Switched on Pop - Mexican pop is bigger than you think

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Last month, our producer Reanna Cruz had the opportunity to attend Baja Beach Fest in Rosarito, Mexico, a three-day Latin music festival set on the Mexican coastline. While they were there, they got the chance to tap into what's happening in the world of Mexican music – from romantic tumbados and lovesick R&B to multi-language crossovers and genre experimentation. This episode, Reanna takes us through the newest gems of the Mexican pop scene, in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. Songs discussed: Xavi – La Diabla Xavi – La Victima LATIN MAFIA – Julieta LATIN MAFIA – Julietota Peso Pluma, DJ Snake – TEKA Peso Pluma, Cardi B – PUT EM IN THE FRIDGE Tito Double P – MARAVILLA Son Rompe Pera – Cumbia is the New Punk Ivan Cornejo – Aquí Te Espero Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Pop. I am producer Rianna Cruz. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

So it is the middle of September, and you know what that means, or do you? Back to school has already happened, but we are moving towards Halloween and then Thanksgiving, and Mariah Carey will take over our earwaves soon enough. Good guess, but no, it is officially Hispanic Heritage Month. Oh, nice. Nice. Hispanic Heritage Month runs every year from September 15th. 15th to October 15th. So currently, it's a fitting time, I think, to take a look at the current state

of Latin music, and in particular, the Mexican music scene. Last month, I was invited to attend Baja Beach Fest, a three-day Latin music festival in Rosarito Mexico. And this year, the festival featured headlining performances by artists like Kali Uchis and Fueza Rehira. But I also got to see a whole range of acts from up-and-comers to superstars. So as we are amidst Hispanic Heritage Month and a week out from Mexican Independence Day, I thought we would take a look at some artists in Mexican music right now and how their songs, whether it be in traditionally Mexican sounds or otherwise, stay with or break the tradition of their country's music. Okay, cool. So let's start taking a look at one of my favorites, the Mexican-American singer-songwriter Javi.

Here's his first hit, La Victima, and before I get into it, I want you to guess how old you think this dude is. Here's the club. 46. Yeah, like a hell. Sealthy 64. You're very of. I don't think anybody has a handle on his exact age.

Some say he's young as 18. Other say he's 19. But one thing is for sure, Javi is under the American drinking age of 21. That's wild, because his voice sounds like he's lived 100 lives. It's got some deep wisdom in those vocal cords. especially that we're listening to a song about asking someone to don't play the victim.

Like, he's talking about some real-life experience here. Right. Like, it's crazy to envision this man thinking these things while also being in high school. You know, like, I thought Javi had to be at least 25. His voice is so pristine and, like, measured, you know. And it evokes this kind of wise beyond his year's quality. And his technique is really great too. One thing that stands out in terms of his technique is the way he bends the note at the end of that final phrase.

Because Iando for all parts, he like literally bends chromatically through a bunch of pitches. And it's like almost you can hear that distance as he bends the note. on Partes, you can hear that separation between them. Very cool. And he's a very great hook writer as well. His songs are very memorable, like my personal favorite, La Diablo or the Shi Devil. Charlie, you got a big grin on your face,

listening to that clip right up. Well, there's so many things that stand out. One is just the great rhyming of La Diablo rhymes with, what was in the next line? Eres una Diablo, Mira, Como Baalas. I love that rhyme. And then I was really struck by the fashion drops, Christian Dior, Fendi, Bensiaga, because it feels like something you'd hear more in like a hip-hop track. And yet here we are in this sort of Mexican regional style with traditional.

with traditional instrumentation. I really like as well the way in which he delivers these lines. He's so in conversation with the aggressive, percussive playing of the rhythm section. Yeah, this feels like a different side of this performer than we heard previously. It's like a little more aggressive, a little more percussive,

a little less of that Belcanto style of singing. It's really fun. And your comment, Charlie, It reminds me of when Rihanna talked to us about attending Rolling Loud, right? And there were all these Latin acts there, too. It's like you can see these worlds of hip-hop and Mexican Latin music's maybe like colliding a bit. This track is a romantic tumbado, stemming from the Mexican regional subgenre of Corridos tombados, which mixes coritos, you know, songs from Latin America about lived experiences, daily life, daily relationships.

And hip-hop, which also, in a way, is about the things people experience in their daily lives. So it makes sense that you put these together. And in Javi's case, you get a romantic tumbado, which I feel like the American equivalent is somebody like future, right? Where he's talking about women and his relationships with women and how toxic they can be. Javi's doing the same thing. He's calling this girl a she-devil. He's telling her that he'll buy her designer clothes or treat her well, despite this kind of toxica relationship that the two have. I mean, I wouldn't call the object of my affection a she-devil. I don't think that would go over very well.

I don't expect somewhere between 16 and 19-year-old Javi to be an enlightened feminist by any means. But it does feel like he is capturing the reality of an unhealthy relationship. Yeah, I wrote a song called Woman is the Devil when I was 19. Really? I cringe to think about now. It's not in the official catalog of Sloan opuses. It's been stricken from the record. I need to hear that, Nate.

You've got to break it out. It will never be heard again. Well, I'm sure your song also has its own charm, its own unique sensibilities, to it. In the case of La Diablo, specifically, there's another reason why this song has a flow to it. It's essentially one verse followed by a very long chorus. Here's the verse, which in its own right, is very hooky. That verse is followed by a 12-line chorus, not 12-bar, 12-line that contains several hooks within it. There's the first four lines which could stand as a hook on its own. Then there's the next four lines which have the same melody but have that little musical

quirk with Javi singing the names of designers and all the music drops out. That to a non-fluent Spanish listener could function as a more noticeable hook to pick up on and continue. can use the hokey nature of the chorus at large. And then you have the last four lines of the chorus acting as sort of a post-chorus, but with an entirely different melody. So this song is not really following the conventions of verse. chorus form that we're accustomed to on the Hot 100. But it seems like it's doing so in service of this narrative.

It's like the story kind of comes first, and that dictates the sound you're going to hear, which is maybe destabilizing for our Western ears to some degree. But in another way, opens up these new sort of horizons of possibility. I feel like breaking convention isn't holding it back. The song peaked at number 20 on Billboard's Hot 100. It's three quarters away to a billion plays on Spotify. And it's totally its own thing.

Another thing that I note that is very unconventional in contemporary pop music, is this song in 3-4? One, two, three, two, two, three. Sounds right to me, yeah. When's the last time a song in 3-4 is about the Hot 100? My favorite things. That's a great question. Okay, how about then?

the Ariana Grande remake of Favorite Things. What was that song called? Seven rings. Yeah. Breakfast of Tiffany's and bottles of bubbles. Girls with tattoos who like getting in trouble.

Lashes and time. Okay, so Seven Rings by Arna Grande is in 4-4. I know that, like, Kiss from a Rose, I think, was in 3-4. You talked to feel about that. I did. I did.

I have to shout out Kiss from a Rose. Triple time, classic. Yeah. Okay. It's very uncommon, though. It might feel weird. for Western music to be in 3-4 on the Billboard charts, but a lot of Mexican music is in 3-4.

So this really is not out-of-pocket in terms of Mexican song form. Speaking of out-of-pocket, I have one more link between this song and hip-hop. Indulge me, if you will. Absolutely. I love the instrumentation here. It's very sparse, right?

It's just like acoustic bass and acoustic guitar and vocals. But the acoustic of so much of the role that would be supplied by a drum kit or a drumbeat and a hip hop track. And I feel like there are moments when that guitar gets so fast and like reels off these almost superhuman. syncopations in a way that is kind of reminiscent of like high hat trap drumming in hip hop.

Oh, yeah. So just like we hear Javi making these lyrical references to hip hop that you mentioned, Rihanna, like I feel like there also even might be some sort of rhythmic references to trap drums in some of these

guitar parts. You're right on the money, Nate. Y'all, I'm looking at a picture of Javi right now, this kid looks like he's 12 years old. He's got such a baby face. It's really it's really tripping me out that he has that voice. Despite Javi looking like he

is still in middle school, his songs talk about romance in a way that is very grandiose and sweeping and a lot of Mexican music is about romance, these sweeping tales of love and loss. Another

young group making waves with this type of romantic work comes to us from Mexico City in the form of three brothers with the name Latin Mafia. Here's their song, Julieta. You know you to dance

if it facilita how to make you know you know to dance yeah and that rhythm that he's a little

a little so a little let's go violent let's go let's askel-o I don't know Totally different groove. Really sexy.

Yeah. Nice song. With a name like Latin Mafia, you would think, like, maybe we'd be getting some hard-hitting regaton, you know, some demo, some frankly ass-shaking music. But instead, what we get is down-tempo Latin R&B.

I think it's nice. I like this sound. Yeah, this is super cool. I feel like that regga tone beat is still there, boom, chikum, jeep, but it's like really slowed down and becomes something so different when it's spacious like that. Boom, chip, boom, chip, boom. It's like got this very different vibe and they take advantage of that in their flow.

They like fill in all this. It becomes like elastic the way they deliver these different phrases. It's very hazy, you know, it reminds me a lot of like the R&B of the early 2010s, somebody like Miguel or even early tracks from the weekend. Very soft-spoken vocal in that kind of way. And here's a funny thing about Latin Mafia. The group is three brothers, but two of them are twins. So it's kind of this like Tegan and Sarah thing if like there was like a third sister around named like Carol, you know.

But I dig that. It gives it sort of an intimate familial vibe, especially with the voices of the two. brothers kind of blending in with one another. Are these brothers like pretty young as well? Yeah, relatively so. Similar to Javi, there's there's this quality where it's like they're kind of wise beyond their years. Like they're really taking their time.

They're really, they're not rushing anything. So the opposite of when I was playing music growing up, I was playing guitar, just like as fast as I possibly could trying to prove myself. Didn't have the confidence to slow down. Exactly. These guys have nothing to prove. except, you know, how sexy they can be. They're so chill.

And they made their U.S. debut at Coachella, actually, which makes sense to me. It feels like a perfect fit among the American landscape. I mean, listening to Julietta, their song is talking about a beautiful woman who knows how to dance. And it's sexy, and you don't really need to grasp at something larger or bigger for people to connect with it. You know, like we have a subwifie. bass, we have a very percussive beat to it. It's something that you can listen to

even again if you don't speak Spanish and find something to love and something to connect with. It's like 11 o'clock in the morning. This is bedroom music. It's getting way too steamy in here. The lights in my room just like dimmed on their own mysteriously?

It's crazy. Like the red LEDs started turning on. I have no idea. But two years after Julietta, Latin Mafia released a follow-up called Julietota. And it's seemingly a continuation speaking about the same woman,

but the sound starts differently. Yeah, once again, they are taking their time, just kind of dragging behind the beat. Nothing to proof. But there is a switchup to something maybe a little bit more comfortable for Latin Mafia. Ooh. And we're back with the synths. Very weekend. Yeah.

Yeah. I love myself a tape stop in the middle of a song. It's like you're out of a club and you just got whisked away to the back room. And we're even having these sins that are like reverb heavy, you know, like you're hearing it through a wall. Definitely. The narrative of the song, though, talks about how Julietota is Intupereo, right, which is Latin dancing to that reggaeton. So you have the song start with reggaeton as Latin Mafia are talking about her dancing, the way that she moves, that sort of thing. we segue into part two where they kind of get a little bit more emotional, a little bit more intimate.

They're talking about why this woman is different. They don't even know who she is anymore, you know? It switches from watching somebody externally being like, oh, you move so great. Like she doesn't know how to do anything but Pereo into what happened. You changed so much what's happening here between the two of us. And how smart to, like, create this multi-track narrative that kind of brings you in as a listener to want to keep hearing how this story evolves?

It's fascinating too because Latin Mafia has not put out. a record. Their entire catalog is comprised of these Lucy singles. And something I love about Latin Mafia in general is how soft and emotional their music is. I feel like it challenges the culture of machismo in Latinidad overall. You know, like we hear a lot in reggaeton and the dominant Latin music machine, these themes that connect to masculinity, right, in traditionally masculine pursuits, like partying, womanizing. There's the whole subgenre on narco-corridos about drug lords and kind of that lifestyle. So to hear a group of young Latin artists indulge in that kind of emotional softness and sensitivity is exciting.

Like it feels different. So at Baja Beach Fest when I went, Latin Mafia performed pretty early in the afternoon on Saturday. And you would think, you know, their music is perfect for the music. like late night, moody vibes. But that Saturday night, the headliner was one of the hottest artists in Latin music right now. Peace up, Blima. Bingo.

Yeah. Right on the money. Right on the money. We'll get to him after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you.

Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No. No. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated.

the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president.

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So we last explored Peso Pluma's work on our Mexican Regional Chartbreaker's episode when his collaboration with Eslabo Narado, Eya Bayesola, was one of the biggest songs in America. Another dude who's like way than his ears. Since then, the Mexican star has grown exponentially in popularity, leading to a main stage Coachella performance, which I also saw sold out headlining tour.

and even getting a Grammy for his 2023 album Henesis, which has songs like the show stopping Lady Gaga. This is so cool. I think you really hit the nail on the header earlier about the sort of connection with the rhythm section. and trap music.

I feel like what Paisal Pluma's music is doing that is so captivating is beyond just the strength of his voice are all of these really intricate rhythms that keep the ear constantly engaged. These da-da-da-da-da-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt. And on Lady Gaga, the acoustic bass is being played in this way where he's striking the string so hard that they slap back against the neck of the bass, creating this further percussive effect. You hear the sound, the tone of the bass dome, and then you hear the slap.

It was like, cut. This is very cool. What does it have to do with Lady Gaga? Besides being the perfect collision of Rihanna's main interests in life. So the first line of the song is Dom Perignon, Lady Gaga, and references Lady Gaga's collab with the liquor brand, Dom Perri. That's as far as the Lady Gaga references go. So it's like, I want to be as Lady Gaga and the big brand deals that she gets kind of thing? I don't know. It's basically saying, like, I am classy.

You know, I want to look good. I want to have my fancy alcohol. I want to have my brand deals. You know, the rest of the song is like about how they want to, I don't know, go to Japan for seafood and drive Lamborghinis and shit like that, you know. Okay, so once again, a combination of traditional instrumentation, but with very modern lyrics. Exactly. And peso is really good at bridging these two worlds of traditional Mexican music. and maybe more American sounds and lyrical themes. The traditional Mexican corridos his career has been founded on are now working in tandem with this superstar country hopping persona that he's adopted. We talked earlier this year about Peso Pluma's song on the Kali Uchis record. And in the time since, he's also netted collabs with Brazilian pop star Anita.

and the DJ, DJ Snape. I feel like you've unintentionally created a great DJ set in this episode so far. Like, you've kind of warmed us up with the daytime music. We've got some evening music. And now I feel like you've taken us to the nighttime set at Baha Beach Fest. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, this slaps. Yeah, that song is aptly called teca, right?

Because he says discotheca over and over and over again. And this track closes out Peso Pluma's new record, the two-disc collab-heavy album, Exodo. And both discs on the record carry different energies. The first disc has this classic Pesopluma Narco Corrito sound, but the second disc on the album is where it really gets interesting. We get more wild cards. We get this DJ Snake song. We get this Anita song. But there's one collaboration on that record.

That is my favorite. The song, Put Em in the Fridge. Already we're getting something new from Pesoombole with the Becino. He's doing this rapid fire rapping that, he's doing this rapid fire rapping that feels of a more modern tradition. He's not singing at all really. He has this lyrical melodic flow to him, but he's rapping firmly in the pocket.

Is that Cardi? Exactly. The special guest on this song is none other than Cardi B. I don't want to put down Paiso Plumo, but when her voice comes in, it is so much bolder,

more aggressive. There's something so powerful. Like, it feels like it's 3 dB louder. She's got such a deep voice, too. Yeah. There's way more low end in her voice. His is a little more anemic in comparison. Yeah, yeah.

She really commands the track, and I think her voice really works well over this beat, which I find really interesting because the beat is this loop of hornstabs with that percussive guitar, both things present in traditional Mexican music that we've heard Paiso Pluma do. When the song starts with this loop, it like almost tease up the track to be this classic Mexican regional song.

And then the rap comes in and kind of shifts our expectations. Or when the highhats come in, it's like, oh, right, okay, this is going to be a rap song. And I think what makes Cardi B's verse so powerful is that she comes in when the AID awaits drop. The only hint of the sort of more traditional Mexican, and regional sound that we are familiar with Peso Pluma, all that we get is this sample that is, you know, EQ'd, hardly heard of maybe a guitar, but we've gotten, yeah, full hip-hop beat.

Which is cool, because this is probably Peso's highest profile American collaboration. And it works because Cardi B has a history of working with Latin artists on the precipice of global superstardom. just look at how she worked with Jay Balvin and Bad Bunny on I Like It all the way back in 2018. Right. She minted their careers in some ways. They were already on the come-up, but that song took them over the top. And that was for her record invasion of privacy, but this being on Pesso's record, has this sort of tradeoff to it because Cardi B is rapping in Spanish, whereas on I like it, you know, she's rapping in English next to these Spanish rappers.

Right. But she commands a track. You know, she also, like Pesso, has such a distinct voice and style and manages to rap several different flows on the track. Yeah, she finds all these different pockets, and then they're in dialogue trading the same rhythm back and forth. That's really cool. It's only at this point in our listening that I'm realizing that this song is not about the proper method of storing leftovers.

I think it's about putting someone in the fridge, like putting them on ice, right? taking them out, so to speak. Putting a hit on someone with your lethal skills. Your rap. Not maintaining an extra salmon for maximum freshness. Which you should probably only refrigerate for a few days anyway. Just make sure anyone else could confuse about this out there is now similarly enlightened. Yeah, I could understand you being confused.

But this becomes much more clear in the back half of the track because Peso does something kind of unprecedented for him, which is rap in English. This is not a synopsis of the final episode of Bear Season 2, where our lead character gets stuck in a walk-in fridge? No? Boo. Yeah, to season three, man, it really fumbled.

No, it's not about getting stuck in a walk-in fridge. It's Peso saying, you know, I'm so tight with the cartels that I could say the word, and then you get thrown in the fucking fridge. Okay, I'm not going to comment any further. Charlie's scared of the fridge. Yeah. So we've been talking about Pesso's ability to, cross-language barriers, cross-genre barriers, cross-industry barriers.

And it's cool because I think it fits with the type of star that Peso is trying to be. Like I said earlier, I've seen him twice at major festival sets this year, both at Coachella in California and at Baja Beach Fest in Mexico. And it's clear that he is trying to transcend simply his narco-corrito label and Mexican music in general. He wants to be a huge, star to the point where he eclipses the Latin music industry. I'm not sure we've seen that in both English and Spanish since maybe like Selena, you know, like Bad Bunny wraps entirely in Spanish. Peso seems to be somebody who wants to access both markets to the highest potential. To his credit, you know, when you said, we're going to talk about the biggest act, I knew exactly

here you were talking about. So I think it's working. And having Cardi B as a guest, as you said, is kind of like a flex unto itself. And to have her rapping in Spanish and with a little bit of English, it's like, it's like he's now the artist of the moment in some ways. And people are coming to him instead of the other way around. I think it really cements Peso as one of a kind in terms of his stature and artistic vision. But I also think it's important to remember that Mexican music is not a monolith. Peso is the biggest act in a moment.

but I think there's also a lot of really cool stuff going on around the country that I think we should be looking at, you know? And so I wanted to do a sort of speed round looking at artists that are not on the Baja Beach Fest lineup, but are existing under the radar and doing really cool things in the world of Mexican music. And to start, I wanted to look at one of Pesso's collaborators and family members, Tito Doublepe, Mexican Regional Act, who is also Peso Pluma's cousin. Given the growl in his voice, I guess he's like somewhere between four and five years old, it's very different than his cousin.

There's a lot more direct aggression in the way that he approaches each vowel. Like an A is like, And maybe that's what a few extra years in Latin music gets you because Tito is 26 or 27. Again, nobody knows his actual age. Near retirement, basically. Right.

The fact that he's younger than 30 is crazy hearing this voice. Yeah. His vocals kind of sound like if you aged up Bezo Pluma by a decade. You know, they carry this untrained quality, and it makes every song feel like, lament, right? There's this emotional effort that is being put in to the vocals that you kind of get through the way that the songs are sung. Okay, so we've got some cousins. Who else are going to play for us? I'm going to give you guys son rompepera. They do something called cumbia punk music, a thesis that is made very clear on the track, Cumbia is the new punk. Oh, hell yeah.

Kumbia is the new punk. And how punk are these tempo changes, these in-your-face vocals, this combination of distorted electric guitars and traditional marimbas? This is awesome. This is so cool. I've never heard anything like this.

I really enjoy it. Perhaps the only thing that isn't punk about it for me would be that it is so. excellent. Like, it's really well played. I think they're too good at their instruments. No, their talent is tremendous. And I really like how it brings together these two distinct times in music. You know, like, Combia is a very classic and old genre and comes from literally folklore. But punk is relatively new in the grand scheme of things. You know, in Latin America, it started to crop up in the 1960s. So you have these two distinct scenes and justices. And

genres and histories melding together in something that is really new. You know, I feel like they're one of the only acts doing this. I have never heard this before. I feel like we need to send you back to Mexico on a reporting trip to uncover what's going on in Coombia Punk. This is fun. I will gladly do that. Okay. Before we send you on a plane, you have another song in the speed round? Yeah, I have one more, and that comes to us from Ivan Guannejo, who is actually who is actually

from Riverside, California, but is Mexican American and does this dreamy singer-songwriter music that has ties to Mexican rancheras. Here is Aki Te Espero.

Kind of makes me think of like the Mexican Steve Lacey. Yes. Like really relaxed in deep hop but strange change-up

I like it. I like it a lot. It's very paired back. And something that I notice about this song that kind of harkens back to a lot of Mexican regional music is that there are no drums. The percussion comes from the way the guitar is played and the rhythm of the guitar.

It makes everything feel very spacious and very emotional, kind of like how we heard Latin Mafia sound before. This also brought up Latin Mafia for me, but there's something a little bit more like, indie about it, something even a little more emo to a degree. I feel like this is a nice way to close out the speed round. And really this whole episode exploring the manifold sounds of modern Mexican music

because we have really covered the gamut now, Rihanna. You've brought us like so many different sounds and styles. And the thing that really blows my mind is like how young all these artists are, how up and coming they are. And what this means for the genre going forward, the possibilities seem limitless to me. Like this isn't necessarily just a trend where it has this moment on the charts

and then fades. I feel like this is the start of something big. Totally. I think Mexico is really up next in terms of global music superpowerness. I don't know how else to put it, but these artists, you know, they don't even crack the surface

of everything that is happening in Mexico. but have these massive fan bases that really have potential to expand to other countries like America. So this Hispanic Heritage Month, I implore each and every listener to comb the Latin music charts, comb the Latin playlist,

and explore some new artists because there is something out there to love for everybody. Switched on Pop is produced by Ranne Cruz, engineered by Brandon Farland, edited by Art. Chung illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Remember the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod. You can find this on social media at Switched on Pop, and we'd love to hear from you. Who are you checking out from Mexico and beyond?

We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Check us out on Tuesday. And until then, thanks for listening.