“Pure double P, old man!” is the presentation call that was heard more than 600 million times on Spotify and almost 830 million times on YouTube in April alone. The phrase comes from Peso Pluma, a 23-year-old singer who this year has given regional Mexican music the global recognition it deserves.
JIMMY FALLON’S THE TONIGHT SHOW – Episode 1842 – Pictured: The musical featherweight guest performs on Friday April 28, 2023. Photo by: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC via Getty Images
Featherweight, whose real name is Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija, is gaining ground in a market where the Latin sound is almost the absolute protagonist and is becoming indispensable for the success of any musical product. The case of Featherweight is particularly special because not only has it mastered superb Latin American rhythms, but it has also popularized regional rhythms and a subgenre that is already trending: lying corridos.
Lying corridos, the sound of the moment
This Wednesday, Featherweight landed at number one in Bloomberg magazine’s Pop Star Power Rankings list, which also includes other regional Mexican artists such as Natanael Cano and Grupo Frontera in the top 25. He has also performed on the Coachella stage and appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show. But why do featherweight and regional sports dominate the charts in the United States?
“You are selling a product that is perfectly compatible with what the current generation in the world is consuming. Being regional, they visually sell it as international. And we already know that social networks create this kind of visual connection between cultures,” Panamanian music producer Rodney Sebastian Clark, better known as El Chombo, tells his more than 2.23 million subscribers on YouTube.
For El Chombo, it’s a predominantly analog sound that’s almost impossible to reproduce without an orchestra and that’s “now reaching the demographic segment that consumes urban music.” His Colombian colleague José M., another Youtuber dedicated to analyzing musical trends, agrees.
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“The corridors of lies are influenced by hip-hop’s aesthetic, their attire, and their constant desire to show off wealth, to show they’re attaining it. From then on, a generation begins to feel identified for something that also reminds him of his parents’ music“, says José M. in his video “WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE LYING CORRIDOS?” Bad music?
The regional company jumps into the US market
Late last month, Peso Pluma collaborated with the band Eslabón Armado to release “Ella Baila Sola,” which became the first song in the Mexican music genre to hit number one on the Billboard Global 200. It appeared on TikTok among the four most popular Latin songs in the US.
The “Double P” and other Mexican superstars are entering the US market, a country where more than 40 million people speak Spanish, while sharing their cultural heritage.
Eddie Ramos, SVP of Marketing Strategy and Partnerships at DEL Records, and Bruce Ramos, SVP of Monetization and Business Development work with artists such as Eslabón Armado, Lenin Ramírez and Ulices Chaidez. They confirmed to Bloomberg that using social platforms helped their artists grow and reach people around the world.
“Ella Baila Sola” is now a song that has spread all over the world, they stated. The genre, and this song in particular, has become a huge hit everywhere explore areas in Asiawhere the team may send artists on tour based on the streaming activity they’ve seen.
How the trend started and why some hate it
If we go to the origin of many currents in regional Mexican music, with the exception of cumbia, says El Chombo, we can see influences that come from Europe, but not from Spain. “The guitar may have come from Spain, but the concept of the accordion and the sound of a band comes from two European countries: the Czech Republic (from a genre called waltz) and Germany (from a genre called polka),” he explained. .
Regional Mexican music offers an interesting menu, to which instruments such as tuba and trumpets have been added (the mariachi even includes violins). But the corrido didn’t really evolve that much until the 1970s, when Los Tigres del Norte “changed the system,” he added, referring to the birth of the corrido Narcocorridos.
“There are those who love the lying corridos because they say it is time that a representative of regional Mexican music is recognized worldwide and accepted outside of Mexico (…) And there are those who hate it because in the end…” “The day his lyrics talk about illegal activities and glorify a ‘rare pod’ lifestyle,” says El Chombo, careful of his words to avoid YouTube censorship.
Bruno Del Granado, head of global Latin music at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), believes the best thing about Corridos Tumbados representatives is that “they haven’t sacrificed the music and the essence of who they are” to winning the title US market, he told Bloomberg.
“What we sing is not a lie”
But despite their meteoric success, certain artists in the genre, notably Featherweight and Natanael Cano, have been singled out for apologizing for cartels and drug trafficking. Speaking to YouTube channel Soy Grupero, Featherweight said he’s an artist who sings about the everyday realities of many people that some songs are “on demand”.that is, people ask you to write them about specific events or people.
“It’s wrong to say it’s normal, we all know that,” he said of singing narcocorridos. “But what we say and sing is not a lie.”
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Rafael Acosta, associate professor of Latin American studies at the University of Kansas, told Bloomberg that the criticism was hypocritical. English language films also feature images of violence and glorify the idea of pushing back enemies and defending your territory.
“This is music that speaks to the people that the state regularly upsets,” he said. “These groups then produce narratives that affirm that they will fight back and that they cannot be bullied without consequences.” I’m not saying that’s good social policy. I find it hypocritical to demonize them without acknowledging that other groups are involved in the same process and will never be demonized in the same way.”
Overall, he says, the music is innovative and clearly resonates with people around the world who may not care about the context.
“It’s a very joyful part of the Mexican experience, and that joy doesn’t have to mean joining the violence or participating in the world of drugs, but simply interacting with other people, touching and communicating through dance, and having an experience with music.” shares.” added.