Fuerza Regida's Sound Continues to Evolve

If you're unfamiliar with Fuerza Regida, you're missing out on one of the biggest names in the ever-evolving regional Mexican music scene and its corridos tumbados movement that artists like Peso Pluma and Natanael Cano have championed.

The group has sold out shows all over the U.S. and Mexico, breaking alcohol sales records and changing how audiences perceive regional Mexican concerts. They bring a party atmosphere to every venue they perform.

Hit songs like "TQM," "Sabor Fresa," and "Harley Quinn" have been played everywhere, from massive stadiums to your homie's F-150.

In the past year, the group has released projects Pa Las Baby's y Belikeada and Dolido Pero No Arrepentido. Now, the group has just announced its latest project, Pero No Te Enamores, which will be released on July 25 during its latest tour.

Pero No Te Enamores marks a sonic shift for the group, as they've decided to explore a variety of new genres, including house and Jersey club.

"We were fucking controlling the charts with our music and our genre. I really wanted to switch it up, bro," frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz (AKA JOP) tells New Times. "I didn't want to saturate the market with the same sound. Everyone's doing the same shit, and it all sounds too similar, so I went a different route."

"Everyone's doing the same shit, and it all sounds too similar, so I went a different route."

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The new route risks alienating the group's fanbase that adores Fuerza's tuba- and trumpet-based sound, but JOP says the project is still very much a Fuerza Regida vibe. "Just pay attention to the lyrics, pay attention to the music, vibe, that's it," he adds. "The sound is different, but it's still Fuerza Regida at its core."

JOP points to Drake's ability to consistently switch things as the point of reference that made Fuerza take a sonic risk on the new album. "I got inspired a lot by Drake's album," he explains. "He did a dance album, and I got really inspired by it."

The new album's impetus started with an Instagram DM from DJ and producer Gordo, who wanted to work with Fuerza for some time now.

"I really liked the song 'Sticky,' and then I saw Gordo produced it," JOP explains. "We had already talked about working together before. So I hit him up. I'm like, 'Hey, bro, I'm gonna do an album. I want you to work with me,' and that's what happened."

Soon, JOP and his crew decamped to Medellín, Colombia, to work on the project in a giant villa. Along with the band came several in-house songwriters and producers from JOP's record label, Street Mob Records, whose artists include Chino Pacas and Calle 13.
Forty people took part in the Medellín session, including famed hip-hop producer Synthetic. He has a batch of hits under his name, with Lil Uzi's "Just Wanna Rock" being perhaps his most recognizable, and it's thanks to him that Jersey club crossover to the mainstream.

He also helped produce the hip-hop track "Dafuk" and the reggaeton-inspired "Freaky Freaky" off Pa Las Baby's, so naturally, JOP had to hit him up to capture the Jersey club sound on his new project.

"I didn't meet him when we worked on Pa Las Baby's; we did everything on the phone. My artist Armenta linked up with him, and that's how we know him," JOP says on how he came to know Synthetic. "We ended up talking one day, and I told him about the project and recruited him to link up with us in Colombia."

Beyond that, JOP is tight-lipped about what else fans can expect on Pero No Te Enamores, except that there are no features from any regional Mexican artists, a first for a Fuerza album.

How about a well-known Mexican DJ with a history of working with regional Mexican acts?

"We will do something with Deorro in the future for sure, but we saw that he already did a lot of stuff with a lot of Mexicans, so we said not yet," JOP says. "We wanted to bring some fresh names and sounds to our project."

"We wanted to bring some fresh names and sounds to our project."

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The group will release the 15-track album amid a tour selling out shows across the U.S. "Like 90 percent of the setlist is new," JOP teases. "It's 360 now. It's a whole different experience, whole different venues, spent a whole lot of money on production. You gotta go; you can't miss it."

After the album's release, the tour's setlist, including Fuerza Regida's stop at the Amerant Bank Arena on Sunday, July 28, will be revised to incorporate more of Pero No Te Enamores.

For now, the group wants to focus on the album's reception and hope its EDM-meets-corridos sound doesn't turn fans off.

"This shit's different," JOP says. "There's gonna be people that talk shit, but there's gonna be people that complain. Hey, this is what you asked for, bro, You wanted some different shit, right?"

And don't worry, Fuerza Regida isn't abandoning corridos any time soon.

"I said forever, bro. We ain't never gonna leave corridos," he says. "That's what made us, man."

Fuerza Regida. 8 p.m. Sunday, July 28, at Amerant Bank Arena, 1 Panther Pkwy., Sunrise; 954-835-7000; amerantbankarena.com. Tickets cost $49 to $445 via seatgeek.com.