���غ���

Yahritza y Su Esencia are a sibling trio from Yakima in Washington State. They are fronted by singer, songwriter, and acoustic guitarist Yahritza Martinez, who is backed by her older siblings Jairo on acoustic bass and Mando on the 12-string guitar. Their music weds formal Mexican Regional sounds drawn from the ranchera and corrido traditions to acoustic folk-pop. After formally playing together for less than a year, a snippet of their breakup ballad "Soy El Unico" went viral on TikTok in February 2022. After the song was formally released by Lumbre Music in April, it raced to number one on the Hot Latin Songs chart and eventually placed at 20 on the Hot 100. It topped streaming charts and made the 15-year-old Yahritza the youngest Latin performer ever to enter Billboard's all-genre industry chart. The group issued the follow-up "Esta Noche" in March and the five-track EP Obsessed in April, which contained both singles. It topped the digital charts almost immediately after release. A sequel, Obsessed, Pt. 2, arrived the following year, followed by "Te Fui a Seguir" from their debut album.

Mando was born in Jiquilpan in Michoacán, the same town his parents were from. A family of migrant workers, they emigrated to the U.S. before their youngest child was born. The three youngsters grew up listening to the many flavors of Mexican music. Their father and uncles played together in a band that Mando joined as a keyboardist when he was ten. All three children learned to work the fields, picking apples, cherries, and pears.

At five, Yahritza was already singing corridos and rancheras to accompany Mando's keyboards. Obsessed with music as she grew older, she began accompanying him at family gatherings and parties. At 13 she began writing her own songs, and a year later, taught herself to play the guitar. Jairo picked up the bajoloche, a four-string acoustic bass. Mando expanded his musical reach when he picked up a requinto, a smaller, nylon-string classical guitar; he taught himself to play from listening to records and eventually switched to the 12-string bajo sexto.

Yahritza became proficient enough on the guitar to accompany herself playing covers of contemporary songs by Engima Norteno, Caliber 50, Ed Maverick, and others. Soon after, she posted her cover versions to TikTok, and her brothers started accompanying her. They rehearsed playing their sister's original songs in addition to covers. One video, a cover of Ivan Cornejo's "Está Dañada" featuring only Yahritza and Jairo, went viral, and they began receiving attention from label execs and A&R figures. They were nonplussed by what was on offer until they heard from Ramón Ruiz and Alex Guerra, two fellow musicians from Legado 7; the pair founded and ran Lumbre Music. They and filmmaker David Cruz traveled to Yakima. (Reportedly, the siblings chose the name Yahritza y Su Esencia just hours before the label trio arrived.) Ruiz was taken by the emotional power in Yahritza's voice, and he recognized his ability to subvert the dominant frame from a male's point of view to a woman's with authority. Ruiz and Guerra recorded three songs by the sierreño trio (two guitars and a bass plus vocals), while Guerra filmed the entire meeting. They signed the trio to a record deal, and in February, a 15-second visual snippet Cruz filmed of them performing "Soy El Unico" -- a breakup song Yahritza wrote at age 13 -- went viral within hours. The full video registered some 19 million views. The single, on the other hand, registered tens of millions of listens at streaming, topping the charts of several platforms.

In March, the single "Esta Noche" followed and performed equally well. The next month, the entire five-track EP, Obsessed, was released and shot to the top of industry Latin and streaming charts. The trio kicked off 2023 with the single "Cambiaste" from their sequel EP, Obsessed, Pt. 2, which reached number 31 on Billboard's Latin chart. Released in November, "Te Fui a Seguir" served as the first single from Yahritza y Su Esencia's debut album, 111. Two more songs followed in 2024, "Tu Cárcel" and "Tu Orgullo." ~ Thom Jurek

Hailing from the Texas Valley just north of the Mexican border, Grupo Frontera are a norteño band who rose to viral success not long after forming in early 2022. They released their debut EP, En Vivo, Vol. 1, but it was their cover of the song "No Se Va," originally by Colombian group Morat, that brought them fame and became a charting hit on the Hot 100. Another Hot 100 hit arrived in 2023 with their Bad Bunny collaboration "Un x100to," which appeared on their debut album El Comienzo. They followed it in 2024 with the collaboration-rich, Jugando a Que No Pasa Nada.

Bandmembers Adelaido Solis II “Payo” (vocals), Julián Peña, Jr. (percussion), Carlos Frontera (drums), Alberto "Beto" Acosta (guitar), Carlos Zamora (bass), and Juan Javier Cantú (accordion, vocals) formed in Edinburg, Texas, a small town just across the border from Mexico. They quickly released an EP, En Vivo, Vol. 1, and a string of Latin and Mexican cover songs, including a version of Morat's 2019 song, "No Se Va," which found viral success on various online platforms and played obsessively across the U.S. Southwest, and Northern Mexico, intersecting various communities. In October 2022, after conquering various smaller charts, the song made its way onto Billboard's all-genre Hot 100, becoming only the fifth regional Mexican song ever to do so. Buoyed by their momentum, Grupo Frontera played their first concert south of the border later that year.

In May 2023, they scored a Hot 100 Top Five hit with "Un x100to" in collaboration with Bad Bunny. They also teamed with Peso Pluma on the standalone single "Tulum," followed by "Ojitos Rojos" with Ke Personajes. They went viral on TikTok. The two bookend tracks also appeared on El Comienzo, their 11-song debut long-player produced by multi-Latin Grammy winner Edgar "Edge" Barrera. Issued in August, the album entered the general Top 200 at number 33 and landed inside the Top Ten on various streaming charts. Another single, "Amor Propio," appeared a few months later. Across 2022 and 2023, the band placed eight singles in the general Hot 100.

Grupo Frontera kicked off 2024 with the romantic "Quédate Bebé," and further enhanced their Latin American fanbase after collaborating with Shakira on "(Entre Paréntesis)," the chart-topping single from Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, her comeback album. It registered more than 100 million streams during its first month while it's video racked up 30 million views inside of a week. They collaboration was extended with non-album single and video for "Esto Ya No Da Más." In May 2024, Grupo Frontera released Jugando a Que No Pasa Nada, its second long player. First single, "Ya Pedo Quien Sabe," in collaboration with Christian Nodal, topped the Mexcian Regional charts, as did thei track, "Quedate Babe." Other collaborations on the 12-song set included "Por Que Sera," featuring Maluma (with a video), "Desquite," with Nicki Nichole, and "Los Dos" featuring Morat. ~ Timothy Monger