Santa Fe Klan cracks Billboard’s albums charts, as his ninth studio album, Mundo, starts at No. 4 on the Latin Pop Albums chart (dated August 27). The 12-track set concurrently bows at No. 11 on Latin Rhythm Albums and in the top 20 on Top Latin Albums.
“I’m overjoyed to see that my music is reaching new heights,” Santa Fe Klan tells Billboard. “Thanks to my people who believe in what I do.”
Santa Fe Klan, the stage name of rapper Angel Quezada, mellows out his customary rhymes for more melodic tunes on Mundo, with songs dedicated to his late mother and newborn son, plus a collaboration with Mexico’s pop ensemble Reik.
“The truth is that I always come up with crazy ideas and this time I wanted to do something that no one would see coming,” Quezada adds. “I wanted to show that an artist can do whatever he wants regardless of genres, and I wanted to do acoustic ballads to connect even more with my fans.”
The set, released via Cuatro Siete Tres Music on Aug. 11, launches with 4,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 18, according to Luminate. Most of the album’s opening sum derives from streaming equivalent albums, which equate to 6.2 million on-demand streams for the album’s songs in its opening week.
The Latin Pop Albums chart ranks the most popular Latin pop albums of the week in the U.S. based on multimetric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, comprising album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
The 12-track effort also makes its debut on the all-genre Top Latin Albums ranking at No. 17, and on Latin Rhythm Albums at No. 11. Meanwhile, Santa Fe Klan nabs his first Heatseekers Albums ranking, with a No. 5 start.
“It was difficult to open up in this album because it reflects my day-to-day reality,” the Mexican artist continues. “This specific album mirrors the experiences my community is going through; I wanted to project that so my people could identify with mine.”
The 22-year-old’s latest achievement lands as he wraps up his 15-city 2022 tour Mar y Tierra on Aug. 26 in Denver. The Guanajuato-born rapper scored his maiden entry on a U.S. Billboard songs chart when “Mar y Tierra,” the project’s opening track, launched at No. 37 on the multimetric Hot Latin Songs chart in April, mainly on the strength of streaming activity: 1.8 million U.S. streams generated in the tracking week ending in April 14 (the list blends airplay, digital sales and streaming data).
Since then, he’s placed “Soy” on Latin Digital Songs with a No. 8 start (Aug. 6-dated survey).
Santa Fe is the second artist to score his first Latin Pop Albums chart top 10 appearance on his first try in 2022, following Adrian Quesada with Boleros Psicodélicos at No. 9 (June 18-dated ranking).
