Born Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija, the 23-year-old’s rise has been meteoric. In 2021 he released his first record, but he only became known in Mexico last year. Almost all of his songs are collaborations with other artists – and with that he lands hit after hit. He recorded the song “Ella Baila Sola” with the Mexican band Eslabon Armado and became the first Mexican artist with traditional sounds to reach the top ten of the US Billboard charts.
No fewer than seven other songs on which he contributes his vocals are currently in the top 100. “Ella Baila Sola” is also currently topping the global Spotify charts, with a remix by “The baby” of the Mexican Yng Lvcas, he also took third place there. Until a few days ago, there wasn’t even an English-language Wikipedia entry for Pluma.
The nice and the bad version of the genre
Corridos Tumbados is the name of the genre that is now so successful. The founder is the Mexican singer Natanael Cano, who released an album of the same name in 2019 at the age of 19. Corridos are the basis, traditional Mexican pieces with guitar accompaniment and wind instruments, which tell of big and small heroic deeds and in earlier times also often had political significance.
Cano and now Pluma add modern elements and elements from genres like trap and reggaeton – both styles of music that are primarily native to Latin America and the large Latino community in the USA. While the lyrics in Corridos Tumbados are mainly about love and partying, the style has a kind of evil twin. In Corridos Belicos, violence and drug crime are defended and sometimes glorified.
Relevant stereotypes
That’s not surprising: even Trap mostly deals with drugs and street crime. And reggaeton, if it’s not about partying, love and sex, has a corresponding list. Even with corridos there is the subspecies of narcocorridos, in which the crimes of the drug cartels are euphemistically sung.
The fact that violence and delinquency, whether real or just stylized, sells well, especially among young people, has been known in popular music for a long time, not just since the rise of gangster rap and the numerous subgenres that followed. Preferences for high-horsepower cars and an image of women who wear as little as possible are just as dominant in the US scenes as they are with Mexican musicians.
Pluma recorded the song with trap singer Junior H “The blue” on, in which he is revered in the US incarcerated drug cartel boss “El Chapo”, bourgeois Joaquin Guzman. Also the video too “Las Morras” (“The Sluts”)a song featuring Colombian rapper Blessd, leaves little doubt that dumping cash on scantily clad women is a pretty good thing for the drug dealer lifestyle.
Enormer Output
Unsurprisingly, Pluma also owes his musical rise to TikTok, where his songs are distributed millions of times – and where young fans like to stage themselves in gangster fashion. But part of its success is also an enormous output. This year alone he released four singles himself, and he is a guest singer for six other songs with other artists. In an interview with the US magazine “Variety”, he explained that he recorded three songs on the day of the interview, and two more are planned for the following. His new album is to be released in late summer – on one of his own record labels, which was founded these days.
With nice songs to great success
The door opener to the top league, however, are Pluma’s softer songs, performed with a smoky voice, in which he doesn’t play the “gangsta” but the nice young man next door – just like “Ella Baila Sola” and “Chanel”, a duet with the Mexican-born US singer Becky G. She also invited him to a guest appearance at the Coachella Festival, where the hottest artists are traditionally allowed to present themselves.
Also one of the headliners this time was a Latin American singer, reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny from Puerto Rico. In his almost seven-year music career to date, he has had 66 Billboard chart positions and almost 150 singles in the Spanish charts – many of them also through collaborations. Nevertheless, this corresponds to a musical output of an average of one new single every two weeks.
Triumph of Mexican music
One of the youngest is „a x100to“, which is also currently in the top five of the global Spotify charts. Bad Bunny contributes the rap lines. The band Grupo Frontera is mainly responsible – a traditional Mexican band with a clear US country influence, as all members come from Texas.
The US broadcaster NPR takes Pluma and the fact that superstar Bad Bunny has suddenly discovered traditional Mexican music as an opportunity to report on what is probably a bigger trend. And with the bands Grupo Firme, Caliber 50 and the Corrido singers Carin Leon and El Fantasma, there are already other contenders who could make it into the US charts from Mexico with different traditional musical styles from banda to norteno.
According to the US music industry association RIAA, “Latin Music” has had double-digit sales growth rates in recent years, and since 2021 these have only been just under 25 percent. With the successes of Pluma and others, this trend could be spurred on again.
