Regional Goes Global, Part 1: Finding Peso Pluma's music revolution in Nashville

Earlier this year, Peso Pluma — a 24-year-old who grew up in between Guadalajara, Jalisco, and San Antonio — became the first regional Mexican artist to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 chart. Something in the music industry was changing. Streaming numbers for regional Mexican shot up astronomically, as the musical stylings of banda and norteño made their way onto the Coachella main stage and burgeoning stars like Peso Pluma began to book their first U.S. tours in major markets. But what accounted for regional Mexican's rise? And what does the genre's continued popularity say about not just changing trends in the Latin music industry, but the changing shape of America?

For the next three episodes of Alt.Latino, Anamaria Sayre and Felix Contreras dive into the regional Mexican explosion, revealing the complex relationships both Mexicans and Mexican Americans have with identity from either side of the border. In this first episode, Felix and Anamaria travel to Nashville, Tenn., to witness Peso Pluma's performance and to try to understand the root of the phenomenon, through their own personal experiences and the people they meet along the way.

Audio for this episode of Alt.Latino was edited and mixed by Janice Llamoca and Joaquin Cotler, with production support from Shelby Hawkins, Suraya Mohamed, Natalia Fidelholtz and Lauren Migaki. The editor for this episode is Jacob Ganz and our project manager is Grace Chung. Our VP of Music and Visuals is Keith Jenkins.

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