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Street Mob Records, the indie label founded by Fuerza Regida frontman Jesus Ortiz Paz (JOP), and which has seen impressive gains on the Billboard charts in the past year, has hired veteran music executive Gustavo López as its new president. The move signals Street Mob’s intention to become “the next big Latin music label,” says JOP, and is part of the label’s significant expansion and its intention to grow further.
In addition to López, Street Mob has also appointed Cindy Gaxiola as its vp of commercial affairs, Niria León as vp of booking and Jesús Amezcua as its vp of marketing. They join an executive team that already included COO Cristian “Toro” Primera and CFO Luis López. Both are partners on Street Mob with JOP, who launched the label as a rookie artist in 2018 and has seen it grow exponentially, especially in the past two years, expanding a roster that now includes Chino Pacas, Clave Especial and Armenta.

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“We got The Avengers,” says JOP quite seriously. “The whole point of this is we’re going to the next level with Street Mob Records. We got the avengers. We got Gustavo Lopez as the president. We got two incredible female senior VPs who are running the company on the touring and management side. That’s why we’re calling it the avengers. Now we have the best of the best.”

Street Mob ended 2024 at No. 6 on Billboard’s year-end Top Latin Imprint chart and the labels’ publishing division — Street Mob Publishing — won publisher of the year at the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards. According to López, in this week’s Billboard regional Airplay chart, Street Mob is represented in some way — whether songwriting, producing or artist — in 44% of the chart’s top 25 songs.

For all those successes, bringing in López signals JOP’s seriousness about growing and expanding his business. As part of his long trajectory, López launched maverick reggaetón label Machete Records under Universal in the 2000s, distributing stars like Daddy Yankee and Wisin & Yandel, and was later president of regional Mexican powerhouses Fonovisa and Disa Records. Most recently, he served as CEO of Saban Music Latin until its acquisition by Virgin last year, and launched entertainment company Globalatino Music Partners.

Although López will continue to oversee Globalatino’s overall operation, he will be devoted full time to Street Mob, which is based in Los Angeles. “When I had the opportunity to meet JOP and saw how integrated he is in the business, and how young he is, it was an inspiration for me,” says López. “I thought, ‘If I’m going back to Mexican music, I’m going to do it with the best.’ There’s a lot going on at Street Mob that maybe the industry is not aware of. These guys are more than just the label. And now it’s just formalizing the team.”

JOP founded Street Mob in 2018 “with the hopes of one day being a big record label,” he says. At the time, he was already a fledgling artist, and he wanted to learn how the business worked. In 2020, when things got tough and many in his circle deserted him, Primera and Luis López stayed by his side and JOP made them partners in Street Mob.

“Together with them, we learned the business,” says JOP today. “And little by little, with all our creativity, I think we know. We know how to make a hit.”

Though managed by Street Mob, Fuerza Regida is not signed to the label. Instead, they have a joint venture with indie powerhouse Rancho Humilde and are distributed by Sony.

The group — a juggernaut that won Top Duo/Group at the 2024 Billboard Music Awards, beating international stars such as Blink-182, Coldplay, Linkin Park and Stray Kids — placed three titles in the Top Latin Albums top 10, including Pa Las Baby’s Y Belikeada, which peaked at No. 1 for three weeks.

But since its inception, JOP has been signing new artists, songwriters and producers to Street Mob and has different deals with each, with distribution in place with Cinq, Universal and Warner Music Latina, with whom Street Mob inked an exclusive partnership last year for its artists Armenta, Clave Especial and Calle 24.

Since last year, JOP has been looking for someone to head the label because “it was finally too much for us. But we needed to find the right person. Gustavo is perfect.”

Street Mob currently has 10 artists signed to the label, plus its own publishing company, management and touring division. The company just purchased a 35,000 square foot facility in Rancho Cucamonga, near Los Angeles, with a goal to build an office that will house everybody in the Los Angeles area, says López.

“You can’t mess with the secret sauce,” he says. “The A&R is where it needs to be. We just need to get some finer points aligned and it will continue to expand.”

For JOP, a big part is nurturing artists from the ground up.

“We’re like a school,” he says, citing emerging artist Jorsshh, who started as a writer and now has over nine million listeners on Spotify. “We show them the business and try to open doors for them to go to the next level. We’re trying to make this a big record label within Latin culture.”