Grupo Frontera’s hybrid Mexican music went global. On a new album, their genre-melding has no limits

NEW YORK – So much can occur in two years. Just ask Grupo Frontera, who launched their extremely expected sophomore album, “Jugando Que No Pasa Nada,” Friday.

The sextet started as a native band in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, enjoying occasions like quinceañeras — a interest for its individuals who held very other jobs: wedding ceremony photographer, automotive dealership supervisor, gate repairer and so forth. Then, viral status arrived in 2022 when their spirited duvet of “No Se Va” through the Colombian pop-rock band Morat made the rounds on TikTok and later, the Billboard Hot 100.

Eventually, they hand over their jobs, and the hits — and accolades — stored coming. They connected up with superstar producer Édgar Barrera, who hails from their nook of Texas and labored on each their albums. Last yr, Grupo Frontera launched their largest observe to this point, “Un x100to,” a collaboration with Puerto Rican reggaetón famous person Bad Bunny, peaked at No. 5 on Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100. That track earned them a Latin Grammy.

They’ve offered out arenas and by the point their debut album, “El Comienzo,” was released last August, they’d already established themselves one of the most exciting new voices in Latin music.

On the 12-track “Jugando Que No Pasa Nada,” they have got persevered to push obstacles.

“Every album, every song that we release, is like ‘Man, we gotta make a song better than the last one,’” says Julian Peña Jr., the band’s percussionist and hype man. “We have a lot of things that we’re exploring with, and we know a lot of people are going to like it.”

“We’re trying to pressure ourselves into expanding our horizons a little bit,” provides bassist Brian Ortega. “We have a little bit of everything.”

Ortega hopes that people connect with the diversity of sounds. And there is a lot to dig into.

Songs move from electronic music to R&B to bachata to George Strait-inspired country, with Grupo Frontera’s characteristic cumbias norteñas still very much at the center of all that they do, amplified by the difference in tastes across this band. Singer Adelaido Solís III, whom they call “Payo,” is the youngest, and loves tumbados. Older members love cumbia, a style of dance music from Colombia, says Juan Javier Cantu, accordion player and vocalist.

“It’s a mixture of modern and old school. So we’re, like, in between,” he says. “That’s why you have a lot of versatility on the album.”

That makes for a captivating combine, as does the collaborators they introduced forth. Featured are Maluma and Morat — a complete circle second if there ever used to be one — from Colombia. There’s additionally Christian Nodal from Mexico and a in particular wild minimize that includes Nicki Nicole from Argentina.

On the club-ready “Desquite” with Nicole, Grupo Frontera found inspiration in late ’00s, early ’10s music, specifically the Mexican pop DJ group 3BallMTY. Cantu says they wanted to bring back that sound — but “make it fresh with the music we’re doing,” he says, and with “the lyrics of today.”

Thematically, “Jugando Que No Pasa Nada” is a romantic journey: From the kiss-off opener “F——— Amor,” which Peña Jr. describes as being from the perspective of, well, someone fed up with love — to “Ibiza,” which “tells you the story about a guy saying, ‘You know what? I already bought all the cars that I want. I bought my mom a house. I got everything I want, but I also got enough for you. So come on over,’” he says.

In cultural conversation, Grupo Frontera is often viewed as frontrunners of the growing global interest in regional Mexican music — a catchall term that encompasses mariachi, banda, corridos, norteño, sierreño and other genres — alongside their friends and collaborators Peso Pluma, Fuerza Regida, Carín León and so on. And they are. But it’s not only because they play music true to their geography — it is because they’ve modernized their genres, often weaving into other musical styles. And because people all over the world are listening.

“We are regional Mexicans because our instruments are traditional and the vibe we give,” says Cantu.

“It’s regional to us, but the people made it global,” Peña Jr. jumps in. “We’re playing our music, but now it’s global. And it’s an amazing feeling.”

That exchanging of concepts and cultures is on the middle of “Jugando Que No Pasa Nada.”

“This album is kind of like a buffet,” jokes Ortega. “There’s the pizza, there’s the fish sticks, there’s the chicken wings. But you know what? It’s a little bit of everything. … But what ties it all together is that we don’t leave the essence of the cumbia.”

For a band that’s managed to take deeply beloved music, modernize it and present it to the world — what’s next? They say they’d love to tour in Europe, headline Coachella and Madison Square Garden, go to the “gringo Grammys,” says Cantu.

But greater than that, they would like their fanatics to hear this album and “feel their emotions, the instruments,” he says.