Xavi’s Rise Proves Mexican Music’s Staying Power
When he was 17, Joshua Xavie Gutiérrez, aka Xavi, crashed his car in Arizona, cracking his skull and falling into a coma.
When he woke up, the young crooner, who only months earlier had signed with Universal Music Group’s Interscope label, thought he’d never sing again. But, as it turned out, he was miraculously wrong.
This month, just two years after his car accident, Xavi comes in at No. 17 on Bloomberg’s Pop Star Power Ranking. He is currently the hottest name in Mexican music.
In December, his singles La Diabla and La Víctima charted on the Billboard Hot 100, while on Spotify both tracks racked up over 200 million streams. In January, on YouTube, La Diabla spent four weeks at No. 1 on the charts for both the US and globally.
All of which has occurred without Xavi having even released an album yet.
The accident was “traumatizing, but it shook him in a way that ultimately, now, in hindsight, was something he had to go through,” said Nir Seroussi, executive vice president at Interscope Geffen A&M Records, who signed Xavi three years ago.
Xavi is now one of multiple young Mexican music acts popularizing the genre and finding mainstream success. More broadly, he’s part of a growing group of singers gaining popularity as more listeners embrace Spanish-language music.
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Luminate, a data company that powers the Billboard charts, said regional Mexican music grew 60% last year and reached 21.9 billion streams in the US. While Spanish-language music grew as a percentage of the cumulative US streaming audience, the share of English-language music actually shrank.
“There were six different Latin music artists this year who had a billion or more audio streams in the US,” said Jaime Marconette, senior director, music insights and industry relations, at Luminate. Last year, there was just one — Bad Bunny.
Included on the list are four Mexican music acts: Peso Pluma, Eslabon Armado, Junior H and Fuerza Regida.
“Regional Mexican is like the country music of Mexico,” Seroussi said.
There was a time, he said, when he worried that as Mexican Americans assimilated into US culture, they’d lose touch with the sound of their home country. “But the genre has evolved,” he said.
He points to artists like Natanael Cano and Peso Pluma as examples of young artists who are changing audiences’ expectations. These acts are often dripped out in designer brands and release songs relatable to younger listeners, frequently featuring other artists as collaborators. While Peso Pluma has contributed to the popularity of narcocorridos, a subgenre that sometimes alludes to drug cartels and organized crime, Xavi’s most popular tracks are often about romance and love affairs.
“He writes his own songs, has an amazing, unique voice and has a personality,” Seroussi said. “He’s really kind of both sides — not too Mexican, not too American.”