Carin León Earns a Superstar’s Welcome During His Grand Ole Opry Debut

The 4,300-capacity Grand Ole Opry crowd gave Mexican singer-songwriter Carin León a famous person’s welcome as he made his debut on the Nashville venue on Friday evening (Feb. 23).

León had one in every of Billboard’s high 10 Highest-Grossing Latin Tours of 2023 along with his Colmillo de Leche Tour, which performed Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena and Houston’s Toyota Center, amongst different venues. He was one Billboard’s Top Latin Artists on the 2023 year-end chart (based mostly on track and album efficiency, in addition to touring). Last 12 months, Leon notched a few of his largest Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart hits, together with “Primera Cita,” and the Grupo Frontera collaboration “Que Vuelvas.” León and Maluma joined forces for “Según Quien,” which topped each Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart and Regional Mexican Airplay chart in December. This previous 12 months, he received a Latin Grammy for finest Norteño album (Colmillo de Leche)

Screams of adulation and a sea of mobile phone lights greeted the León as he took the stage earlier than a crowd that was on their toes and singing together with each (primarily Spanish) lyric he sang. Leon performed his 2022 hit “No Es Por Aca,” adopted with a solo model of “The One (Pero No Como Yo),” his duet with Kane Brown, which the pair debuted earlier within the week on the 2024 Premio Lo Nuestro. He closed with “Primera Cita,” a track which marked a milestone second of experimentation for León, who blended Mexican and the soulful sounds of Memphis and New Orleans.

At one level, as León stood on the Opry’s famed circle of wooden, a part of the Opry stage that had initially been within the ground of the Opry’s earlier location on the Ryman Auditorium, he knelt down and positioned a kiss on the ground.

“This moment is a dream come true,” he mentioned later from the stage. “This moment is important for my music, for my country. Having all the family here and having country music accepting us, for us to be here, this place is magical. I hope to come back here a thousand times more. Thank you so much for this moment.”

He exited the stage, however solely momentarily — because the screams and chants of the group shortly demanded that he return to the stage for one more track. León obliged with an encore, and within the course of, grew to become one of many uncommon artists making their debut Opry efficiency to make an encore efficiency — becoming a member of a lineage of artists whose debut Opry performances included encores, together with Josh Turner’s 2001 Opry debut, the 2016 Opry debut of rock legend John Fogerty (who had joined Brad Paisley on the Opry stage), and naturally, Hank Williams, Sr.’s 1949 debut, when he was introduced again onstage for six encores.

Just offstage, his “The One” collaborator Brown and singer-songwriter Leon Bridges stood amongst a throng of different supporters witnessing León’s Opry debut.

Earlier within the night, seated backstage within the Little Jimmy Dickens-themed dressing room 3 on the Grand Ole Opry, León was full of gratitude — and possibly a slight little bit of nervousness — as he spoke of reaching his dream of taking part in on the Grand Ole Opry.

“Being here at the Grand Ole Opry, for every artist, it’s more than realizing a dream,” he instructed Billboard. “For me as a Mexican, for me coming from one other style, they’re dwelling the dream. We by no means realized that we might be right here, at the same time as an viewers member, however now being right here taking part in, it makes me so proud.

“I was walking around earlier, looking at the photos and the [artist] quotes that are on the walls. I cried four times reading what they said, because they felt like I do. It made me feel so humble and reminded me why I started doing music. This place is magical for every musician. The history, it’s a love letter to music and you feel like you’ve entered a sacred place.”

Since releasing a slate of dwell albums in 2018, adopted by his full-length debut, El Malo, in 2019, León’s music has more and more enveloped an array of sounds, amongst them folks, flamenco and nation. He beforehand coated songs by Johnny Cash and Chris Stapleton and teamed with Walker Hayes for an Amazon Music collaboration.

Of his new collaboration with Brown, León says, “One of the first names in country music to collaborate with that somebody put on the table was Kane Brown. It was 2018 or so when I started hearing his music. He’s like the link for our genre and country music to happen. I met him and his team, and he’s such a humble person and good guy and one of my friends in this game that is music. I’m very happy that he believed in our music and it is the perfect time for this to happen.”

On April 26, León will make his debut efficiency at nation music pageant Stagecoach, acting on a invoice that additionally contains Eric Church and Jelly Roll. He would be the first Spanish-language act to carry out at each Stagecoach and Coachella.

“It’s unbelievable for me,” he says of these upcoming performances. “I’m kind of nervous about that show because it’s a different audience, but we’re going to enjoy it so much and I’ll get to see some of my idols, too. It’s a place where I’m going to celebrate what’s happening with our music and this musical revival. You can see less limits on every music. People are hungry for good music and artists don’t want to fit in a box. If you have a great song, you can upload it with just a guitar and video and you cannot deny what’s good.”

León, in addition to his fellow artists together with Bad Bunny, Maluma, Karol G and Grupo Frontera, are main Latin music’s present international success. Latin and nation have been two of the genres with essentially the most share good points in 2023, based on Luminate’s 2023 Year-End report, with Latin up 21.9% to 75.26 million items in 2023 and nation rising 21.8% to 92.19 million items in 2023.

The crux of León’s nation music-focused moments — the Opry debut, Stagecoach, the collaboration with Brown — is León’s in-the-works, full-fledged nation album.

“This is one of my wishes of my life, to do this project,” he says. “I think this is the correct time to do it, and we are working on it. We are on the song selection process, but there are a lot of names we’re looking at.”

Similar themes are woven by means of the lyrics of each Regional Mexican and nation — tales of affection, household, and cowboy/vaquero tradition. Leon’s upcoming nation mission might show a key second in additional uniting the 2 genres. Historically, nation has seen occasional moments of Latin artists discovering successes on the nation charts, with Johnny Rodriguez and Freddy Fender each incomes No. 1 nation hits within the Seventies, whereas within the Nineteen Nineties, Tejano music star Emilio Navaira, band The Mavericks and Rick Trevino noticed nation radio successes.

More lately, artists together with Frank Ray, Leah Turner, Valerie Ponzio and Veronique Medrano are making their very own fusions of Latin and nation sounds. Additionally, León’s collaboration with Brown extends a lineage of Latin artists collaborating with nation artists, from Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson incomes a Country Music Association Award for collaborating and incomes a nation hit with “To All the Girls I Loved Before” (they might later additionally report “Spanish Eyes” in 1989). David Bisbal, Enrique Iglesias and Becky G are amongst different Latin artists who’ve collaborated with nation artists lately.

“Everybody wants to be a cowboy right now, everybody wants to do country right now,” León says. “People are doing rap they are getting rap touched by Mexican music or touched by country music. They are wearing the hats, the boots. Louis Vuitton’s last collection, it’s all cowboy stuff. We as Americans, as Mexicans, we want to feel proud of what we are for. We don’t want to emulate what everybody’s doing — these are our roots. Our hat is what we are, our boots are what we are. I’m very happy that people are looking to our culture in such a big way that is happening right now.”