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Jenni Rivera‘s posthumous album Misión Cumplida is here, and producer Pavel Ocampo breaks down some of its most prominent songs.
Released on Friday (June 30) under Sony Music Latin, Misión Cumplida includes 16 tracks with the distinctive sound of La Gran Señora of regional Mexican music. Songs such as “Q.T.M.L. (El Corrido de la Diva)” show the temperament that made her unique, while “El Que Hoy Está En Tu Lugar” shows off her unrivaled boldness and “Pedacito De Mí”, dedicated to her children, reveals her tenderness. There are also new versions of “Engañémoslo” and “Aparentemente Bien.”
Ocampo, lead producer of Banda MS, was chosen to bring to fruition the recordings that Rivera left incomplete, and to give the right sound to others, with the help of Sergio Lizárraga and the children of the late Diva de la Banda.
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“We worked together with Sony Music, Jenicka, Johnny, Jacqie and Chiquis. This led to very good results,” Ocampo tells Billboard Español, explaining that they had to “clean up” noises of people talking and other sounds to rescue the iconic singer’s voice. “The challenge was to keep Jenni sounding like Jenni.”
Misión Cumplida arrives on time to celebrate Rivera’s birthday — she who would have turned 54 this Saturday (July 1). The chart-topping singer of No. 1 Billboard hits such as “De Contrabando” and “Dos Botellas de Mezcal” died in a plane crash on December 9, 2012 at the age of 43.
Below, Ocampo breaks down five essential songs from Jenni Rivera’s Misión Cumplida.
“Misión Cumplida”
“‘Misión Cumplida’ (Mission Accomplished) is my favorite because of what it represents and the way they discovered it. It was a 30-minute audio that showed the creative process. It wasn’t a studio recording, it was about how she was creating it. The feeling of hearing Jenni singing after 10 years was amazing. The title also says a lot of things. For this one, [her son Johnny] suggested we include a piano part and that gave it a special touch.”
“Q.T.M.L. (El Corrido de la Diva)”
“‘Quisieran Tener Mi Lugar’ (They Would Like to Have my Place) is a song that represents her, her style, her way of thinking and her way of being: a woman of strong convictions. In this song we respected her way of composing and musicalizing. It is very much her, starting with the title.”
“Pedacito De Mí”
“Pedacito De Mí’ (Little Piece of Me) was also written by Jenni and is one of the audios that were in storage and were not designed to be part of an album. In fact, the song was not finished. It is a very special song because it is the connection between Jenni and her children, it is pure love. On the musical side, we wanted to respect the idea she had; in those audios they sent us, we could appreciate the creative process and her ideas and that is what we worked on.”
“Aparentemente Bien”
“In the case of ‘Aparentemente Bien’ (Apparently OK), it’s a song that the Rivera family had already released [in 2019] and they asked us to do a new version. I think this one has more of Jenni’s essence. The previous one sounds very good, but I think this one was particularly challenging because there was something [before]. We wanted the song to sound more like Jenni and achieving that was very satisfying.”
“Engañémoslo”
“I really like ‘Engañémoslo’ (Let’s Fool Him) for the melody, for what it says, for the way she sings it. This one does have vocals designed for recording because in reality, it had already been recorded. The challenge was similar to that of ‘Aparentemente Bien’: to make a new concept of something that had already been released. Sergio and I were given the opportunity to be part of this production and we did it with great pleasure, and hopefully it won’t be the only time we work with them. We feel very fortunate that they have taken us into account to create the album of an icon of Mexican and Latin music.”
Listen to all the songs from Misión Cumplida here:
On a bright, sunny day in May in the rural Santa Clarita Valley, a 45-minute drive north of Los Angeles, the quintet known as Fuerza Regida and its clan roll up in three luxury cars: a 2023 black Cadillac Escalade SUV, a graphite off-roader Lamborghini Urus and a white Chevrolet Corvette. As the band members made their way to the shaded area, sporting brands like Rhude and Dior along with custom-fitted Dodger caps, their necks and wrists sparkled, dripping in diamonds.
Given their style, one could easily label the members of Fuerza Regida as rappers. But the group from San Bernardino, Calif., is a trailblazer of the burgeoning música mexicana (or regional Mexican, as the music is also known) movement that has taken over the Billboard charts since the beginning of the year.
Born and raised in the United States, the members of Fuerza Regida — frontman and lead songwriter Jesús Ortiz Paz (known as JOP), lead guitarist Samuel Jaimez, second guitarist Khrystian Ramos, tuba player José García and tololoche player Moisés López — have become one of the main drivers of a homegrown music that celebrates Northern Mexican roots with a trap bravado. “We’re all American, so we like to dress with American swag. Whatever we sang about, it wasn’t the regular ranch stuff. It was about what’s going on in the hood, what’s going on in California, what’s going on in these different [U.S.] states. Then it just started growing,” JOP tells Billboard Español.
“The worst enemy of a Mexican is another Mexican. There’s not as many duets now. You know why? Because in regional, they’re all enemies.”— JOP, leader of Fuerza Regida and businessman
It grew so much that it outpaced any other genre. On the Billboard Hot 100 dated July 1, 17 Spanish-language songs appear on the chart, and 13 of them are música mexicana. In May 2021, Gera MX and Christian Nodal made history with “Botella Tras Botella,” becoming the first regional Mexican title to enter the all-genre list. Before 2021, only three regional Mexican acts had appeared on the Hot 100 since 1958, but they were classified as Latin pop in the charts. This year, however, consumption of música mexicana has skyrocketed: As of May 25, its popularity jumped by 42.1% in the United States, topping all genres but K-pop, according to Luminate.
As for Fuerza Regida, the group earned its first entry on the Hot 100 in January with “Bebe Dame” alongside Grupo Frontera, a swaggering romantic cumbia jam with a grupera persuasion that peaked at No. 25. Since then, the group has placed three other tracks on the all-genre chart: “Ch y La Pizza” with Natanael Cano, “Igualito a Mi Apá” with Peso Pluma, and the band’s penultimate solo single, “TQM.”
José Garcia, Moisés López, Jésus Ortiz Paz, Khrystian Ramos and Samuel Jaimez of Fuerza Regida photographed on May 23, 2023 at Tranquility Canyon Ranch in Santa Clarita, Calif.
Martha Galvan
And while Fuerza Regida’s music falls under “regional Mexican” or “música mexicana” — an umbrella term that covers Mexican music genres from accordion-based norteñas and brass-powered banda to corridos, cumbia, mariachi and sierreño — the band takes things a bit further by mixing in a hip-hop mentality and swagger into its norteño sensibility.
“Fuerza Regida are transgressors in the música mexicana space, who really show us how the new generation of Mexican Americans in the U.S. have their own language, they know how to use it, how to reach fans. I feel that today they’re the voice of the people,” says Carlos Quintero, senior manager for artist relations and marketing at Sony Music.
Today, the rugged desert scenery of our Santa Clarita location and the band’s high-end urban gear, bling and luxe cars all collide neatly to highlight the rustic borderland sound with a trap twist that Fuerza Regida has been brewing to global hype.
Como En Familia
Gathered around the snack table, the members of Fuerza Regida are messing around like rowdy cousins at a family carne asada function. They, along with Ángel Ureta and Diego Millan of Calle 24 — two artists that JOP signed to his label, Street Mob Records — place bets on what is clearly an exhilarating game of dice. “Boom! It happens, foo, it happens,” exclaims López, as he and García split a wad of $10 bills for their winning round. “That was a beautiful hand, bro,” says Jaimez.
The name Fuerza Regida (pronounced REH-hee-dah, with the emphasis on the “e”) denotes, for its members, a dominant or ruling force, although the word “régida” does not exist in the dictionary of the Real Academia Española and “regida” without the accent means “governed.” But in the band members’ street language, it makes perfect sense.
Jesús Ortiz Paz of Fuerza Regida photographed on May 23, 2023 at Tranquility Canyon Ranch in Santa Clarita, Calif.
Martha Galvan
The group tends to speak primarily in English, with smatterings of Spanish. “La neta [or “the truth,” in Mexican slang], I didn’t learn English or Spanish. I got bad vocabulary,” says JOP. “Me too,” adds López. “We all do,” echoes García. “Yeah, man, I’m not good at that. I probably have like third grade level,” JOP jokes.
JOP navigates not just as a wildly entertaining and spontaneous frontman but also like a boss. He is assertive yet jokes around and doesn’t hold back when speaking his mind. “I wanted to be famous for whatever: a boxer or an actor. But I was like, ‘No, I’m going to go through the singing stuff, because I’ve been doing it since I was little with my dad,’ ” says JOP, who doesn’t shy away from making shockingly bold and controversial statements.
“The worst enemy of a Mexican is another Mexican,” he says bluntly. “There’s not as many duets now. You know why? Because in regional, they’re all enemies. I’m trying to tell everybody, ‘Hey, let’s get united,’ like we did a year back [when] the genre wasn’t popping like that,” he says. “The five, six that are on top [of the charts] don’t want to duet. Now that we got here, everyone’s like, ‘I’m cool, I’m cool,’ ” he says. While the Hot 100 is loaded with música mexicana collaborations, the skyrocketing money at stake has sparked more competition and caution among artists when selecting their collaborators, he alludes.
The five San Bernardino natives met through “destiny,” in their words, and word-of-mouth at JOP’s old gig. “I used to cut hair, and one of my clients said, ‘Hey, I know this band that’s looking for a bass player,’ ” he recalls. “I came in and I played the bass during practice. Then they asked me, ‘Hey, do you sing?’ I sang them a song, and they were like, ‘Hey, you want to be the singer?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, we’re a group!’ ” That was six years ago.
With JOP’s raw, passionate vocals, Jaimez’s fiery requinto riffs, Ramos’ driving rhythmic guitar and García’s whirling yet powerful melodies on tuba, the first iteration of Fuerza Regida was born. In 2021, López, who’s about six years younger than the others (who are all either 26 or 27), joined the troupe on the tololoche (a kind of Mexican contrabass).
The first-generation Mexican Americans loved regional Mexican music from a young age, although they were shy to admit it back then. “You had to only listen to it at home,” JOP admits. “Now, it’s the opposite. It’s taking over. Now, it’s bigger than rap.”
José Garcia of Fuerza Regida photographed on May 23, 2023 at Tranquility Canyon Ranch in Santa Clarita, Calif.
Martha Galvan
The Power Of Mexican
Mexican music has always been hugely popular in Mexico and the United States thanks to the large stateside Mexican American community that consumed the sounds and looks from home. Regional Mexican artists not only performed genres like banda and norteño but dressed the part with cowboy hats, boots and matching uniforms. But in the past decade, regional Mexican artists lost ground to a new Latin urban movement that took over the charts.
In that climate, Fuerza Regida didn’t debut strong but instead steadily built momentum as its sound, and moxie, evolved. “We were the group that was the suckiest in town,” JOP recalls with a chuckle. “Although we sucked with the instruments, we had a unique style.” In 2018, Fuerza Regida released its first local hit — “Uno Personal,” a Chayín Rubino cover — and things began “popping off,” as the members say. That year, they also released their live debut, En Vivo Puros Corridos.
During this time, a phenomenon on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border began to occur. Música mexicana equipped with a trap beat began to cross-pollinate and dominate streaming services. In 2018, corridos tumbados pioneer Natanael Cano from Hermosillo in Sonora, Mexico, and California group Herencia de Patrones began out-streaming some of the most notable players in pop and hip-hop.
Fuerza Regida also began making noise with its riveting corridos track “Radicamos En South Central” (2018), which was soon released by Rancho Humilde Records — the label that has been spearheading the música mexicana movement to unfathomable heights. “It really opened the doors for us,” JOP told Billboard in 2020. “Thanks to that song, Ramon Ruiz from Legado 7 discovered us and we got signed to two labels: his, Lumbre Music, and Rancho Humilde.”
Another turning point for the wider visibility of the movement was the group’s studio album Del Barrio Hasta Aquí (2019), which emerged as one of the leading trap corridos releases. On the cover, the then-four-piece appears to be crossing a street in front of a Santa Fe, N.M., pawn shop, like the cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road. Sonically, the group took the rancheras out of Mexico and gave them a street-style, bicultural spin with a rags-to-riches lyrical approach, while still fondly reflecting on its neighborhood hustle. The album wound up appearing on several year-end critics’ lists.
Khrystian Ramos of Fuerza Regida photographed on May 23, 2023 at Tranquility Canyon Ranch in Santa Clarita, Calif.
Martha Galvan
It’s a sound that’s attracting both U.S. and Mexican fan bases. In the month of June, Fuerza Regida clocked 343 million views on its YouTube channel. And in one year’s time, the group has accumulated a staggering 2.9 billion streams on the platform, with Mexico responsible for 1.6 billion views and the United States 872 million. Guatemala, Colombia and Honduras follow. The band’s top two streaming markets by city in the last 12 months are Mexico City, at 219 million, and Los Angeles, with 91.7 million. Following them are Mexican cities Guadalajara (65.4 million), Monterrey (61.7 million) and Tijuana (52 million), Dallas (49.7 million) and Guatemala City (47.4 million).
On Spotify’s most-streamed list, Fuerza Regida is No. 196, as of June 22, gathering 24.2 million monthly listeners, with most from Mexico: Mexico City has 3.7 million listeners, followed by millions more in Guadalajara, Monterrey, Zapopan and Puebla.
Last year, the band signed a bigger deal with Sony Music Latin through Rancho Humilde, whose founder, Jimmy Humilde, “transmits the emotion he has for the music and the genre,” says Quintero. “From the first song I heard by them in 2019 up until now, I’ve always thought they’re artists with the street cred and language that makes them very current in Mexican music.”
But the group is looking to go beyond that. “We’re actually trying to manifest [a collaboration] with Karol G,” says JOP. “We got that song ready for her whenever she wants to hop on. We would love to expand our relationship with other genres and make this bigger than what it is now.”
When Billboard Español spoke to Fuerza Regida in May, the band was fresh off releasing its latest hit, “TQM.” The song debuted at No. 35 on the Hot 100 and No. 19 on the Billboard Global 200. The group was also in between tour stops on its Mexico trek, preparing to embark on its first arena tour in the United States. The Otra Peda Tour (or “Another Drunken Tour” in Mexican slang) begins July 7 and has already sold out multiple stops including the band’s first two shows, in Dallas at the Dos Equis Pavilion and in Los Angeles at BMO Stadium.
“[The fans] all need to be lit,” JOP says excitedly. “If they’re not lit, I got to get them lit — and make sure they’re all singing each song. If they’re not singing it, I got to figure it out and change that. They go to turn up, not to be bored,” he says, before adding with a smirk: “I love drinking too much on tour.”
Moisés López of Fuerza Regida photographed on May 23, 2023 at Tranquility Canyon Ranch in Santa Clarita, Calif.
Martha Galvan
Through it all, JOP has made big efforts to support up-and-coming talent, which he mentors under his label, Street Mob Records, founded in 2018 in partnership with Rancho Humilde. This year, Street Mob signed a distribution deal with Cinq Music, which will be working label artists including Chino Pacas, Calle 24 and Ángel Tumbado.
“Regional Mexican is one of the hottest and fastest[-growing] genres in the world right now, so to have that relationship with someone like Jesús means a lot to us,” says Cinq Music president Barry Daffurn. “From the time we first started working in regional Mexican music and the first time I sat down with Jimmy of Rancho Humilde, our goal was to bring this music global. The vision at that point was not to make it regional Mexican music, but more música mexicana, expanding it outside that network, to all the countries outside of [Latin America].”
The multiple deals are very much in line with how Jimmy Humilde works. “He’s like a mini me,” he says of JOP. “He listens to me a lot, and he’s a firecracker. He works very, very, very hard. We work together, we plan everything together.”
Samuel Jaimez of Fuerza Regida photographed on May 23, 2023 at Tranquility Canyon Ranch in Santa Clarita, Calif.
Martha Galvan
JOP’s artist Chino Pacas recently entered the Hot 100 with his groundbreaking song “El Gordo Trae El Mando,” a testament to the label’s support and JOP’s business acumen.
“I started my label a year after my career,” he says, “because I’ve always liked…”
“Business,” García chimes in.
“…Money,” JOP adds. “Hard work beats talent, always. A little bit of luck, a little bit of talent, and hard work. I consider myself an artist, but I got to work a little harder because I’m [also] an entrepreneur. I’m a businessman. I got my whole company. I’m doing these big deals with my artists. I’m probably going to make more money with my label than I ever did with my career, with Fuerza Regida, but that’s fine because I enjoy being an artist.”
“[JOP] is an entrepreneur, and now he has his own label,” Quintero says. “But independent of anything else, he’s on TikTok, on Reels, on the YouTube charts, everywhere, always sharing his music. I think that’s the big key to success for this new generation of música mexicana, and he’s a big leader in that.”
There’s even a YouTube clip of the band visiting the Tijuana border crossing and performing in the line of cars awaiting entry like músicos callejeros, or buskers. That’s where they met one of JOP’s latest signees, Chuy Montana. “We went to the line because we wanted to experience how it felt to play for the cars,” JOP says. “[Montana] used to work there about a month ago. Now he’s in concert with us.”
Samuel Jaimez, Moisés López, Jesús Ortiz Paz, Khrystian Ramos and José Garcia of Fuerza Regida photographed on May 23, 2023 at Tranquility Canyon Ranch in Santa Clarita, Calif.
Martha Galvan
In December, Fuerza Regida ambitiously released two full-length albums a few days apart, Pa Que Hablen and Sigan Hablando. The band supported the releases with publicity stunts like performing on the rooftop of a supermarket in San Bernardino. “Thousands” showed up, according to Quintero. “They really are the voice of the people when it comes to música mexicana today,” he says.
And increasingly, the group is becoming the voice of the people beyond Mexican and Mexican American audiences.
“Artists like Natanael Cano, Fuerza Regida and [others] are writing about things that are different from the stories in Mexico or about drug cartels [like traditional corridos or narcocorridos],” says Krystina DeLuna, Latin music programmer at Apple Music. “[JOP] is very proudly Mexican American, but he has always had that global mindset, [so] their approach to música mexicana is innovative. Whether they do a more traditional-leaning song or take risks and push boundaries, their essence always comes through and connects.”
Being Mexican American, JOP says, means that “you hit the gold pot. It’s the best.”
“I wouldn’t want to be Mexican. I wouldn’t want to be American,” he says. “I’m perfect.”
In late 2022, Latin urban music appeared to be an indomitable force after nearly a decade of chart supremacy. Bad Bunny, Billboard‘s Artist of the year, topped both Latin charts and global charts — and on top of that, he was the highest-grossing touring artist of 2022. Other urban-leaning global hits were churned out at lightning speed: Karol G and Becky G’s “Mamii”; Rauw Alejandro and Chencho Corleone’s “Desesperados.” Bizarrap’s music sessions became fabled.
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Six months later, the pendulum has swung in a different direction. Sharply. This week, 13 of the 17 Spanish-language tracks on the Billboard Hot 100 are regional Mexican tracks, or “música Mexicana,” as it’s called by some. They include the highest-charting Latin track on the chart, Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma’s “Ella Baila Sola,” which ranks at No. 10 for its second consecutive week after peaking at No. 4.
Of those 13 tracks, one features Bad Bunny — who, smartly recognizing the new wave, recorded “unx100to” with Grupo Frontera. Even Bizarrap’s new music session, “Vol. 55,” features Peso Pluma, the hottest regional Mexican act of the moment and only the second Mexican artist to be featured in a session (the first, Sno Tha Product, is an urban act).
It all couldn’t sound more different to reggaetón, which not only explains part of the appeal — but also signals that Latin listeners may be suffering from reggaetón and urban music fatigue, and ready to discover new sounds. Led by acts like Peso Pluma, Eslabón Armado, Fuerza Regida and Luis R. Conríquez, today’s Mexican music is earthy, guitar- and brass-based and devoid of Auto-Tune and drum machines, the hallmarks of reggaetón for over a decade. Mexican music shows, like those by the likes of Peso Pluma, Natanael Cano, Carín León, Fuerza Regida and Conríquez, are live music spectacles, with full bands — whether big or small — playing live onstage, rather than using tracks and pads.
While reggaetón acts often cite the cost of their dancers and pyro as a primary budgetary concern, regional Mexican acts largely eschew those frills in favor of sheer musical manpower. Mexican music shows rarely incorporate dancers; the live music is meant to be the center of attention and it’s also the heart of the genre, for artists young and old. How could an act like Yahrtiza y su Esencia, for example, possibly exist without those two dueling guitars? How could Pepe Aguilar sing without his mariachi? When one sees Peso Pluma performing with that fierce, seven-piece band behind him, the thought of replacing them with dancers feels anathema to the spirit of his performance; the mere choice of a tuba line or a guitar is deliberate and congruent with the style of each particular song, whether it be a corrido or a sierreño.
While many reggaetón acts hone their chops in front of a computer in the recording studio, Mexican acts do so by playing together in their garages and learning from each other, much like punk and rock bands always did. That organic feel and camaraderie translates into the recordings and onto the stage and fans are devouring it.
And then, there’s the lyrics: Mexican music remains, in essence, focused on romance and story-telling. Yes, narcocorridos — the tales of drug users, drug lords and their exploits — abound, and the lyrics, full of bravado and braggadocio, often glorify the subject matter, something that’s far less common in reggaetón (and that I’m not a fan of). On the other hand, Mexican music largely avoids the blatant misogyny of reggaetón and the genre’s continued obsession with assessing the size and heft of women’s breasts and butts and their levels of arousal. There is sexual innuendo — these are no choirboys either –but there is barely any sexual explicitness, either in the music or in the visuals, where women are depicted as sexy temptresses, but rarely as purely sexual objects.
The new Mexican music does take many of its aesthetic cues from reggaetón and urban music: The clothes, the accessories, the jewelry, the swagger. This is, after all, youth pop culture. Beyond that creative aspect, regional Mexican music has also learned from reggaetón as an industry. The genre, which was once notoriously averse to collaborations, now boasts them in spades, a factor that’s been key to its rise in popularity — as Peso Pluma openly said during his South Florida show on Saturday.
But the roots of the music have remained solid, and it’s clearly having an impact outside the Mexican audience. As Mike Tyson put it as he danced to the strains of Peso Pluma’s guitar accompaniment on a social media video touting the singer’s new album, Génesis: “This is my s–t.”
We’re with you, Mike.
Street Mob Records has signed a worldwide deal with Cinq Music to distribute the label and expand its opportunities in branding, sponsorships, merchandising and synchronization. The deal will also include new talent discovery for Street Mob Records.
Founded by Fuerza Regida’s frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz (a.k.a. JOP), Street Mob Records’ artists include Chino Pacas, Calle 24, Ángel Ureta, Chuy Montana, Linea Personal and more rising regional Mexican music — or música mexicana as it is also called — acts.
“We have worked with Cinq for years and know that they’re committed to the genre,” said Paz in a statement to Billboard Español. “It’s only natural that we should partner with them to grow and expand Street Mob – combining their infrastructure, experience, and reach with our talent.”
“We bet on people, not just music, and it’s obvious that Jesus Ortiz Paz is going to carry his success as an artist into his label,” added Cinq Music president Barry Daffurn. “We are excited to team up with Street Mob Records to accelerate their growth. Cinq already brings billions of streams a month to the music world – now, we’re going to add incredible fuel to that fire with these important artists.”
Since 2018, Cinq Music has also been working with Rancho Humilde — Fuerza Regida’s label — another independent label at the forefront of música mexicana’s recent growth.
“Regional Mexican [music] is one of the hottest and fastest genres in the world right now, so to have that relationship with someone like Jesús means a lot to us,” continued Daffurn. “From the time we first started working in regional Mexican music, and the first time I sat down with Jimmy [Humilde] of Rancho Humilde, our goal was to bring this music global. The vision at that point was not to make it regional Mexican music, but more música mexicana, expanding it outside that network, to all the countries outside of [Latin America.] Corridos are leading that global expansion.”
Earlier this month, Street Mob Records and Cinq Music teamed up to release Chino Pacas’ “Yo Preferí Chambear,” which was the premiere of their new partnership. The video already racked up 2.1 million views on YouTube since it dropped 11 days ago.
In March, Chino Pacas entered the Billboard Hot 100 with “El Gordo Trae El Mando,” the artist’s first entry in the historic, all-genres chart.
“We’re operating as a distributor, from a technical standpoint, but as a company, we don’t work with everyone. The artists and labels that we do work with are very high touch,” said Daffurn. “We’re helping them with administrative support, full service marketing, and there’s money involved to make investments so they can build their own infrastructure and grow that way.”
Fuerza Regida earned its first entry on Billboard Hot 100 in January with “Bebe Dame” alongside Grupo Frontera, a romantic cumbia jam with a grupera swing that peaked at No. 25. Since then, they’ve placed three other tracks on the all-genres chart, “Ch y La Pizza” with Natanael Cano, “Igualito a Mi Apá” with Peso Pluma, and their latest “TQM” on their own.
While superstar musicians from Puerto Rico, Colombia and across the Americas have raised the profile — and bottom line — of Latin music in recent years, 2023 is turning out to be a breakout year for a particular kind of Latin music.
Regional Mexican music consumption in the United States jumped 42.1% year to date through May 25, according to Luminate. The genre — comprised of banda, corridos, norteño, sierreño, mariachi and more subgenres — had 5.81 million equivalent album units [EAUs] in the first 21 weeks of 2023 compared to 4.09 million EAUs in the prior-year period. EAUs combine album sales in addition to track sales and streams converted into album units.
That outpaces gains in the Latin genre overall (+23.1%), as well as country (+21.7%), dance/electronic (+15.5%), rock (+12.4%) and pop (+10.3%), as well as the overall market (+13.4%). Only K-pop — up 49.4% year to date as Korean music companies partner with U.S. labels to further penetrate the U.S. market — has performed better than regional Mexican.
The numbers are on track with Mexican music’s exponential and global growth — which Billboard has been reporting on — over the past few years. The legacy genre, which has been around for more than a century and a half, has experienced a newfound popularity, ushered in by a new generation of Mexican and Mexican-American artists who have subtly fused core traditional sounds with urbano/hip-hop styles appealing to a younger, digitally connected audience — mostly notably Eslabon Armado, Peso Pluma and Grupo Frontera.
About 99% of regional Mexican consumption comes from streaming. Through May 25, on-demand audio streaming from services such as Spotify and Apple Music accounted for about 90% of consumption of regional Mexican music. The remaining streaming consumption came from video streaming platforms such as YouTube and programmed streams from Pandora and other non-interactive radio services. Physical sales are not important for the genre — some artists are digital only — accounting for about 1% of total consumption.
Collaborations have driven success for regional Mexican artists, with Elsabon Armado and Pluma’s hit single, “Ella Baila Sola,” and Grupo Frontera’s collab with Bad Bunny both reaching the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 in May. Both songs are currently part of a handful of regional Mexican songs that are surging on the Billboard Global 200 chart, where representation of the genre went from notably absent to now comprising nearly 10% of the entire ranking. Sixteen regional Mexican songs have debuted on the Hot 100 as of June 2; the chart dated May 6 set a record, with 14 positions occupied by regional Mexican tracks and another held down by a remix of Latin urban artist Ynvg Lvcas’s “La Bebe” featuring Pluma.
Latin music has soared in recent years with the help of artists such as Puerto Rico’s Bad Bunny and Colombia’s Karol G. In 2022, Latin music consumption grew 28.2% and was the No. 5 genre in the U.S. behind R&B/hip hop, rock, pop and country. Bad Bunny alone accounted for 6.7% of Latin consumption in 2022 when his album Un Verano Sin Ti finished the year as the top album in the United States and put 24 tracks into the Hot 100 chart.
Regional Mexican represented 18.2% of Latin consumption in 2022, about the same as the prior two years (19% and 18.7%). But through May 25, a handful of standout successes helped regional Mexican increase its share of Latin consumption to 20.1%.
Eslabon Armado is the leading regional Mexican act thus far in 2023. The four-piece group from California’s central valley accounted for about 8% of regional Mexican consumption through May 25 and boasted the second-highest consumption of any Latin artist behind Bad Bunny. That’s translated into chart success, including reaching No. 4 on the Hot 100 with “Ella Baile Sola” and reaching No. 6 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with Desvelado on DEL Records. The second- and third-leading regional Mexican artists, Ivan Cornejo and Junior H, both rank amongst the 11 most popular Latin artists in terms of EAUs — behind Colombian superstar Shakira and ahead of American-born Puerto Rican rapper Eladio Carrion.
This year, the top regional Mexican albums are dominated by artists, not compilations. Sony Music Latin’s Fuerza Regida has both the top album, Pa Que Hablan, and the No. 4 album, Sigan Hablando. Last year’s top albums, Modo Despecho and Cantina Mega Mix, rank at No. 6 and No. 7, respectively. In the same period in 2022, nine of the top 10 regional Mexican albums were compilations such as Universal Music Group’s Modo Despecho, Cantina Mega Mix and Cumbias de Microbusera. Corta Venas by DEL Records’ Eslabon Armado was the lone artist album in last year’s top 25 regional Mexican albums.
Collaborations have added to regional Mexican artists’ success in 2023. Eslabon Armado’s share of the subgenre increases from about 8% to 9.6% when collaborations with Cornejo, Junior H, Grupo Frontera, Fuerza Regida and Luis R. Conriquez are counted. Fuerza Regida’s standalone recordings and collaborations with Grupo Frontera, Natanael Cano, Peso Pluma, Juanpa Salazar, Marca Registrada, Cornejo, Becky G and others in the top 200 regional Mexican artists give the group a 9.2% share of regional Mexican consumption.
Jimmy Humilde’s first foray into the music business was a party at his sister’s house in Venice, Calif., that he promoted with street flyers. The entrance fee was $5, and Humilde, then 13 years old, made $300. He was hooked.
It was the early 1990s, and the soundtrack of the streets was trance, techno and hip-hop. But Humilde (born Jaime Alejandro to immigrants from Michoacán, Mexico) soon started to include the music of his home in his flyer parties, adding Vicente Fernández and Mexican cumbias into the mix. Then a cousin introduced him to the music of Chalino Sánchez, the underground corrido singer from Culiacán, Mexico, who was kidnapped and murdered at 32 years old in 1992 in what presumably was a revenge killing.
“I didn’t know who Chalino Sánchez was. I didn’t know what a corrido was,” says Humilde, 43, of the songs that narrate the exploits of real and mythical heroes and antiheroes, from 19th century revolutionaries to current-day drug dealers. “But when I met his music, he became part of my soul. He wrote corridos not only for Mexican people but for people who lived in the U.S. that I could relate to.” Sánchez’s songs, combined with his swaggering attitude and combustible persona, planted a seed for Humilde: Why couldn’t there be more music like his, rooted in Mexican culture and appealing to a young, U.S.-born audience?
Nearly 20 years later, his label, Rancho Humilde, is at the forefront of a global explosion of regional Mexican music — the umbrella term for several subgenres that include brass-driven banda, accordion-inflected norteño, traditional mariachi and, increasingly, traditional music that incorporates hip-hop.
Since Rancho Humilde, which translates to “Humble Ranch,” began releasing music in 2017, the label has logged 18 titles on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart, including six top 10s, and 41 tracks on Hot Latin Songs. Out of those, seven reached the top 10, including the two-week champ “Bebe Dame.” The label has also placed six songs on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. Five of them were on the May 6 chart that featured 14 regional Mexican songs, two of them in the top 10 — a breakthrough week for the genre. Fuerza Regida, Natanael Cano and Junior H are among the Rancho Humilde acts that charted.
A friend used canvas from Humilde’s Louis Vuitton travel bags to create this saddle and mount. “Just for decoration!” he says.
Michael Tyrone Delaney
Humilde and his partners, José Becerra and Rocky Venegas, built the label through unorthodox means, relying almost solely on social media over radio and TV to promote their acts and by working with multiple labels and distributors, which enabled their roster to collaborate with a wider array of artists from different genres at a time when Mexican acts were notoriously averse to the practice.
Almost six years after Rancho Humilde was founded, the label is opening new offices in Paramount, Calif., just outside Los Angeles. Not coincidentally, it’s the exact location where Sánchez once ran his own pager store.
“I’m in it for the future of our culture,” Humilde says. “From the beginning, I wanted to be the door-opener.”
What was it like growing up in Venice in the ’90s?
Hip-hop was my heart. I was a huge fan of LL Cool J, Kool Moe Dee, EPMD — old-school hip-hop. To this day, I still listen to hip-hop a lot. I grew up in a multiracial area. There were a lot of Mexicans, but also a lot of Asians and whites. Corridos and Mexican music were not it. They called me “Jimmy the Paisa,” which in our neighborhood meant “straight Mexican.” So while I did raves and hip-hop events for many years, I was the only one in Venice listening to Mexican music. I was the guy known for tejanas.
This Kobe Bryant bobblehead “is the only one in the world” in its size, says Humilde. “I love Dodgers, Lakers, Raiders and Rams memorabilia.”
Michael Tyrone Delaney
With that multicultural atmosphere, why did you enter the regional Mexican business?
I’ve been in the business since I was 14, when I started working as a gopher with another Mexican artist who sang corridos, Jessie Morales, El Original de la Sierra. I realized that we were losing our Mexican culture. The kids weren’t speaking Spanish. It wasn’t cool. I’ve always thought it’s so cool to be Mexican, to have immigrant parents and to speak both languages. I thought I could introduce others to this life. I had to find a way to mix my culture, my Chicano culture, with the Mexican culture. And I did.
What was Rancho Humilde’s breakthrough moment?
“De Periódico un Gallito,” a song by LEGADO 7 we released in 2017. [It peaked at No. 38 on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart.] That corrido talks about a guy who grew up on the streets of Los Angeles and was a drug dealer. That’s the corrido that opened the doors to our music. We basically did a hip-hop song in Spanish. Then we signed Arsenal Efectivo, El de la Guitarra, Fuerza Regida, then Natanael Cano.
Peso Pluma is dominating the charts. He sounds very similar to Cano, with whom he has collaborated.
Peso Pluma calls Natanael “The GOAT.” Natanael Cano opened the lane for everyone. If Nata, Junior H, Fuerza Regida hadn’t existed, this wouldn’t be where it’s at today. Natanael brought swag. He brought that kid that didn’t give a fuck. He brought that, “I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want, and I don’t care” attitude. When I first asked Nata what tumbao was, he said: “I am tumbao.” Before, corridos were listened to by fans with cowboy hats and boots. Today, you’ll see 13-, 14-year-old kids in Jordans listening to corridos tumbaos.
Humilde explains that the liquor store, which was built as a prop “for our music videos,” is a replica of a corner from his old Venice neighborhood.
Michael Tyrone Delaney
Your artists weren’t the first to blend Mexican and hip-hop sounds, but acts like Akwid in the 2000s didn’t reach the level of success that Rancho Humilde’s artists are having now. Is it simply a matter of timing?
It didn’t work before because the people behind it weren’t real. They weren’t from the streets. They were copying what other people were doing. Akwid is from the streets, but the people behind them weren’t.
What is your strategy for working with multiple distributors? Most labels usually strike a deal with just one. For example, Cano with Warner; Fuerza Regida with Sony.
I’m not committed to just one. Me, along with my attorneys — George Prajin and Anthony Lopez — structured our own contract and our own way of doing business. I don’t have exclusivity with anyone. I don’t think anyone should have exclusivity with anyone. I don’t believe in licenses because there’s only one person that owns our music, and it’s [us]. And I’m also business partners with our artists. We restructured our whole company, and we don’t sign artists to a royalty fee. We sign artists as business partners, we help them build their own labels and businesses, and we do a [joint venture] between labels.
You’re so indie-minded. Why distribute with Warner’s Alternative Distribution Alliance and Sony’s Orchard versus another indie?
My whole goal was to [go global]. And I finally realized that the only people I was going to be able to do it with was with a global company. That’s why I chose Warner at first, then Sony, then Universal; I did a one-off deal with Republic and Universal. I needed the reach. I needed people to learn about this and realize it was different. It wasn’t only about us being banda.
Medals given to the owners of Rancho Humilde when they visited the White House.
Michael Tyrone Delaney
How important is social media to Rancho Humilde’s success?
Social media is Rancho Humilde. We were born in social media. We started with Myspace all the way down to Facebook, all the way down to Instagram and TikTok. But our biggest [avenue] was YouTube. YouTube is huge for us revenuewise, bigger than the other platforms. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are our main marketing channels. We were never on radio until the most recent hit by Fuerza Regida. The only work we outsource is with our publicist, Monica Escobar, who does everything we don’t do on marketing on our end.
One of the biggest challenges facing successful industries in Mexico are the drug cartels. In recent years, they’ve taken over the trade of limes, avocados and other produce. As music becomes an exponentially more valuable export, how do you protect your business from that influence?
I just feel that certain people got their help as they could. That’s one of the things that kept Rancho Humilde from becoming the most successful label [quickly], because we never had any investors. It was always JB, Rocky and myself. I don’t care who it is. I just don’t believe in investors. Have other companies used that? I don’t know. I’ve never asked. I know drug cartels exist, and my dad always told me the biggest cartel was the government and the church. I agree with that. I don’t fight it. I don’t criticize anyone for what they do. I don’t care what they do.
Rancho Humilde’s 2019 release of Cano’s “Soy el Diablo” remix with Bad Bunny was groundbreaking at the time. Now mainstream labels are signing Mexican acts. What do you think of that?
I don’t see why they wouldn’t, but it’s going to be hard for them to catch up to all the indies already performing at a high level.
What does it mean to you that this music is now popular in places far from Mexico?
I knew this was going to happen. Right before Peso Pluma came in, Nata was already a global artist. He was known in Spain, Chile, Argentina, but the music wasn’t charting as high as it is today. Peso Pluma won’t be the biggest artist. There’s a whole lot coming who will be huge. [But] Peso is like the Daddy Yankee of our genre. He went and opened the doors worldwide, but here come more monsters. If you’re not focused on Mexican music right now, I suggest you do.
At the start of 2022, Yahritza y Su Esencia emerged as the buzzy regional Mexican music act every label wanted to sign. In a matter of months, the Washington state-based Martinez sibling trio went from a local band that sang at family parties to the future of regional Mexican with its sad, catchy sierreño songs, powered by Yahritza’s emotional vocals, Mando’s requinto and Jairo’s bajoloche.
By March 2022, after signing a deal with independent label Lumbre Music, Yahritza y Su Esencia released their official debut single, “Soy el Único.” It entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 20 and made Yahritza the youngest Latin performer to debut on the chart at just 15 years old. The act subsequently notched its first No. 1 on Regional Mexican Albums with its Obsessed EP, scored a Latin Grammy Award nod for best new artist and, by November, signed with Columbia Records in a partnership with Lumbre Music and Sony Music Latin. A worldwide deal with SESAC Latina soon followed.
All the while, Yahritza’s 25-year-old big brother, Mando — who had been living stateside as an undocumented person — and his team were working behind the scenes to sort out his immigration status in the United States. In need of an O-1 visa, Mando had to go to Mexico City and follow protocols to prove his eligibility. After spending most of his life living with his parents (who are originally from Michoacán, Mexico) and four siblings in Washington’s agricultural region of Yakima Valley, he was suddenly alone in an unfamiliar city, waiting for approval.
“It was a sacrifice, especially when I’m one of the main components of the band,” says Mando, who returned to the United States in April shortly after getting approved for a special visa reserved for individuals with extraordinary ability and achievement in their field. “We had to learn to record separately, something we had never done. It has always been all of us together in a studio.”
“I would write my music and wouldn’t know who to share it with,” says Yahritza, now 16. “He was a call away, but it wasn’t the same.” Adds 18-year-old Jairo: “We couldn’t do the things we used to do, which was practicing every day. That changed everything for us.”
The band members — managed by their oldest sister, Adriana Martinez — were influenced by their father and uncles’ own musical act, which Mando joined as a kid. Yahritza and Jairo later learned how to play instruments and would upload covers on TikTok, including their viral take on Ivan Cornejo’s “Está Dañada.” Yahritza then began writing her own songs — the first being the emotionally charged heartbreak track “Soy el Único,” which ultimately led to the formation of Yahritza y Su Esencia.
Ramón Ruiz, CEO of Lumbre Music, signed the trio soon after discovering the group last year on TikTok. He says his team’s top priority was to not let Mando’s visa application affect the band. “We were always working on what’s coming next,” he says. “It was hard because Mando is a big part of the production and Yahritza and Jairo depend a lot on Mando. I would try to help however I could, but they needed their big brother. He’s their role model; they look up to him so much.”
From left: Mando, Yahritza and Jario Martinez of Yahritza y Su Esencia
David Cabrera
Mando’s status remained uncertain for nearly seven months. “I would remind [my siblings] that we needed to take things one day at a time,” Adriana says. “We’ve always believed God’s timing is perfect, so it was important to never lose faith and remember nothing can break the bond we have as a family, not even being separated.”
Now, with the O-1 secured, Mando is able to record and promote music in the United States, which Yahritza y Su Esencia have remained consistent with — as Yahritza and Jairo often traveled to Mexico to record. In the past few months alone, the act released “Inseparables” (with Cornejo), “Cambiaste,” “Nuestra Canción,” “No Se Puede Decir Adiós” and “Frágil” — a norteña, cumbia-tinged collaboration with Grupo Frontera produced by hit-maker Edgar Barrera.
“Regardless of the situation, we had to be releasing music for our fans,” says Mando. “We’d jump on FaceTime a lot, and that’s how we would make the song’s arrangements.” Yahritza would write in her room and then send music to Mando for his feedback. But when it came to recording the harmonies, she had to call him directly. “I needed him to show me because I still don’t know how to do that,” she says. “He would help me when he was home.”
“Them being together is what makes this so special,” says Julian Swirsky, senior vp of A&R at Columbia Records. “It was always about getting Mando home first and foremost, but the group was fired up. We had a Zoom call on New Year’s Eve to talk about new music because they wanted to get set up for the new year.”
From left: Yahritza, Mando and Jario Martinez of Yahritza y Su Esencia
David Cabrera
The first thing Mando did once his visa was approved at the end of April was travel home to Washington, where he surprised his parents at a family gathering by popping up behind them as they were taking a photo. “My mom yelled when she saw me and started to touch my face to see if I was real,” Mando says. “That’s when it hit me.”
With a new album in the works and a long-awaited U.S. tour slated for the second half of the year, Yahritza y Su Esencia are finally poised to reach their full potential — just when Mexican music continues to grow exponentially, with the act helping usher in a new era for the legacy genre. In May, “Frágil” cracked the Hot 100. And on the Billboard Global 200, it is among a handful of regional Mexican songs that are surging, as the genre now makes up nearly 10% of the entire chart.
“What happened to us had to happen,” says Jairo, “and it changed us.” Adds Yahritza: “Before, we would fight and disagree on small things. We shouldn’t even be caring about that; all we should care about is that we’re back together.”
This story originally appeared in the June 3, 2023, issue of Billboard.
A medley of sounds erupts as soon as the doors of the Spotify studio swing open. All at once, trumpets climb up and down scales, guitars are tuned before being fervidly strummed, and a tololoche player’s fingers dance across the strings of an upright bass like tiny bolts of lightning, making it impossible to look away. All the while, the group of men responsible crack jokes in Spanish, an air of excitement swirling through the dimly-lit room before the Spotify RADAR shoot kicks off.
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At the center of this eclectic flurry of instruments lives regional Mexican music. At the center of today’s regional Mexican music, lives Peso Pluma.
For many, the 23-year-old phenom appeared de la nada. “Ella Baila Sola,” Eslabon Armado’s smash hit with Peso Pluma, was as explosive a collaboration in the Spanish-language music space as the Hot 100-topping “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” was for the English market. Like drill princess Ice Spice, Peso Pluma became the de facto face of a movement overnight, much to his own surprise.
“I knew this was gonna happen, but I didn’t know at what level and what speed,” he says today. “I knew I was gonna do good in Mexico and the Spanish-speaking countries, but this went worldwide [so fast]. I’m thankful for that.”
For his early fans, Peso Pluma has been creating earworm collaborative anthems for a handful of years, through early hits like “El Belicón” alongside Raúl Vega – which went viral on social media and brought in 10 million views on YouTube in a single month – and projects including his debut set, Ah y Qué?
To date, “Ella Baila Sola” has secured a number of firsts, most notably becoming the first regional Mexican song to reach the top 10 of the Hot 100 chart — peaking at No. 5 – and the first to top Billboard‘s Streaming Songs chart in its 10-year history.
Peso Pluma and Eslabon Armado also broke a number of Spotify records, becoming the all-time most-streamed música mexicana track in one day globally and the most streamed Latin track in the U.S in one single day last month.
“Música mexicana is no longer regional – it’s global,” says Spotify head of U.S. Latin artist partnerships Eddie Santiago, noting the genre’s growth of 431% over the last five years. “It’s been incredible supporting Peso Pluma’s meteoric rise, and look forward to this next phase of his career.”
The Spotify RADAR program – dedicated to spotlighting and supporting emerging artists at all stages of their development – has provided a platform for artists across the globe, including The Kid LAROI, Zach Bryan, Doechii, Quevedo, PinkPatheress, and over 500 others since its start in in 2020.
While the effect of “Ella Baila Sola” has led to unprecedented global attention on the regional Mexican space, it’s important to note that the regional Mexican genre isn’t exactly a genre. Encompassing an array of unmistakably Mexican styles of music, including norteño, corridos, banda, rancheras, mariachi and more, regional Mexican serves as an overarching umbrella term for a set of genres that had never before been afforded nuance on a mainstream level.
Growing up on artists like Ariel Camacho, Peso Pluma, born Hassan Laija, developed his love for música mexicana as a kid spending his early years growing up in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Later, the influence of hip-hop and reggaeton also found their way into the songs he’d write. Today, he painstakingly stitches together 19th century Mexican sounds with modern genres, bringing both to the Spotify stage ahead of his upcoming debut album, and a single that he’s been teasing on social media.
After his performance, Peso Pluma sat down to talk with Billboard about what the Spotify look means to him, his recent wins on U.S. platforms, his Doble P Tour and his hopes for the future.
What does it mean to you to be selected as Spotify’s RADAR artist?
It’s pretty big to me because I’m the first Mexican artist to do this. I’m so proud and very thankful. It’s big for the country, the genre and the industry in general. We’re doing pretty good and we’re going to keep working to share our music.
Have you had fans from countries that surprise you?
I have a lot of fans all over the world, but the most surprising was one time I was shopping and a Chinese family came [up to me]. I never thought they’d listen to corridos in China.
What are the genres that have influenced you?
When I was a teenager, I listened to a lot of hip-hop, rap, and reggaetón. Rap culture just got into me, and I think I’m picking a little bit from every genre in the corridos I do and that’s why people like it, because it has a lot of different cultures in it. Reggaetón is the most iconic genre in my life. Since I was a kid, I liked it a lot. Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Tego Calderon.
I like Bad Bunny a lot, I listen to him all day, every day. I listen to my friend Natanael Cano, 21 Savage, Shoreline Mafia. Feid, Anuel, Karol G. I listen to everything.
What’s a genre you like that people might be surprised you listen to?
Reggae. I like Bob Marley.
You recently played Coachella, how did that come about?
I got invited by Becky G — shoutout to Becky. She’s been too kind to me in my career, and done a lot for me. And she knows she has a friend [in me]. They got in touch like a week before, I was so excited and pretty shocked. It was so good, [the crowd] accepted us. People did scream a lot, it was a surprise for them.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced along your path so far?
The biggest thing I’m dealing with right now is not being with my family. Being on tour non-stop. That’s what people don’t see. They think I’m a working machine, but I’m not. But it’s part of what I like to do — it’s part of my character.
How do you deal with those moments?
When I feel like that, I just talk to my mom and my family and that keeps me motivated. They’re pretty proud of me and thankful.
You also did Jimmy Fallon recently, how was that?
It was awesome for me and my whole group. It was a new thing for us because it was our first time on TV and it was Jimmy Fallon. I think it went well, everyone watched it and wanted to see me perform, and I’m just thankful for Jimmy for inviting me to the show.
You recently broke a record along with Eslabon Armado, becoming the first regional Mexican song to top Billboard’s streaming songs chart.
That’s pretty amazing. But that doesn’t mean anything, because tomorrow I could be gone. We don’t know. I’m just gonna keep working to get where I wanna get. There’s a long way to go.
You’ve had a lot of big collaborative moments — what’s the role of collaborations in your journey?
Collaborations have been so important in my career. I’m just thankful to too many artists who have been supporting my project, ideas and thinking and what we have to do for the genre. My album is coming too and I have a lot of solo songs coming, and that’s what people want to hear, so that’s what I’m giving them on this album.
You’re heading out on tour soon, but so much has changed since your tickets went on sale. Are you looking for bigger venues?
Yes. Everything changed and I’m looking forward to what’s gonna happen. And my team is looking for venues. I’m sure I’m gonna do good if I do small or big venues. The tour sold out the first day, like 95 percent [of tickets] in two hours. We’re pretty excited.
Looking ahead, what’s something you hope to accomplish in your career?
I just wanna go to the Grammys and win something, you know? There’s too many things I wanna accomplish. I want to have my album be welcomed by the people, I want it to have the same streams as singles do. I’m showing another part of la doble p to people.
I know this is far in advance, but as someone who grew up between Texas and Mexico, where do you see yourself settling down when it’s all said and done?
I don’t know. I mean, Peter Parker is from NYC and I’m in L.A. right now. Guadalajara will always be my home. That’s where my family is, and Sinaloa too. But I feel pretty good here in L.A. And if life says, “Go to Miami in a year,” I’ll go to Miami.
Carin León, the artist born Óscar Armando Díaz de León Huez, is one of the most prominent and influential figures in Regional Mexican music today, known for his rich storytelling and dazzling instrumental skills. On Thursday (May 18), the singer/songwriter releases Colmillo de Leche, an 18-track studio album titled after the Mexican analogy of a milk tooth — which for him means that sometimes we may think we are experienced in life, but unexpected events can quickly change our perspective.
Over a phone call from Los Angeles, the Mexican superstar reflected to Billboard about his new project as he prepared to announce his first U.S. arena tour, the Colmillo de Leche Tour, presented by AEG, hitting 27 arenas beginning Aug. 10 in Rosemont, Ill., and wrapping up Oct. 8 in Charlotte, N.C.
“It’s a new era for me, definitely in all aspects,” León tells Billboard. “In my way of thinking, I want to convey what I want in my music. In all the connection between what happened in my personal life and a person’s maturity, it is also noticeable and influences your music.”
The album is being released during the same week he performed for the first time at one of the most significant venues in Mexico, Mexico City’s Auditorio Nacional, fulfilling one more dream in his career.
It’s a love letter to music for which León collected compositions from other songwriters over the past two and a half years, songs that connected with him at a time when the lyrics told him more about himself. “I didn’t feel like I was in the circumstances of wanting to express myself, of being able to say what I had at that moment,” León says. “But, more than anything, these songs connected with me, and apart from the production, they told me how they wanted to dress and show themselves on this record, and I think I like to see this record that way. It’s like transforming the songs into how you want to express yourself.
Te set navigates through various rhythms, including soul, flamenco, pop and salsa, incorporating perfect Mexican regional blends made by Sonora musicians. “Ninety-five percent of the musicians on this record are Sonorans, and those who are not are people from somewhere else who live in Hermosillo,” the Sonora-born singer adds.
Below, León shares the significance of five essential tracks on Colmillo de Leche, in his own words.
“No Es Por Acá“
When I heard it, it was a song without any complexity, but it touched me a lot. We decided to do it like this style with a little sierreño blues but minimalist with some instruments. God allowed this song to be a success, and when we sing it onstage, it’s a total success.
“Ni Me Debes Ni Te Debo” (Carin León x Camilo)
The song with Camilo comes out the day the album is released. It’s a very beautiful song, and when I heard it, I was even imagining the production at the same time; I wanted to put some strings. I wanted to make a string quintet of something a little more intimate, and what Camilo did is incredible to me, and we are delighted with that song.
“De Piedra a Papel” (Carin León x Pablo Alborán)
I have been working on a song with Mr. Pablo Alborán for quite some time now. We’ve put a lot of effort into it, including the production, which involved working with a mariachi band and incorporating some interesting elements. We added a touch of flamenco and a sound reminiscent of ’90s Italian pop, similar to artists like Eros and Laura Pausini. Through this song, I aimed to showcase my musical influences and experiences.
“Vete Yendo” (Carin León x Ángela Aguilar)
It is a collaboration that we did with Ángela Aguilar, who is like the language spoken amid flamenco rumba, salsa, and Latin. And we try to do it with our regional sound, a very Mexican theme, and lyrics that resemble Spanish flamenco.
“Primera Cita“
It is a significant song, which today is giving us some exciting surprises that people are connecting a lot with this song. I had wanted to make a soul of doing this mid-century theme for a while. The guitars have all been through amplifiers with a slightly dark sound. More focused on feeling with some lyrics by Mr. Alejandro Lozano, proudly Hermosillense and who has a very northern theme.
Growing up in East Los Angeles in the 1980s, George Prajin could see music in the making. His father was Antonino Z. Prajin, owner of Prajin One-Stop, a music retailer and distributor in Huntington Park, Calif., that sold to over 3,000 stores in the U.S. and Mexico and had 26 warehouses throughout Southern California. At that time, the music known as regional Mexican — comprising subgenres like banda, norteño and mariachi — dominated U.S. Latin music sales.
At the Prajin brick and mortar record shop that catered to mostly Mexican and Mexican-American buyers, “I always noticed that Mexican-American youth would buy hip-hop and regional. And I always tried to mix the two,” says Prajin today. “I tried to come up with a fusion of the two sounds.”
It took 25 years, a lot of money and a lot of heartbreak, but Prajin has finally found his sound with the artist known as Peso Pluma, the only act signed to his indie Prajin Records, and distributed via The Orchard. While Regional Mexican music is definitely having a moment — this week, 13 Regional Mexican tracks are on the Billboard Hot 100, a record for the genre — the current wave is led by the 23-year-old from Guadalajara, Mexico.
Of those 13 tracks, an astounding eight are his, including “Ella Baila Sola,” his smash hit with California quartet Eslabón Armado, which reached No. 5 on the chart, marking the first time ever a Regional Mexican track, in Spanish, reached the top five — or the top 10, for that matter. The song also reached No. 1 the Billboard Global 200 chart (dated April 29). It’s the first leader on the list for each act, as well as the first for the regional Mexican genre. And it helps make Prajin Billboard‘s Executive of the Week.
The importance of the moment is not lost on Prajin, who grew up following the Billboard charts and who in the 1990s launched an independent record label for the first time. When the recording industry’s bubble burst at the onset of the digital download age in the early-mid-2000s, Prajin closed shop, studied law and established a practice — alongside veteran music entertainment lawyer Anthony Lopez — representing athletes and musicians. In 2019, when streaming numbers started to soar, he decided to give the music industry another shot as a record executive and launched Prajin Records. This time, the timing was right. Among the different projects that were shopped to him, one was Peso Pluma, a young Mexican singer and rapper who was living in New York and had been discovered through social media.
“Ella Baila Sola” is not only a Peso Pluma track; it was released on another California-based indie, DEL Records, whose founder Angel Del Villar was also an Executive of the Week when Eslabón became the first Regional Mexican act to enter the top 10 of the Billboard 200 last year.
This week’s achievement, says Prajin, was not just the result of DEL and Prajin’s strategy with “Ella Baila Sola.” Instead, he says, “it’s been a strategy with the project overall.”
Peso Pluma arrives for the 8th annual Latin American Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 20, 2023.
ROBYN BECK/AFP via GI
What was it about Peso Pluma that you found interesting?
I saw how he flowed on the tracks. He could do it all: He could rap, he could do regional, he could do reggaeton. But he was very stubborn that he wanted to do everything independently of each other. He said, “I want to rap on a rap song, I want to sing reggaeton on a reggaeton song.” I realized there is a way to do it and it’s how Peso envisions it, by staying in each lane and killing it in each genre but giving people what they want. I always recognize his base audience is regional and that’s actually the music he loves the most. But because Peso can do all these genres, and when they [he and his cousin Tito] write songs, they [incorporate] all these influences.
You met Peso Pluma through your former artist, Jessie Morales (El Regional de la Sierra). Jessie wanted you to sign Peso, but you actually turned him down the first time, even though as an attorney you represented several prominent Regional Mexican artists and labels at that point. What happened?
At the time, I didn’t want to compete with my clients, even though I felt the kid had a lot of talent. He ended up signing with Herminio Morales, Jessie’s brother. Fast forward 2021, Herminio got really sick and called me up and asked me if I could help with Peso. You don’t get two bites of the apple very often, and I was restless. I wanted to produce more music. And at that time nobody was really interested in Peso, because it wasn’t really a successful project.
Once you started with Peso, what would you say was your breakthrough track?
Because no other label was interested, I didn’t feel I was competing with anybody [so I would experiment]. He had an album already recorded and one song attracted my attention: “El Belicón.” He gave me permission to work on the track and we ended up taking the guy that was there off the track and putting in [singer] Raul Vega. We mixed the song — I have an amazing engineer — and we put it out on TikTok. We saw that there was a spark and we put in promotion and made an inferno. We made sure the video was like Call of Duty because we really wanted to target the kids. We threw all our efforts into making the song as big as we could. And we got to the level where we got people’s attention.
You did tracks with more urban acts like Nicki Nicole from Argentina and Ovy on the Drums from Colombia. Were you aiming for a more international sound?
I feel we started in regional but at the same time we were expanding regional. It’s like when rock n’ roll got into grunge. Peso’s saying, “We’re not regional; we’re Mexican.” When we saw the fusion going to the top of the charts, that’s when we invited others. The goal was to expand the international Latin scene. And what’s really, really cool is they all want to jump on Peso’s sound.
I feel that has really expanded the Mexican market. He wanted to do reggaeton and rap, we’d be in talks with major artists in other countries and we’d usually say, “Lets do a reggaeton song,” but they’d say, “Let’s do a regional song.” When we saw these artists wanted to do something regional, we started to double down.
When did you realize there was another audience interested in this guy?
I pay a lot of attention to the analytics. I’m always looking at the numbers and looking at what countries we get engagement. I saw we were getting a lot of engagement in the countries we were targeting but also in places like Japan and Germany. And then, obviously, the global charts. When we broke into the Billboard Global 200 and then we became the No. 1 song, and then we get interest from Jimmy Fallon, that’s when you see something that is global. As an executive I take everything and say, “How do we double down?”
Peso Pluma & Blessd
Cristhian Álvarez Suarez
And, how do you double down?
We’re Latin and we’re keeping our base. We’re opening offices, we’re doing a global tour, but like when we first started at the top of the charts in Mexico we doubled down on our infrastructure, and now that we’re global we’re going to make sure we can double down and have boots on the ground and make sure we’re touring individual countries.
“Ella Baila Sola” is originally an Eslabón Armado track. What is it about that song?
It’s a combo of a good sound, and Eslabón has a really good U.S. base which is something we were on the verge of entering. At one point our streams were 80% in Mexico and 20% in the U.S. Now I think we’re 50-50. But I feel this momentum was coming and we had been focused on international development. The audiences were looking for another regional track from Peso Pluma and it just so happened we were releasing with Eslabón. [Lead writer and singer] Pedro Tovar is an amazing talent. And the song was produced to be in line with Peso’s sound.
You hit a historic top five on the Hot 100. Were you aiming for that?
Nobody knows what’s going to be a hit. But the way it came out with the numbers it did overnight and on a weekly and monthly basis, I knew this song was going to be massive. I’d never seen those numbers with a regional song before. DEL released that track and they’ve done a lot to support the success of the track.
What’s next for you and for Peso Pluma?
Peso just launched WP Records. He’s the CEO and he’ll be producing a lot of the tracks. The first single came out 4/20. We’ll finally be releasing a Peso Pluma album before summer and that will be the focus in the next two to three weeks. I give all the credit to my artist. I’m an executive. I’m involved in every single aspect. But I give leeway to my artist and I trust him so much that we created a label.
Previous Executive of the Week: Cindy James of Virgin Music