Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Medios y Media/Getty Images, ZEUS. El Mero Necio via YouTube, Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
Before 2023, few Americans had heard of Peso Pluma, a sierreños and corridos singer from Jalisco with sandpaper vocals and an Edgar haircut. Then came “Ella Baila Sola,” Pluma’s charcheta-and-trombone-powered collaboration with California-based group Eslabon Armado, which peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100, the highest entry for any regional Mexican artist in the chart’s history. The single later outranked hits by Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and Olivia Rodrigo as Spotify’s most-streamed song of the summer.
As the Latin-music market has grown, hitting an all-time high of $1.1 billion in revenue in 2022, it’s been largely dominated by the Caribbean-born sounds of reggaeton by artists like Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, and Karol G. But last year, Latin’s fastest-growing genre was the sweeping regional Mexican scene, led by Pluma, Fuerza Regida, Junior H, and Ivan Cornejo. Like música urbana before it, regional Mexican music, or música Mexicana, is an imperfect label. Underneath the genre’s vast umbrella, you’ll find acts like Grupo Frontera, whose use of accordion is a product of their roots in South Texas, where Tejano music is king, while artists such as Cornejo, Yahritza y Su Esencia, and DannyLux have popularized the sierreño ballad: a slower song about heartbreak and longing backed by the classic sounds of the bajo sexto and requinto guitars.
For many Mexicans and Mexican Americans, this recent shift in popularity has been exciting, if not slightly jarring, to witness. With the exception of Vicente Fernández, Selena, and Juan Gabriel, younger listeners had mostly brushed off regional sounds as their parents’ and grandparents’ music — songs we heard only at quinces, weddings, and Easter barbecues. The music’s newfound popularity, especially in the States, didn’t just mark a shift in the genre’s perception; it spoke to a larger story about America’s changing demographics. In a country where the Latino population is often subjected to xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric, and where roughly one in four members of Gen Z are Latino, it’s not hard to understand the new era in which fans are listening to music that celebrates their roots.
But after such a landmark year, what comes next for the genre? Will it have the staying power of reggaeton or fade as quickly as it appeared? Will the genre’s newly minted stars stick to their sound or branch out further? With a growing audience and a powerful spotlight, here’s what the future of regional Mexican might look like in 2024.
In the mid-’90s, the growing popularity of Tejano music was fueled by Selena, one of the few female voices to rise to the top of the genre and one of the only Tejano singers poised for crossover success. Three decades later, it’s hard not to notice that most of the artists benefiting from the música Mexicana boom are men. But there’s no shortage of promising female acts waiting to break through. In the world of corridos tumbados (traditional corridos that incorporate elements of Latin trap and hip-hop), there’s Ivonne Galáz, the first woman to sign with Rancho Humilde, the same label that made rapper Natanael Cano a star, and whose defiant perspective as a woman in the genre has made for poetic and powerful songs, including a touching corrido dedicated to the murdered soldier Vanessa Guillén. Galáz has since collaborated with labelmates Tania Dominguez, whose take on the genre incorporates lo-fi beats and jazzy vocals, and Estilo Sin Limite, who teamed up with Mexican superstar Thalia on their scorched-earth track “Choro” at the tail end of 2023.
Conexión Divina’s debut album, Tres Mundos, stood out for its ballads that brought some much-needed queer representation to the genre and cemented the band as an act to watch when it became the first sierreño group to perform at Coachella. Elsewhere in sierreño, there’s 17-year-old Yahritza Martínez of Yahritza y Su Esencia, who won over listeners with her soulful vocals about heartache and longing, often drawing inspiration from her experiences growing up in the age of social media.
Becky G had already spent a decade establishing herself as a star in the world of Latin pop–reggaeton when she decided to make her regional-Mexican debut. Her 2023 album, Esquinas, was a loving tribute to her late grandfather and a triumphant return to the sounds of her Mexican American childhood in Inglewood, California. The singer also teamed up with a number of the genre’s stars, including Pluma and Yahritza y Su Esencia, most of whom share her experiences of growing up in a bicultural home. Calling the project a “love letter to the generations before us,” it’s hard to imagine that Becky G will be the only Mexican American artist to feel that same emotional pull toward the genre. Maybe Selena Gomez could be next?
Corridos might have enjoyed the biggest boost from the regional boom this year, but not without controversy. The rise of narcocorridos, a subset of the genre whose lyrics focus on the exploits of the drug trade, has reignited an age-old debate about the glorification of drugs and violence. Pluma, the face of the genre, faced heavy backlash for displaying an image of El Chapo during a performance in Culiacán and was forced to cancel a show in Tijuana after receiving threats reportedly tied to a local cartel. While Pluma maintains that his lyrics are drawn from the realities of life for many in Mexico, Tijuana’s city council voted to ban the songs from being performed or played in public.
The criticism won’t lead to narcocorridos’ downfall, but it may create the perfect opportunity for some other subgenres to shine. Maybe narcocorridos will take a back seat to the Latin-trap- and reggaeton-infused corridos tumbados that Pluma, Junior H, and Cano have also helped popularize. A Tejano renaissance is long overdue, and there are plenty of promising Tejano acts on the horizon, including Veronique Medrano, Gabriella Martinez, and Tejano hip-hop artist Zeus. El Mero Necio. Although the success of the sierreño “Ella Baila Sola” launched Pluma into the spotlight, it was also a massive year for Eslabon Armado, who popularized the “sad sierreño,” a subgenre that lends itself to acoustic, bedroom-pop arrangements, which might give it an edge with Gen-Z listeners in the coming year.
Latin music is built on collaboration. Pluma’s breakout year likely wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t been relentless and strategic with his feature choices, working with Cano and Luis R Conriquez, both leaders in the corrido space, before branching out to collaborations with Becky G, Latin trap star Eladio Carrión, Grupo Frontera, Karol G, and Anitta.
Other regional Mexican acts have followed suit with Cano, Grupo Frontera, Carin León, and Conriquez booking collaborations with top Latin artists including Bad Bunny, Maluma, and Shakira — a trend likely to continue into 2024. Like K-pop groups after their crossover success, regional Mexican acts could start to collaborate with major English-language artists; maybe in 2024 we’ll get a Lady Gaga verse on Pluma’s “Lady Gaga” or Megan Thee Stallion and Becky G on a remix of the nostalgic “Los Astros.” Still, it’s early days for regional Mexican’s mainstream moment, and we’re only just hearing the first inklings of its crossover potential, like Marshmello teaming up with Fuerza Regida on “Harley Quinn” and Kim Petras joining Sofía Reyes and Danna Paola on “Tqum.”
Crossover success always comes with caveats. Although it’s what many artists dream of, it also presents a double bind: Should they stick to their original sound and risk boring their fans, or should they broaden their influences to chase down a bigger audience? In the past, most Latin artists have faced criticism from fans who accuse them of selling out or alienating them in exchange for mainstream U.S. success.
But things are slightly different for today’s regional acts. The reggaeton boom that began in the 2010s knocked down the doors for Spanish-language artists to break into the U.S. market without having to rerecord their songs in English or engineer a pop hit that might resonate with American audiences. Add the rapid growth of the U.S. Latino population and it seems unlikely that the stars of música Mexicana will have to sacrifice their sound. They blew up because of demand in the U.S. for Spanish-language music, and their lyrics speak to a generation of fans who are navigating the gap between their Mexican and American heritage. The music might not be as danceable as reggaeton, but to their audience, it doesn’t matter. Bad Bunny still has yet to record a song in English, and thus far none of the major regional Mexican acts have either. Their success didn’t come on the condition of translating themselves or their culture. Instead, they’ve found success because of that authenticity.