All Eyez on Peso Pluma

“Ella Baila Sola,” a collaboration with Eslabon Armado, made history by becoming the first regional Mexican song to lead Spotify’s Top 50 global chart. Peso is the first artist to simultaneously lead Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts with two different tracks, helping him close out 2023 as the most-streamed artist on YouTube in the U.S., ahead of Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift, and the fifth most-streamed artist of the year globally on Spotify. 2024 began just as auspiciously when Génesis, his third and major breakthrough record, won the Grammy for Best Mexican Music Album. This meteoric and dizzying rise to global stardom at age 25 has left people stunned, not least himself.

Many have attempted to break down the formula behind Peso’s near-unprecedented global ascent. For Peso, however, success was only a matter of time. And in a way, it was divine. But to fully understand the phenomenon, you must go back to the beginning.

Peso was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, the capital of tequila and mariachi. His childhood unfolded between his birthplace in western Mexico and Culiacán, Sinaloa, in the country’s northwest. He cultivated a love for soccer in his youth, playing for North American giant Chivas’ youth teams, but ultimately his true passion lay rooted in music.

“From a very young age, I enjoyed singing,” Peso recounts over Zoom. “I remember when I was very young, my uncle had these cassettes in his trucks; he’d play them while driving.” Culiacán’s rich creative history was also crucial in Peso’s musical journey. “People there joke that if you lift a rock, a musician will appear. Discovering the local Norteño and Sierreño groups influenced me to go down that path,” he explains.

By age 13, Peso knew he would forge a music career. At first, everything was learned autodidactically: He mastered the guitar through YouTube videos and gleaned singing tips by “imitating the artists I admired the most, picking up what I liked about them.” This led to his idiosyncratic sound; developing a raspy, imperfect yet powerful voice with a timbre that breaks all stereotypes.

“My voice is weird. I’m not the best singer, nor do I have perfect pitch, but I know people like its peculiarity and originality,” he says. “Even today, I go into the studio and I’m insecure about how my voice sounds, but that’s when the experts—the producers and engineers—chime in.”

Peso began writing his first lyrics with his guitar and broken vocals. He discovered the gift of songwriting while venting in a journal, his de facto therapist during adolescent angst. His insecurities led him to think that despite his unmistakable talent, his music would never find an audience. As a result, he never showed his early work to anyone. “I always thought I wasn’t good. When I realized I was, I just stuck to the plan,” he recalls.

Despite his mother’s reluctance, Peso became the first musician in the family. “She didn’t like the idea because she knew it would be difficult. She later accepted it because she saw it was what I loved the most.” Peso’s parents separated before he pursued a music career, with his father only discovering his aspirations later. Like any musician starting out, he combined artistic work with other gigs, including shifts at the women’s footwear factory where his father worked.

Breaking from his usual reserved demeanor, the singer surfaces a personal story from his teenage years when he lived with his father. “I would be watching Migos and Quavo videos in my bedroom before going to work, smoking weed,” he says. “My dad scolded me like, ‘Hey dude, come to work!’ I would tell him, ‘But Dad, I’m going to be like them,'” he recalls with a laugh. Seven years later, Peso would go on to collaborate with Quavo on his new album.

During adolescence, Peso’s love for hip-hop surpassed his interest in Mexican music. This passion also impacted his fashion choices. Far from the cowboy hats and boots typically associated with Mexican singers, Peso opted for luxury labels, flashy gold, diamond chains and loud sneakers, citing artists like Kanye West, Drake and future collaborator A$AP Rocky as key to his musical DNA and style. Even stars like Frank Sinatra, Bob Marley and Elvis Presley (from whom he takes inspiration for his eccentric dance moves) have left their mark on how Peso Pluma, the band leader, came to be.

“Cultivating a personality, doing what our instinct tells us to do and following through. I started picking up those little things I liked most about each artist,” he says. The conception of Peso Pluma as a “character” in a band explains the plural pronouns and use of “our.” Throughout the interview, Peso’s respect for his backing group is clear, placing Peso Pluma the singer as one part of a wider collective. He rarely, if ever, refers to himself in the first person.

Visualizing this persona paid off. From day one, he knew the eyes of the world were going to be on him, a vision behind the “All Eyez on Me” tattoo that is front and center on his collarbone. The ink also pays homage to 2Pac, another of his musical idols. “Relajado Voy” (2020) was the first song Peso remembers working on in the early years of his career. “I liked it. I would play it in the car. It was the first song made in a studio where I heard myself,” he explains. Two years later, Peso burst onto the Mexican scene with “El Belicón,” a track that’s nearing 300 million views on YouTube, ushering him into the United States.

However, it was only when he joined forces with Armado on “Ella Baila Sola” that Peso caught fire. Treading paths no regional Mexican artist had ever ventured into, his rise was difficult to digest. “I still haven’t comprehended it,” he says, shyly. A surreal interaction with a certain peer opened his eyes to the level he had reached. “It marked my life when I spoke to Bad Bunny at Coachella last year,” he says. In two years, Peso went from being known in Mexico to writing lines in the history books. With Génesis, he achieved the unthinkable: globalizing Mexican music. Representing an entire genre, entire culture and even a country carries a singular pressure. Yet Peso is never not confident. “There’s a lot of pressure, but it doesn’t bother us. We always move forward, like airplanes,” the singer says.

This confidence has led Peso through the sweetness and the bitterness of fame. In a matter of months, he had to deal with a highly publicized breakup, a concert cancellation in Mexico after receiving threats from a drug cartel and the withdrawal of his participation from the Viña del Mar music festival, the most prominent in Latin America. The media reports his every step—what he says, his silence and what he doesn’t do. This sudden fame has made him extra vigilant about his public remarks. “Fame is not easy to deal with, much less at my age,” he says. “At first, digesting all that was a little more complicated. As I evolved, I realized many things; I matured artistically and emotionally. I understood it’s better to leave the bad comments and the haters aside.” He adds, “the good comments are very welcome.”

Peso does not clarify controversies on his social networks or in interviews, instead letting the music speak for him. “On my new album, Éxodo, my fans—and anyone with an opinion about my life—will understand why I don’t do many interviews and why I am the way I am,” he says. “Everything has a reason.” Released on June 20, Éxodo is an extensive body of work comprising 24 songs across two albums. The first explores his Mexican side while the second leans heavily on hip-hop and reggaeton.

Like Génesis, the name Éxodo has a religious origin. “I titled it Éxodo because it’s the book in the Bible after Genesis when Moses leads the enslaved people out and parts the seas. That’s what we’re doing for Mexican music,” he explains.

Peso confesses it was a difficult album to work on, without elaborating on the details. “Éxodo shows the other side of the story. People don’t see everything that fame entails; they only see the tip of the iceberg. I need to express to people how one feels after so much.”

Peso reveals that one song in particular, “14 – 14,” helped him navigate the turbulent first year of stardom. The name refers to a Bible verse that reads, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” “This verse spoke to me in terms of what I had gone through,” he says. “It’s a message to people who hear the song. They’re going to realize that within the scope of the mistakes you make in life and no matter how much you screw up, God will always forgive you and will always be there for you.”

Despite the challenges, Peso is calm, a mood he exudes during the conversation even when his friends get excitable, surrounding him as he speaks. “I always have time for myself,” he says. “Right now, the music is blasting, everyone is partying, and we’re having a good time.” Peso recognizes that what he achieved last year was historic. But his vision is crystal clear: continue to pave the way for Mexican music. “If anyone could repeat the success of Génesis, it’s us.” 

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