How Latin Mafia Is Breaking Barriers With Vulnerability & Boundless Creativity: Billboard Latin Up & Comer
Categoria: Musica
The Monterey brothers share how they conquered the Billboard charts with their collaborative album with Fred again.. 9 Months & 50 Hours.
Por Billboard | 01/10/2026
Latin Mafia , the Mexican indie pop band formed by brothers Milton, Emilio and Mike de la Rosa, continues to have a year full of success. In December 2025, they surprised their fans by releasing a documentary on YouTube alongside British producer Fred again.. , offering a glimpse into their creative process. Months later, in 2026, the collaboration reached new heights of success with the album 9 Months & 50 Hours . Related Fred again.. & Latin Mafia Take ‘9 months & 50 hours’ to No. 1: ‘We’re So Happy!’ Rosalía Parties With Latin Mafia in Mexico City: Pozole, A Special Gift & A ‘LUX’ Tattoo Latin Mafia On What’s Next After Their Debut Album, How They Found Their Sound & More | Billboard Latin Music Awards 2025 Released July 31 through Fred again../Atlantic/AG Records, the 14-track set came after a 50-hour livestream of the creative process from Lago Algo in Chapultepec Forest, Mexico City. The project debuted at No. 1 on the Top Latin Pop Albums chart, reached No. 8 on the Top Latin Albums chart, and No. 9 on the Top Dance Albums chart, while several of its songs entered the Hot Latin Pop Songs chart. “I’m eager to see what’s in store for us, what’s going to happen next… what’s coming after this. I’m excited and really looking forward to the upcoming season,” Milton tells Billboard . His brother Mike adds, “I feel like this is a moment of transition. We’re experiencing so many changes, and honestly, I’m feeling a lot.” What stood out in the album with Fred again.. wasn’t just the music, but the three-day livestream where the band composed, recorded and lived in the studio in front of the audience. The idea emerged spontaneously during a dinner in Mexico with the members of Latin Mafia and Lucy Hickling, Fred again..’s creative director. Amid conversations and brainstorming, Hickling took notes, and before long, everything was set to take place just a few weeks later. “We wanted people to see that the entire creative process is exhausting, slow and complicated,” says Milton. When an artist shows their vulnerability, the audience tends to connect on a deeper level, as if that honesty acts as a mirror reflecting shared emotions. “It happened to us when we released our previous album, Todos Los Días Todo El Día . It was like exposure therapy. We were talking about very personal topics, things close to us, and when we released it, we felt like the audience was seeing parts of us that we had never shown before,” he adds. For the Monterrey-based band, creating 9 Months & 50 Hours was an intense, even cathartic, experience. Why Latin Mafia Is Our Latin Artist on the Rise In a music market where some artists take more conventional paths, Latin Mafia decided to open up and continue exploring, playing with their boundless creativity. They created a new sound in Latin music and carved out a safe musical space for emotions, where vulnerability and flow are key