A Guide to Música Mexicana

We’re diving into the global phenomenon of música mexicana through five key moments that have shaped it—from stars to songs and radiant subgenres.

“That has always been the goal and the objective: to expand what we like to do and the type of music we listen to, and globalize it to every corner of the world.” That’s Peso Pluma—born Hassan Kabande Laija—talking to Apple Music just before the release of his groundbreaking 2023 LP GÉNESIS, an album that’s not only cemented the 24-year-old Guadalajara native’s place at the forefront of música mexicana, but cemented música mexicana at the forefront of global pop as well. Música mexicana itself is just an umbrella term for a number of regional Mexican sounds (hence the direct translation, “Mexican music”) including mariachi, cumbia, banda, sierreño, norteñas, and the rapidly evolving corridos of Peso Pluma. What was once working-class music throughout Mexico is now considered pop in several countries, a development that’s crescendoed over the course of the 2000s, as young second-generation Mexican American artists like Fuerza Regida have embraced (and taken great pride in) their heritage while also introducing elements of hip-hop culture—transmitting it around the globe and back across the border to Mexico, too. Along the way there have been big watershed moments. There was the widespread mourning of icons like Valentín Elizalde and Jenni Rivera, and the way that social media gave a new platform to prodigies like Gerardo Ortíz and Christian Nodal, who created an entirely new subgenre by fusing mariachi and norteño (mariacheño), reviving the former in the process. There was the unexpected pop crossover of Banda MS and the sudden rise of Natanael Cano and his corridos tumbados, which reshaped the genre with Junior H and made waves further afield with a seismic remix of “Soy el Diablo” with Bad Bunny in 2019. All of it leads to GÉNESIS and Peso Pluma, as he stretches the corrido in new and exciting directions, elevating global awareness to levels never before seen. “We are very happy with everything that is happening to us,” he says. “There are many blessings that are raining down on us, and I think that little by little, we have learned how to take the bull by the horns.”

In Mexico, stories have passed from generation to generation through the corrido. It’s a musical form whose oral tradition dates back to the Mexican Revolution, where folk tales from the front lines and frontier found new narrative form in song. In the 1970s, Los Tigres del Norte released “Contrabando y Traición” and in the process created the narcocorrido, a subgenre of stories in song written about the realities of drug trafficking that was eventually popularized by Chalino Sánchez, posthumously deemed “El Rey del Corrido.” In the 2010s, Ariel Camacho—along with his band Los Plebes del Rancho and their acoustic sierreño-style guitars—became the form’s next great narrator, as he documented the violence of organized crime that terrorized the north of the country, defining the contemporary corrido for Gen Z in the process. His influence can be heard in a number of songwriters and interpreters of the genre today, particularly in Natanael Cano’s moody corridos tumbados, which have splintered even further into a spectrum of subvariants, like corridos bélicos, sad sierreño, and corridos verdes.

No period in history stands out in Mexican cultural memory quite like the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s—a time when the country was at the art world’s epicenter, opening its arms to exiles and artists from around the world as they sought to flee wars and financial crises. At the same moment, nationalist sentiment could be heard and felt across entertainment throughout Mexico—from music to theater to a golden age of cinema, where the icons of mariachi also doubled as movie stars. Often inspired by scenes from rural life, the Mexican bolero (or love song) would eventually bloom into the king of all Mexican genres: the ranchera. The likes of José Alfredo Jiménez, Javier Solís, and Lola Beltrán brought mariachi singers center stage for the first time in Mexico’s history, and they also composed a large part of the national songbook. No songwriter was more prolific than Juan Gabriel, whose body of work and flamboyant public persona impacted culture across generations and genres alike. His influence is equaled only by that of Vicente Fernández, who went on to become a global icon, internationalizing the genre through films and albums and making it one of Mexico’s most vital and visible exports to date.

According to legend, when Austrian Emperor Maximilian I came to rule Mexico in the 19th century, he brought with him marching bands that popularized European waltz and polka. And while tastes have evolved, the instruments have stayed. The accordion in particular has become a vital part of Mexican music, especially those sounds developed near the US-Mexico border. In fact, the story of the Mexican diaspora plays a key part in the way música mexicana has evolved over time, mirrored in an ongoing dialogue between the tastes and influences of Mexicans on both sides of the border. The norteño regio of Los Cadetes De Linares and Ramón Ayala come to mind, as does the grupero of Los Bukis and Bronco. You can hear Texan influence in the voices of Intocable and Duelo—which can be traced all the way to the more contemporary cumbia of Grupo Frontera—and Chihuahuan flavor in Conjunto Primavera and Los Rieleros del Norte. Each of these acts found popularity in two markets that have grown in parallel—and become important parts of Mexico’s varied sound tapestry.

What is the true essence of música mexicana? Is it singing from deep within the chest? Tales of battles and bravery? Or just having fun, finding release as you dance to the beat of a tambora? From a Mexican perspective, perhaps the most important thing is to abandon reality for a moment and enjoy a good zapateado. The danceable genres of música mexicana are, historically, its most popular. Let's start by talking about banda, whose roots in Sinaloa almost 100 years ago gave rise to dynasties that are still standing today, such as Banda El Recodo or La Original Banda El Limón—or transformed into current groups, such as Banda MS or La Arrolladora Banda El Limón. A foundation of tambora and tuba, from banda sinaloense, evolved into other subgenres in the ’90s that kept that same danceable feeling. And you can't talk about dancing without mentioning the technobanda of Mi Banda El Mexicano as well as the quebradita of Banda Machos and Banda Zeta.