HUMILDE TAKES REGIONAL MEXICAN GLOBAL

Jimmy Humilde’s first foray into the music business was in 1993, when he was 14 years old and organizing neighborhood parties in his friends’ backyards in Los Angeles.

That entrepreneurial, DIY approach continued with his launch of Rancho Humilde, the independent promotion company and label, which he runs with business partner José Becerra and CFO Roque Venegas. Informed by crowd reaction to live performances, Humilde has signed mostly local, underground regional Mexican acts since 2011, fueling their success with a nontraditional digital marketing approach that initially didn’t rely on radio or TV.

Things really clicked in 2019 when Humilde tapped into a wave of acts like Fuerza Regida and Natanael Cano, who mixed traditional corridos with rap and trap. Those artists effectively ushered in a new subgenre of Mexican music that found wide acceptance with a young generation of bilingual, bicultural listeners — and helped redefine regional Mexican music.

In October 2020, Humilde broadened his horizons and partnered with Warner Music Latina in a distribution and development deal where Atlantic Records is a “key ally,” he says. The goal is to create a global market for a genre that carries “regional” in its very name. (Humilde doesn’t care for the term.)

“I am grateful that our Latin artists are finally competing with the Anglo market,” says Humilde, “and I want to thank all my colleagues for bringing our music to the next level.”

Rancho Humilde has consistently sent titles to No. 1 on the Regional Mexican Albums chart, including releases by Alta Consigna in 2017, Legado 7 in 2018 and Cano in 2019 and 2021. The label kept that streak alive when newcomers Porte Diferente debuted in the top spot for the week ending

Oct. 9, 2020. Meanwhile, Cano’s catalog has generated 797,000 album consumption units, and he was the thirdmost-consumed Latin artist of 2020 in the United States, according to MRC Data’s 2020 midyear report. —L.C.