Grupo Frontera Expand Their Norteña-Cumbia Sound on ‘El Comienzo’
Grupo Frontera vocalist Payo Solis remembers the days when he’d pull out of his Rio Grande Valley, Texas high school parking lot, driving his mamalona (massive pickup track) and blasting music by his favorite artists with the windows rolled down.
It was the typical energy of takuaches, a slang term used to describe Mexican-Americans like Solis who rock cowboy boots and drive big trucks. For Solis, corridos star Junior H was always his go-to driving soundtrack. Now, Solis says, he hopes kids are blasting Grupo Frontera through their pickup truck speakers after a long day of classes
“I’ve gotten messages from the principal asking me to go back just to walk around the halls,” Solis tells Rolling Stone. “I don’t know if it will happen, but it would be really cool to see the newer students coming in doing what we did, but with our music.”
On Thursday, Grupo Frontera released its debut album El Comienzo, featuring massive singles like “Un X100to,” with Bad Bunny, and their 2022 breakthrough “No Se Va.” There are also new tracks that push the group out of their typical norteña-cumbia sound, such as collabs alongside Junior H, Yahritza y Su Esencia, and Grupo Firme.
“We’re experimenting a bit more now. We’re adding new instruments,” Solis says. “It’s a good feeling that we can add more to the style we grew up with and still have that nostalgia.”
It’s been a massive glow-up for Frontera, who went from a band that performed covers at quinceañeras and weddings just over two years ago to one that joined Bad Bunny on the Coachella stage earlier this year. The group humbly credits their producer and songwriter Edgar Barrera for their rapid rise, and are quick to note that they’ve kept their origins at the Texas-Tamaulipas border at the forefront of everything they do as their international profile has grown.
“Back in the day, you’d hear songs about writing letters. Our parents would call their suegros before, and now it’s DMs and messages,” Solis says. “Because of the music and lyrics, it relates to different generations.”
Grupo Frontera spoke with Rolling Stone from a tour stop in Guatemala. They broke down five songs off El Comienzo, and told the stories behind a few of their favorite collabs happen:
‘El Amor de Su Vida’ feat. Grupo Firme
The first time we met Grupo Firme was at Premio LoNuestro in Miami. That’s the first time we ever met any celebrities. All of us were in the same hotel and we’d be going up and down the elevators and we’d see all these artists that we look up to. They were congratulating us and we were also becoming friends with them. We met los de Grupo Firme, and [their singer] Eduin [Caz] was like, “Y’all want to go get some food?” And we were like, “Oh bet let’s go to some restaurant or something.” And he’s like, “Nah there’s a pizza place down the street.” We were sitting outside. And we were just talking. We showed “El Amor de Su Vida” to Eduin and he fell in love with the song right away. During that meet, he told us “I want to do this song with you guys.” That’s fucking crazy because we never imagined that. Grupo Firme is huge. And for a while, it didn’t really become anything. At one point, they were coming to L.A. We thought, “It’s a really nice song, Eduin loves it, let him record the vocals, and we’ll do the video.” Everything that happened in that song happened the same day. We were hanging out at an Airbnb. To tell you that we went from getting pizza with Grupo Firme to hanging out literally a whole entire day with them at our Airbnb to record the songs and all that… it’s crazy.
‘Altavoz’ feat. Junior H
I’m going to tell you the truth: that song happened because I told Edgar [Barrera] that my dream was to have a song with Junior H. So he wrote that song specifically with him in mind. The name of the album is El Comienzo, “The Beginning.” We don’t want to stick to one genre. We’re very versatile. The song with Junior H is more his style because I didn’t want a cumbia with him.
I’m 20 and I just graduated high school two years ago. Junior H was a really big artist during my sophomore, junior year. And in the Valley, it’s a really big thing there for takuaches or cuhs to have drop trucks with sound systems and windows all the way down. You’d be blasting your music when you get to school and when you leave school. The artist I would always be bumping in my truck would be up Junior H. When the whole corrido tumbado genre popped off, my favorite artist of the whole genre was him.
‘Me Gustas’
“Me Gustas” is not a cumbia, either. It’s more romantic, and it gives me Christian Nodál vibes. It was a very different style and Edgar wanted us to decide how to record that one. We tried different styles, but it really stayed better. The way we recorded it. It’s actually one of my favorites, because it’s not a cumbia. It’s something very different. We love cumbia songs but I don’t want the people to recognize us or see us just as cumbia artists.
‘Las Flores’ feat. Yahritza y Su Esencia
I love that song. No one’s ready for that one. That’s everyone’s favorite. It takes you back to the Eighties. I’m telling you the truth: That song wasn’t ours. It was Yahritza’s by herself. We said, “We gotta hop on it.” That one is about regret. You fall in love knowing that that person is going to hurt you. And you’re saying, “I never should have done this or done that, because you’re gonna end up hurting me.” I don’t think anybody’s ready for that song. I can’t tell you what artists that song correlates to, but as soon as you hear you, I’m pretty sure you’ll know.
‘Cansado de Sufrir’
That’s the darkest song on the album. It’s a cumbia but it’s a dark cumbia. It’s about being tired of suffering. Not just the lyrics but the music. We haven’t done something like that before. It’s definitely the most depressing on the album. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t feeling it because of the vibe, but once we started playing all together. To me, it sounds a little weird but I know people are gonna get attached to that song because of what it says. Don’t judge because of what it says but my favorite lyric is, “I’ll go with the first one I find/to recover the time I lost with you.”