There’s extra to música Mexicana than corridos and Iván Cornejo is proving that together with his various sierreño sound. Whereas his friends are largely pulling from hip-hop influences, the Mexican American star is tapping into the facility of his guitar to take the style right into a rock-infused route. For his third album Mirada, Cornejo is cranking up his atmospheric sierreño to fill out the venues of his upcoming North American tour.
“It’s enviornment music,” Cornejo says about Mirada. “It’s huge sounds, euphoric, and lots of bass. I really feel like I discovered loads from being onstage and seeing how sure sounds have an effect on crowds. It provides you a brand new perspective.”
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Cornejo’s upbringing in Riverside, Ca. influenced his bicultural strategy to música Mexicana. Whereas his mother and father listened to Mexican legends like Vicente Fernández and Los Bukis, his siblings have been plugged into the sounds of Arctic Monkeys, Metallica, and Tame Impala. “Meshing that collectively you get the music I make,” he says.
At the start of the last decade, Cornejo was one of many artists who led the Gen-Z takeover of música Mexicana. In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, he channeled his teenage angst into his breakthrough hit, the wistful “Está Dañada,” which has over 269 million streams on Spotify. Whereas his contemporaries have been refreshing corridos, Cornejo went his personal approach within the guitar-driven subgenre of sierreño. His soulful and electrifying strategy to the sound earned him the nickname sierreño unhappy boy.
“It means loads to me that my music is there for individuals throughout tough instances,” he says about why his songs resonated together with his listeners throughout the pandemic. “After I noticed that ‘Está Dañada’ was all over the place, it blew my thoughts as a result of I had a intestine feeling about it. It was simply me going with feeling. It opened up lots of alternatives for me.”
Cornejo’s second album Dañado arrived in 2022 and peaked at No. 28 on the Billboard 200 chart. Together with his various edge, he was discovering himself on the payments of festivals like Lollapalooza and Austin Metropolis Limits, which was extraordinary for música Mexicana acts on the time. Following a serious label bidding conflict, Cornejo signed with Interscope Information final August. As an alternative of cranking out one other album, he soaked up the final of his teenage years on the highway.
“The previous two years have been extra about studying and rising and simply being within the studio,” he says. “Loads of the time was spent making melodies, being in my zone, and studying about myself with myself. That is my maturing period.”
Mirada, which interprets to “gaze,” arrives on the heels of Cornejo turning 20 in June. His emotional lyrics minimize deeper like within the stomping “Child Please” the place he begs his lover to come back again in Spanglish. Cornejo later needs to sleep away the reminiscences of her within the haunting surf rock of “Quiero Dormir Cansado.” The LP marked the primary time that he collaborated with one other producer, Frank Rio.
“With this album, I made a decision to be open to working with individuals,” he says. “It’s at all times simply been me. It was an pleasant expertise simply studying and clashing with Frank. I really feel just like the extra you conflict with the producer, the extra you’re studying as properly. I discovered from his strategies and learn how to work with another person.”
Cornejo additionally explores corridos on the album whereas staying true to his genre-bending spirit. The fiery “Herida Abierta” is dreamy and psychedelic whereas the love music “Atención” is brassy but breezy. As an alternative of creating a corrido with Peso Pluma, the música Mexicana celebrity entered Cornejo’s unhappy sierreño world for his or her collaboration “Reloj.” The breakup ballad peaked at No. 69 on the Billboard Sizzling 100 chart, the very best new entry from the Éxodo album.
“I liked working with Peso,” he says. “It was a cool expertise. We obtained to take a seat down within the studio and speak about our influences and see how we share loads in frequent. He must maintain doing unhappy music. I really feel prefer it hits each time.”
Cornejo is worked up to attach together with his followers and carry out his new songs on the Mirada Tour, the place he’ll play arenas for the primary time.
“I like writing about what individuals may be going via and wording it in a approach the place it’s actually in a position to contact their hearts,” he says. “I’ve at all times needed to do that. I believe I’ve lastly constructed up a reputation for myself. Youthful me is pleased with myself.”
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