Peso Pluma

Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija didn't fit the traditional mold of the ranchera singer. Slim, with braces and a mullet copied from an English soccer player, he began posting raw recordings online while working in a restaurant kitchen in Texas. Traditional Mexican music had for decades been associated with wide-brimmed sombreros and impeccable charro suits. He preferred to take the stage in sporty bermuda shorts, basketball sneakers and luxury balaclavas.

And the move caught the entire industry off guard.

In 2020 he released his first studio album, Ah y qué?, an acoustic record recorded on a shoestring, where that broken, nasal, unpolished voice was already emerging, one that would end up polarizing critics. He didn't sing with the polish of classic mariachi tenors. But his syncopated phrasing carried the energy of trap and the cadence of street hip hop.

From Zapopan lyricism to breaking the global market

For two years the project grew on local circuits in Jalisco and northern Mexico, powered by the upright bass and twelve-string guitars played at breakneck speed. In 2022 he signed El Belicón with Raúl Vega, a music video with the cinematic look of a crime action film that racked up tens of millions of views in just a few weeks. That track defined the raw sound of his early repertoire and caught the attention of American major labels.

In 2023 he took the international charts by storm when Ella baila sola, his joint recording with Eslabón Armado, hit No. 1 globally on Spotify. No regional music track had ever reached that position on digital listening charts. Weeks later he walked onto the set of Jimmy Fallon in New York, with just his wind and guitar band, forgoing electronic drums and prerecorded tracks.

Behind the media noise was a relentless study discipline.

In June 2023, he released Génesis, a fourteen-track album that earned him the Grammy for Best Regional Mexican Music Album in 2024. On this record, the lyrics partly moved away from explicit street-crime storytelling to focus on heartbreak in expensive hotels and the hangover of sudden fame. Anglo-American critics, puzzled by a Spanish-speaking phenomenon that wasn't reggaeton, compared the rawness of his sound to the impact of 1970s punk.

Controlling the master and the logistics of the road

Refusing to hand control of his career over to the major labels, he founded Double P Records in 2023 to keep the publishing rights to his recordings and sign emerging talent in the subgenre. The catalog of his own label surpassed one billion streams within its first twelve months of financial activity.

In 2024 he released the double album Éxodo. The first disc delved deeper into corridos arranged with trumpets and sackbuts, while the second volume explored collaborations with international urban music stars on tracks produced under dark electronic standards.

For his tour of arenas and large-capacity venues in 2024, the technical team designed a thirty-meter-wide modular stage with ultra-HD LED screens, operated by a fixed crew of sixty specialists, and required a tour insurance policy valued at twelve million dollars.