year, she released the breezy and dreamy “Hasta Mañana,” a song recorded at Texas’ famed Sonic Ranch studio.

“That song was an exciting peek into where we could go,” MŌRIAH says. The EPs build upon that song, fully celebrating themes of family, love and emotional struggle, wrapping it in sounds intersecting modern country and Latin music. The title track delves into finding happiness and contentment in simplicity, while “Sombrero” lends itself to a Western-flaired romance.

On “Supermujeres,” which serves as a centerpiece on MŌRIAH’s new project, she teamed again with Bárbara. Bárbara sang her own version of the Spanish lyrics, but also backed MŌRIAH on the chorus, singing the harmony line in English.

“She was like, ‘I’m making this the Mexican version,’” MŌRIAH says. “We tracked together in the studio, and I never asked her to sing the English chorus because it’s a lot to ask someone to do that and sing in their second language. But a week later, she heard the demo and was like, ‘When you’re singing the chorus in English, it sounds lonely. I want to support your voice in English, too.’ She worked so hard and her articulation was so beautiful.”

The artwork for the EPs features images in tin nichos, Mexican folk art shadow boxes used to honor loved ones. The Spanish-language EP features a tin nicho with a photo of MŌRIAH wearing a sombrero de charros, while the English-language version features a similar photo, but with the sombrero placed on a table in front of MŌRIAH.

“I wanted to have the sombrero in the image, because that’s what I’m honoring, the culture,” she says. “I’m honoring where I come from, so the cover of the Spanish EP is with the sombrero on and then for the English one I have the sombrero on the table, because I’m honoring the fact that my family learned English, a whole new language.”

So far, the year has brimmed with new milestones. MŌRIAH was named to CMT’s Next Women of Country class of 2025. Last month, she made her Grand Ole Opry debut, which followed her debut at CMA Fest in June, where she performed the national anthem and featured mariachi dancers onstage with her.

“My dad played bass onstage with me, which was such a special moment,” she recalls of performing at CMA Fest. “I think sometimes you can’t be what you can’t see, so just to be able to show up onstage and represent something that feels different gives people a sense of celebration.”

MŌRIAH, who is working with Nashville industry vet Fletcher Foster, now finds herself connected with a lineage of artists weaving together Latin and country sounds, from Freddy Fender, Linda Ronstadt and Johnny Rodriguez to newer artists including Angie K, Frank Ray and Sammy Arriaga. Meanwhile, Carin Leon made his Grand Ole Opry debut earlier this year, and Grupo Frontera is set to play the Opry in November.

“I’ve been looking for a female Latin country artist for years since the CMA Research study came out and just have found the right one for me. MŌRIAH has it all,” Foster tells Billboard in a statement. “Beyond a ‘triple threat’ the talent from songwriter to performing, acting, to speaking [MŌRIAH recently took part in a TedX talk in Nashville] is at another level. I’m looking forward to her bringing these two worlds together not just creatively but culturally.”

“I think that most people who are shaping culture don’t look at themselves as shaping culture—they’re just doing the work that’s in front of them and working hard. It’s not until you look back a bit and realize all that time invested, it did something that was bigger than me,” MŌRIAH says.

She will play her first show in Mexico later this month and is planning a full-length album for 2026, accompanied by more live shows. The multi-faceted creator is also an actress, film and music producer, who has acted in films and television shows including The Chosen, Reagan and Because of Gracia, and co-produced the 2024 film Unsung Hero, which chronicles the journey of her husband Joel Smallbone (of For King & Country)’s family from Australia to America. She’s already working on more upcoming film projects.

As she’s approaching the work’s long hours and creative output, she’s aware of the legacy building inherent in her rise.

“It’s what feels like pressure, but I count it a privilege to carry that pressure. It’s only two generations back that my grandparents were working in tomato fields and in factories,” she says. “They paved the way. They’ve sacrificed so much for me to be able to be able to work this hard and to be able to point back to their story and their narrative. It’s beautiful how in a family, one generation’s ceiling becomes the next generation’s floor and it just keeps building. That’s what I’m hoping to do with this music, too, is create a new threshold for the next generation to springboard off of.”