Earlier this month, global pop superstar Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos became the first Spanish-language album to win album of the year the Grammys — and he followed that triumph with another culture-defining milestone the next weekend, with his Super Bowl Halftime show, which celebrated his Puerto Rican identity.
“I was emotional watching that,” says Latin country artist Andrea Vasquez of Bad Bunny’s Grammy win. “And watching him get emotional was just incredible.”
As the double punch of triumphant moments has only further cemented Latin music’s central role in the global music landscape, artists such as Carín León and Grupo Frontera have regularly braided elements of country music into their own music. Meanwhile, many country artists with Latin roots — such as Vasquez, Angie K, Frank Ray, Sammy Arriaga, Alfonso Terán, Kat Luna, Louie TheSinger and MŌRIAH — have been steadily building country music careers in Nashville.
Vasquez, who released her EP El Camino last year and just dropped the new song “The Wind,” and Angie K, whose new album Whiskey & Hemingway is due later this year, identified a need for a community hub to be a bridge between Nashville and the global Latin music community. The two artists had shared stages around Nashville for a couple of years, but in early 2024, they built upon a shared vision, launching the Country Latin Association to champion country artists with Latin roots, in a genre that has long been dominated by white men.
Next month, the Country Latin Association will hold a show during the esteemed Nashville songwriters festival Tin Pan South on March 27 at Anzie Blue, which will feature Vasquez, Angie K, Ana Cristina Cash and Marta Albarracin. It’s the latest in a string of concerts, panels and other events the CLA has hosted to support Latin artists in the past couple of years. Vasquez also hosts the Latina in Nashville podcast, highlighting Latino creators, business owners and entrepreneurs across Music City.
“I’ve been fortunate to benefit from programs like Equal Access, from [FEMco’s] Leslie Fram, and from CMT’s Next Women of Country,” Angie K says. “You can’t put a dollar value on being in the same room, seeing each other as human and cheering each other on. The scarcity mindset can be so easy. It’s easy to not be happy for someone who gets a label spot, because you think they’re not going to sign another Latin artist.”
That mindset is exactly what the Country Latin Association wanted to disrupt.
“I started looking at the data and realized, ‘This isn’t charity work,’” Angie K says. “This is, ‘Pay attention or you’re going to miss the trend.’ This is something everyone should be watching.’ And not just artists that are Latin in the U.S., but way outside our quarters.”
According to the 2025 Luminate Year-End report, Latin music was one of the fastest-growing genres in the U.S., with streams of Latin music released within the last 18 months rising 5.2 percent.
Meanwhile, data from the 2024 study “Understanding The Latinx Country Music Audience,” conducted by the CMA with Horowitz Research, surveyed over 4,000 respondents and found that among Latinx weekly music listeners, country music was the seventh most-listened to genre, with 36% of Latinx listeners responding that they listened to country music (up from 25% in the CMA’s previous 2021 study). The 2024 study also categorized 25% of Latinx music listener respondents as “avid” country music listeners, based on listening frequency and stated affinity for the genre.
Artists themselves have increasingly made connections to Nashville. Grupo Frontera made their Grand Ole Opry debut last year, while Latin music star León made his Grand Ole Opry debut in 2024, and has collaborated with Cody Johnson, Kacey Musgraves and Kane Brown. This year, León will launch his La Cura Fest in Mexico featuring Grupo Frontera, and country artists Jelly Roll and Midland. Ana Castela, whose country-influenced sertanejo sound has earned her over 14 million monthly Spotify listeners, is known for songs including “Olha Onde Eu Tô,” and her Zé Felipe collaboration on a version of Shania Twain’s “You’re Still The One” (the video has earned 78 million views on YouTube alone).
Angie K and Vasquez have worked to bring country music into the heart of Nashville’s Latino community, even at a time when the Latino community has faced harsh strife in the United States.
Last summer, the Country Latin Association worked with the CMA’s Sr. Director, Industry Relations & Inclusion Mia Jones to launch the Latino Trailblazers in Country panel at CMA Fest 2025, featuring León, Luna, MŌRIAH and Hermanos Mendoza. That same week, the CLA also partnered with Origins Music Group’s Corey Jones and Stephen Miller, to host the live music event Country Con Corazón in South Nashville’s Plaza Mariachi, featuring artists including Generación M, Frank Ray and Garzón.
“If we’re really going to tap into the Latin community, we shouldn’t feel entitled to think they’re going to come to us,” Vasquez says. “We need to support them first.”
As they prepared for the event, the area saw an increase in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, and the team debated whether to proceed.
“It was a big conversation — do we hold it there or not? People were afraid,” Vasquez says. “But we felt the community needed something hopeful. And if we panic, other people will panic.”
Ultimately, they moved forward, and were told Plaza Mariachi experienced one of its busiest nights in weeks thanks to the event. “It brought people out to support local businesses,” Angie K says. “That meant everything.”
Of course, Latin music and artists’ influence in country music isn’t new, but rather foundational, from the influence of Mexican vaqueros on cowboy culture, to fashion designer Manuel Cuevas’ pivotal influence by designing stagewear worn by artists such as Johnny Cash. Johnny Rodriguez, Linda Ronstadt and Freddy Fender had breakthrough country hits in the ‘70s, while the genre-melding group The Mavericks have earned hits and accolades since the ’90s, and a new crop of Latin country artists are building upon the work of their musical forebears.
“It’s inspiring to see there is a new wave of us coming through,” Vasquez says. “We’re seeing that in pop with Bad Bunny and Karol G, and people are starting to see that is a huge thing in Latin music. When Carin and Grupo Frontera bring their audiences to the Opry, and they are just the most passionate people ever, it’s just showing that country music really is for everybody.”
Angie K and Vasquez envision expanding resources even further, including securing sponsorships for artists and increasing CLA members’ involvement with various awards voting.
“We would love to be a voting block for the Grammys, for the CMAs,” Vasquez says. “I think us coming together, our hope is to grow the amount of CMA members we have here in Nashville.”
Angie K notes that true change also unfolds at the individual level through deliberate and conscious actions.
“Changing the world doesn’t have to be this massive effort. It’s literally as easy as opening your Instagram and typing in Latin country artists, and that one search will change your algorithm,” Angie K says. “The problem is right now, our inputs are our outputs. If I were to go to ChatGPT and enter, ‘Make me a picture of a country music artist,’ I would bet everything I have, it would be a pretty standard image of a white dude. So how do we change that narrative? Well, we give it inputs. I always say, ‘If you open Instagram or TikTok, when you see an Andrea Vasquez video or a mariachi video, like it, comment on it. It will change your algorithm, and slowly but surely that will change our culture.’
“It seems like a small thing to do,” he continues. “But if many people do it today, it could be a foundation of a machine we can build on.”
