Junior H’s Sad Boyz Corridos Take Over Arenas & BMO Stadium (Cover Story)

On a brisk Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles where the temperature was mercifully in the mid-70s following a massive heatwave, Junior H brought fire to BMO Stadium as he strolled in for a social media event promoting two upcoming shows with his aviator glasses (popular among boomers, “Top Gun” dads and our current president) and a Michael Jordan t-shirt showing every one of the legendary basketball star’s championships with the ’90s Chicago Bulls, a mashup of styles that don’t really appeal to many other 20-something-year-olds.

But Junior H, 23, born Antonio Herrera Pérez, isn’t like his fellow Gen Zers. He’s a walking paradox — a young man of the past, present and future whose music similarly embraces the contemporary Spanish-language songs on radio stations today while identifying with the more traditional crooners who came long before him. His ability to channel different eras to develop a unique yet familiar sound is what makes him the future of not just the Mexican urban scene, but also pop as Latin music continues to conquer world markets.

“This guy’s incredible, in and out. He’s a person who you can never look at and say, ‘Oh, I dislike him,’” Jimmy Humilde, CEO of label Rancho Humilde, tells Pollstar. “He’s a very humble person. What you see from Junior is what you get.”

What the world is getting is a reserved 23-year-old artist who is at the forefront of a Mexican music revolution with emotionally charged lyrics that resemble those from your favorite emo acts, a calculated flow that can compete with the best of his trap contemporaries and a legion of followers who proudly call themselves “Sad Boyz.” Junior H is your favorite Latin singer’s favorite singer (Bad Bunny himself has featured his music in his social media posts), an act who has broken through all gatekeepers and emerged as one of Mexico’s most prominent young stars with more than 24 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

The proof is in the routing. Junior H embarked on his Live Nation-promoted “$ad Boyz Manía” tour earlier this year, selling out arenas across the U.S. including Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, Houston’s Toyota Center, Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center and BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Sad Boy will also visit BMO Stadium in LA, where he will perform for two nights on Oct. 10 and 11, the first of which is sold out, in front of 20,000-plus people per night.

In 2023, the young star grossed more than $23 million, according to 23 headline reports submitted to Pollstar Boxoffice, including a whopping $4,006,738 at Mexico City’s Foro Sol (now Estadio GNP Seguros) off 58,999 tickets sold last November.

“Every show is important to me,” Junior H says rather humbly from the bowels of BMO Stadium following his packed promotional event. “[My band and I] are very grateful to God for the life and talent we’ve been given. I can tell you that I remember us being at Microsoft Theater [in 2022], and from there is where we really started doing way bigger events. Lately, the nights I loved were nights at Foro Sol, and now I’ll have two more memorable nights [at BMO Stadium]. It never ceases to amaze us. Our fans are great.”

He made a fan out of Jorge García, a global tour promoter for Live Nation who brought Rancho Humilde over to the big promoter years ago as Mexican music acts became mainstays on streaming charts. What sets Junior H apart from others in the subgenre known as corridos tumbados — a popular movement within música Mexicana spearheaded by artists like Natanael Cano (aka godfather of the genre) and Peso Pluma (the poster boy with crossover appeal) that fuses elements of hip-hop and trap with traditional folk music — is that he’s not afraid to be vulnerable, lyrically and vocally. Junior H’s entrancing, calm delivery as he builds up to the chorus exhibits a remarkable range, doing so without a snarly or nasally voice sometimes associated with the genre.

“The moment I heard the music, I knew that he had something very special,” García says. “It was something new. [Mexican music] was already making noise, but Junior came out of left field with this cool, slightly different thing about him.”

Humilde, a Southern California native who looked to disrupt the industry with music that blends his interests in hip-hop and música Mexicana to paint a picture of immigrant life in the Southland, had a similar moment when he heard a lo-fi song on YouTube titled “No Eh Cambiado” (“I Haven’t Changed”).

“I immediately got a hold of him and once I did, there was a connection. It was a vibe,” Humilde says. “He came to my house, him and his lead guitarist, and we just had a friendly talk. That friendly talk led into business, and it led to where we are today, which is an incredible friendship along with an incredible business partnership.”

One listen to Junior H’s music and it’s not hard to understand why Humiilde instantly searched for the singer. Hailing from Cerano in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, Junior H grew up with the music of his parents and grandparents and listened to balladeers like Luis Miguel and Pepe Aguilar as well as corridos and regional Mexican music.

At age 15 he found himself in Utah, where his family had relocated, getting used to a whole new culture in an English-speaking environment. That experience only enriched his sensibilities and expanded his tastes, helping him develop a sound that departs from traditional genres but never completely abandons them.

“The first song I recorded was when I was in the United States. I was working in restaurants, and little by little I was doing my own music,” Junior H says. “YouTube was always my teacher, and so I did it. I recorded my first song and passed it along to a friend, and my friend got it to promoters. I had 100% forgotten about it because it wasn’t something I was dedicated to. I did it as a hobby, and then it was on YouTube. It’s where it was all born. I was inspired to release more music, and when I had a few more songs uploaded and noticed we had quite a few views, that’s when Jimmy called.”

After impressing Humilde with his solo debut Mi Vida en un Cigarro (My Life in a Cigarette), Junior H joined his label and soon connected with another one of Rancho Humilde’s projects: Natanael Cano, a Mexican rapper and singer from Hermosillo, Sonora who broke onto the scene with his second album, 2019’s Corridos Tumbados, which featured Junior H on several tracks, including the standout “Ella,” a song about memorable encounter with a girl.

“Junior brings a whole new vibe, something different to the table, which is the love side of it,” Humilde says. “He’s the ‘hurt guy,’ and I’ve always told everybody that you can talk about narcocorridos [Mexican folk songs about narco culture], street corridos or corridos tumbados, but at the end of the day, love beats everything. Junior knew how to take charge of something that he built. … And now that created a whole new evolution where there were lots of artists born because of the sound.”

Like Cano, Junior H elevated his game for his second album and first under Rancho Humilde, Atrapado en un Sueño, and continued to tweak his sound with each subsequent LP, forming something that has resonated with Gen Zers and millennials dealing with all facets of life, whether it’s heartbreak or partying too hard one night or life on the streets without a support system.

Put simply, the modern corrido is the new rock and roll, the new hip-hop, speaking to younger generations while upsetting the older ones. Even Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador weighed in on the surging subgenre, criticizing the explicit lyrics depicting violence and drug use. He even channeled former U.S. President Barack Obama by suggesting his own playlist, one that was more family-friendly. (His tactic obviously didn’t deter audiences from listening to artists who sing corridos).

“The Latinos who are listening to this music are probably the kids or the grandkids of migrants,” García says. “They are embracing the music as their own, just as much as they’re embracing Post Malone. These are Mexican Americans who are in the U.S. and are listening to everything that speaks to them, and this speaks to them directly to the heart.”

The Hispanic population in the U.S. is growing at a faster rate than any other racial or ethnic group, increasing by 24.5 million between 2010 and 2022, a 53% rise, according to Pew Research Center. The Junior Hs and Fuerza Regidas of the world mark a cultural shift not only domestically but globally and in the live entertainment industry. They are eliminating borders in the business and making it so that bookers consider all regions when routing tours.

Música Mexicana is on the rise everywhere, including markets that didn’t traditionally embrace it. Spotify reported that in 2023, there was “a significant surge in Colombian enthusiasm for Mexican music” with Colombia emerging “as the fifth-largest consumer” of the genre, “showcasing an 85% increase in its consumption over the year.”

Being at the forefront of this change isn’t lost on Junior H, who is proud to be one of the artists taking Mexican culture to unforeseen heights.

“It’s like a big backpack that we have to always carry,” he says. “We’re always thinking about music today, but we also have this weight on top of us to take care of ourselves and the future [of the music]. Every day, I get ready with my team thinking, ‘What can we do to successfully reach another level and continue climbing?’ All of it is a huge responsibility, but one that brings us pride.”

Junior H has every reason to be proud, leading a charge not only musically but socially giving his audiences an outlet to express themselves and allowing them to be Sad Boyz in a culture where machismo still reigns. He credits his openness to his parents who introduced him to melancholic tunes from icons that he considers to be the original Sad Boyz like Vicente Fernández and Luis Miguel (who significantly in Q3 had Pollstar’s second highest grossing tour).

“Right now, the Sad Boyz name is a movement, and it’s badass to see people embracing their feelings and no longer thinking, ‘Well, I’m a man, so I shouldn’t cry,’” Junior H says. “Everything has changed. These days we can call ourselves Sad Boyz, and men can also cry.”

The young singer is not afraid to sing about love lost within a subgenre that sometimes glorifies narco culture and everything tied to it, and he will be giving dozens of thousands of LA fans a safe space to express themselves and celebrate Mexican culture, joining a pantheon of acts including Iron Maiden, BLACKPINK and Foo Fighters that performed in front of sold-out crowds at BMO Stadium. Junior H’s Oct. 11 show sold out quickly and demand prompted Live Nation and Rancho Humilde to add another concert on Oct. 10, which will likely sell out as well, further cementing the notion that Latin music (especially that from Mexico) is a major force in this industry.

“It’s definitely not a fad,” García says. “It’s a cultural shift. … This is something that’s going to be here a long time.”

While Junior H has already earned the respect of fellow musicians and fans, he’s now working to earn it from everyone else, including Recording Academy voters and politicians like President Obrador.

“We still have much to do to be accepted,” he says. “We need to win ourselves some awards, we need that recognition, but we have it from our people, and that’s most important. The higher-ups who make decisions haven’t accepted us, but we’re on our way; we’re on a good path.”

Spoken like a true trailblazer.