LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For the first time, the top two albums in the country are in Spanish. At No. 1, Bad Bunny - no surprise there. But at No. 2 is a lesser-known band reaching new heights on its ninth album. NPR Music's Anamaria Sayre has the story of Fuerza Regida.
ANAMARIA SAYRE, BYLINE: The song "Ansiedad" starts with a cloud of reverb, surrounding a sample of the king of mariachi Vicente Fernandez and quickly melts into (speaking Spanish) 12-string rhythm and some salty lyrics.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANSIEDAD")
FUERZA REGIDA: (Singing in Spanish).
SAYRE: For the last few years, a wave of artists have been taking musica Mexicana to the world, and as of this week, Fuerza Regida is the first group in the genre to climb as high as No. 2 on the U.S. album chart. After eight years of releasing music and a brief departure into a more electronic sound on their previous album, the group's new album, "111XPANTIA," is a return to traditional sound, and it's breaking records. What's been taking this genre worldwide is a blend of tradition and modernity. What makes this group distinct is the magnetism of its melodies, how they dance with pop-like groove.
FUERZA REGIDA: (Singing in Spanish).
SAYRE: Fuerza Regida, they're Mexican Americans from San Bernardino, California. But they are Mexico's version of modern-day rock stars. Much in the style of hip-hop, they boast about designer goods and private jets.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHAKA")
FUERZA REGIDA: (Singing in Spanish).
SAYRE: Really, though, the excitement of the music hinges on packaging a bunch of genres under a distinctly Mexican sound.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHAKA")
FUERZA REGIDA: (Vocalizing).
SAYRE: There's a quality Fuerza Regida's music shares with the artist whose album is at No. 1 this week, Puerto Rico's Bad Bunny. For years, Latin American artists were told, in order to make music that worked globally, they had to cross over linguistically and sonically. Today, people are gravitating towards undiluted authenticity. Using songs about girls and butts and jets and drugs, they're unifying a diaspora with its origins.
Anamaria Sayre, NPR Music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POR ESOS OJOS")
FUERZA REGIDA: (Singing in Spanish). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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