Ever-evolving and sonically varied, regional Mexican music is having a moment

Mexican culture has long been entwined with the American Southwest, enduring shifting borders and politics for centuries. Throughout that history, regional Mexican music dispersed and evolved – from bandas and boleros to those genres closer to home, like conjunto and, of course, Tejano.

Now, it’s a new era of popular Latin music, and these longstanding genres have further evolved and found widespread listenership in the mainstream.

From the corridos tumbados of once-San Antonio resident Peso Pluma to the runaway success of the Rio Grande Valley’s Grupo Frontera and their take on norteño, regional Mexican music is in the midst of a renaissance.

Such is the observation of Cat Cardenas, who highlighted the many genres that can be found under the regional Mexican music umbrella in an interactive article for Texas Highways.

Cardenas joined the Standard to break it all down. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: So give us a bit of an overview for those who might not have looked at this article yet. What all does it cover, and what inspired you to break it all down the way you did?

Cat Cardenas: So this was actually part of a larger package that I worked on with Texas Highways. They were doing a whole issue dedicated to the Rio Grande Valley. And as part of that, I wrote a little bit about conjunto and the history of it in Texas.

And through that, we kind of thought it would be a fun idea to do a little interactive map, kind of explaining all the different relationships and the connections between some of the regional Mexican music genres that are really popular and how they have kind of taken root in Texas and the relationships between them. So that’s kind of what birthed the idea for the interactive.

Well, I really like the way you have a whole trajectory of how these genres evolved or are still evolving. I think even for many Texans, it can be hard to kind of suss out the distinct differences between, say, conjunto and norteño. And then eventually you do get into how Tejano evolved from them.

Did you always have an ear for those differences, or did you learn a bit more from working on this project? 

Absolutely I did. It was fun working on this because pretty much everyone that I talked to had different definitions and different criteria when it came to, you know, their specific vision of Tejano, norteño, conjunto … Depending on where you are in the state, you are going to get some slight variations in those things. And that was what made it really fun.

I definitely, growing up in Texas, used to confuse some of the genres, or I wouldn’t have been able to, you know, have the precision to differentiate between them that I feel like I have a little bit more now, since working on this piece.

You have another article in Texas Highways that pairs with this one, taking a look at the Rio Grande Valley and the way conjunto is having something of a resurgence in the region.

Give us a snapshot: Where are you seeing that resurgence, and who are some of the main actors in this new generation?

So this kind of started off by visiting the Conjunto Hall of Fame in San Benito, which is kind of the birthplace of conjunto music.

I grew up hearing conjunto a lot, but I definitely could not have told you kind of the history of it – who started it, the founders of it – until I started working on this piece. And it was a really cool experience getting to go visit the museum in San Benito, where I learned about Narciso Martinez, the accordionist who kind of pioneered the sound of it.

Through that, I kind of got introduced to a younger generation of people who are kind of picking up on music. And there are classes all throughout different school districts in South Texas that are teaching younger kids conjunto music.

They have accordions in their classrooms. They have bajo sextos, which is the other instrument that’s like the key combination that creates the sound of conjunto – accordion and bajo sexto.

So they’re all kind of picking it up again and carrying on a tradition that their grandparents and parents listened to.

» RELATED: With San Benito conjunto museum, a daughter continues her father’s labor of love

So you’re making an observation in these articles of what you call a regional Mexican music boom. You look at artists like Peso Pluma, Christian Nodal and Grupo Frontera. I wonder, do you have any sense of what fueled this current boom, and where do you see it going from here?

I think that it is really connected to kind of the observations that I explored in that conjunto piece.

There’s just a larger kind of renaissance happening where younger Mexican Americans are wanting to connect with their culture, and that has kind of changed in recent years where, you know, in previous decades there might have been people who didn’t speak Spanish at all or who didn’t listen to Spanish music at all just because of the way that their parents or grandparents were socialized not to.

And now the younger generations are kind of reclaiming that and connecting with their heritage a lot through music and through discovering younger musicians who are kind of pioneering these sounds.

So a lot of the members of Grupo Frontera, Peso Pluma, himself, and Yahritza y Su Esencia, for example, are all very young acts who are finding those connections with young audiences who want to celebrate their heritage in the sounds that their parents and their grandparents grew up with.

And what about the global phenomenon of Mexican regional music – what we’re seeing right now in a lot of songs?

Yeah, that’s been very fun and exciting and kind of crazy to watch just because I know a lot of people who’ve grown up with this music certainly would have never expected to hear how popular it’s become and that it’s found audiences globally.

But I think that that just comes from the fact that it’s very different than the types of global music we’ve been hearing recently. It’s a totally different flavor. It’s a totally different profile of instruments and combinations that we’re hearing. And I think people get excited by that.

I mean, when you see Peso Pluma come out on stage with, you know, a whole backing of different instruments and different players playing instruments that people might have not have ever heard of – you know, the euphonium, the bajo sexto, all of these different instruments that aren’t very popular in other types of pop music – I think it gets people excited.

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Well, the genres that make up regional Mexican music all have their own sonic traits and characteristics. I wonder if you’d be willing to share if you have a favorite, and if there’s an artist in the genre that you really gravitate to.

I mean, I would have to say that growing up I mostly gravitated toward Tejano music, just because Selena was a huge influence. I was born right after Selena died, so her music was just very present in my life.

But aside from that, I would have to say that boleros are really, really up there in my favorites. They’re the kind of music – very romantic, dramatic Spanish music – that reminds me a lot of my grandparents. So that’s a great classic genre to explore.

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