By: Ian Saint
Nashville’s CMA Fest, which began as Fan Fair in 1972, unfolds from Thursday through Sunday, June 5-8. It entails a variety of live performances, speaking panels, and artist meet & greets in Music City Center and adjacent stages — including Nissan Stadium, where many of country music’s biggest stars perform with intervening sets by up-and-coming talents.
There are various ticket levels to CMA Fest. “Fan Fair X” includes the speaking panels, artist meet & greets, and most of the performances outside of Nissan Stadium — and by Nashville standards, it’s very affordable. A four-day ticket to Fan Fair X costs only $28 apiece, including fees.
CMA Close Up Stage is the largest speaker panel stage at Fan Fair X, and this year’s programming includes conversations with stars such as Trisha Yearwood, Parker McCollum, Rascall Flats, and Maddie & Tae.
On Saturday afternoon, from 1:45 – 2:30 PM Central, Rolling Stone journalist Tomás Mier hosts the “Latino Trailblazers in Country” panel discussion with artists Carín León, Los Hermanos Mendoza, MŌRIAH, and Kat Luna. The program succeeds Mier’s “Latin Roots: The ‘Equis’ Factor in Country Music” panel at last year’s CMA Fest, which featured Angie K, Frank Ray, Leah Turner, Louie theSinger, and Sammy Arriaga.
The conversation compliments rising interest in Latin country music artists, a phenomenon chronicled on NPR affiliate Nashville Public Radio last week. It’s also a trend that I’ve been following since my 2022 interview with The Mavericks guitarist Eddie Perez for NPR Ohio affiliate WOUB Public Media, after the one-time MCA Nashville label darlings debuted atop Billboard’s Latin Pop Albums Chart with their all-Spanish independent album En Español.
The night prior to participating in Mier’s panel, Carín León will perform with Cody Johnson at Nissan Stadium. León is a prominent example of the big audiences that Latin artists can draw in Nashville, even with set lists comprised entirely of Spanish titles, as he headlined Bridgestone Arena in October.
Mier and Angie K — a rising Latina country artist that I first chronicled upon her induction to CMT’s Next Women of Country 2023 class — sat down with Buddy Magazine this week, to discuss matters surrounding this trend and preview their CMA Fest programming. A transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.
IAN: Thanks for speaking with me and Buddy Magazine. So many exciting developments have transpired for both of you since last year’s CMA Fest. Tomás, you’ve had a Rolling Stone cover story published.
TOMÁS: Yeah, my first cover was with Megan Moroney.
IAN: So was it significant to you, that your first Rolling Stone cover was for country music?
TOMÁS: It was really full-circle, in a strange way, because my beat is typically pop and Latin music — but with catching Megan at CMA Fest last year, and hosting a really great panel of Latino country artists, I got to know Megan a little better. And from there, we were able to pitch this big [story]. She was the first female country artist on the cover in 10 years, which is really exciting — and now getting to go back to Nashville with our panel, once again, is really exciting.
IAN: Wow, it’s amazing that this CMA Fest panel forged that connection with Megan; and your cover story was a milestone for the country genre, especially for women.
Angie, I’ve been watching you since covering your CMT Next Woman of Country induction — which is actually how I got acquainted with Megan Moroney, as well. Since last year’s CMA Fest, you’ve put out your self-titled EP and had your Grand Ole Opry debut. What did it mean to have those milestones in this industry?
ANGIE: [My Opry debut] was a moment of enormous validation. The thing about the Opry, is it’s the industrysaying you’re doing a good job. It wasn’t until more recently where it wasn’t [mostly] signed artists on the Opry. They’ve always had diverse types of artists, but I’ve been seeing a lot more diversity in general going through the Opry — where country is becoming this global thing. Before I debuted, I got to see Carín León backstage during his debut — and the crowd went nuts for him! Getting on that same stage, it’s like this moment that unifies all the history of country music. There’s not a single major country artist that hasn’t gone through the Opry — so getting to do that feels really good. It was a beautiful day.
IAN: It’s incredible that you got to see Carín’s Opry debut — and Tomás, he’s going to be on your CMA Fest panel. Can you delve a bit into why you’re excited for each of the artists appearing on your Latino Trailblazers in Country panel at CMA Fest?
TOMÁS: It’s really cool, getting to highlight even more acts — because we’re doing this for the second time in a row, and last time had an incredible panel as well, including Angie — and seeing how country music in the Latino space has grown. Both country artists trying out Latin, and Latin artists trying out country. This panel is the quintessential hodgepodge of artists who [play] both country and Latin music, and country artists who just happen to be Latino.
We have a very diverse group. Los Hermanos Mendoza, from [Bakersfield] California, are incredible. We have Carín León, which is a huge milestone for this incredible panel, given how impactful he is across Latin America as well. We have MŌRIAH and Kat Luna, who are artists that I’ve championed in the past year at Rolling Stone. Nicole Marostica helped put all this together; and I think it’s also really important to have people behind the scenes that plant the seeds for things like this to grow, and it’s clear that we’re able to do that here.
ANGIE: Nicole is the superwoman that made me believe this idea was possible, and accelerate it beyond my wildest dreams. I owe Nicole so much; and I mean, isn’t that the whole point — the joy of building something that people can plug into in the future? Nicole jumped on board so fast and worked so hard.
IAN: Listening to Los Hermanos Mendoza’s cover of “Folsom Prison Blues,” I was struck by how I could understand their English more clearly than I can Johnny Cash’s. [laugh] Not dissing the Man In Black whatsoever; just a light-hearted observation.
ANGIE: I love that you brought up Los Hermanos Mendoza. When I started this page called Country Latin Association, to showcase Latin country artists, my algorithm opened up — I started to discover all these Spanish-speaking artists, and Los Hermanos Mendoza was one of them that I really dove into. They have hundreds of thousands of followers, and they have such a unique fanbase and crowd that I feel like needs to be invited into the country space and respected. There’s no reason they shouldn’t have already played in Nashville, other than maybe they think they wouldn’t have a crowd here. So I thought CMA Fest is such a great experience for them to come here and [prove they have a draw in Nashville].
I think it’s really important to remind people that artists who don’t live near Nashville pay out of their own pocket to come and play CMA Fest, which benefits the CMA Foundation for music education resources around the country. So they’re paying out of pocket to come all the way over here and do this panel, and hopefully get to perform a song. Of all the people that are coming to CMA Fest, I think I’m most excited about Los Hermanos Mendoza — because if I was a record executive, they would be one of the most promising acts to see here. And I’m so excited they’re taking a chance on coming to CMA Fest, and I’m excited for them to see a full room — especially with Carín playing after them.
It’s a big risk to take, when you look different, to go somewhere where no one really looks like you — a trio of very young Latinos playing country music — and it’s a big chance. I love the idea that maybe your readers will hear about them, get curious, and give them the greatest gift that they’re hoping for: a very full room.
IAN: You know, I just interviewed Radney Foster the other day for Buddy Magazine. He’s a legendary, amazing songwriter from Del Rio, Texas. He’s a white, straight, male Baby Boomer; and he’s very forthcoming about Latin influences on him. He said, “I was as influenced by mariachi from across the river as I was by country music. I had a discussion with Kris Kristofferson about it, because he’s from Brownsville down in the valley. Listen to ‘For the Good Times’ by Kris Kristofferson — that’s a mariachi song. Listen to the melody and harmony, and the way it’s all put together. And I never would’ve written ‘Raining on Sunday’ if I hadn’t grown-up in Del Rio, Texas — even what I talk about in the second verse, all of that is really the fruit of growing up in a cross-cultural community.”
It’s worth noting that “Raining on Sunday” was made famous by Keith Urban, from Australia, so we’re getting multi-continental here — and that also went Top 40 on the Hot 100 over 20 years ago, when the country-pop chart crossover was not common. So that really speaks to how people might not even realize how influenced they are by Latin inflections in country music.
ANGIE: I love that so much. I’m gonna go back and listen to those songs now.
IAN: Tomás, I want to touch upon Kat Luna on your panel. She’s Cuban American, and that’s a segue for an important topic: the breadth and diversity of the Latin American diaspora, because I think many of us non-Hispanic USA folks underestimate how multinational and multiracial the diaspora is.
Even you two, Tomás and Angie, have widely varying backgrounds: Tomás, your parents are from Mexico, and Angie was born in El Salvador. Can you delve into the importance of representation for all the national and racial backgrounds in the Latin American diaspora, and maybe highlight a few examples of how different segments of that have influenced country music in their own ways?
TOMÁS: Kat Luna is a really interesting example of that. She grew up in Miami, and [your reaction might be] “Okay, where does the country side come in?” She describes her grandpa as “the Cuban cowboy,” which I thought was super interesting. She was listening to [“Queen of Salsa”] Celia Cruz, but also listening to country music on a daily basis — so her music is like Latin and country together.
ANGIE: I love [your question]. I think it’s really astute to think about things like that, because it’s layered. I’m from El Salvador, and moved [to Marietta, Georgia] when I was 11. My culture is very blended with American culture. My story’s going to be different from someone who moved when they were 25, you know?
So it’s not only understanding people’s cultures from [the perspective of] where they’re from and how they’re raised, but also how their family blended that — what that looked and felt like. My dad’s side is from El Salvador; my mom’s side is actually Spanish, but when she was growing up [in New Mexico], it was so looked down upon to speak Spanish that they didn’t let her learn anything. My mom did not learn a lick of Spanish, and she met my dad at University of Mexico, and then they went down to El Salvador because of some political drama — she had to learn Spanish then. Those stories, I think, have an impact.
Alyssia Dominguez is not on the panel, but she’s definitely attending. She’s an incredible artist. When we were doing [Andrea Vazquez’s] podcast “Latina in Nashville” — which is how we’re telling the stories of people here in Nashville that have Latin roots in country music — she talked about her family being migrants in Wisconsin. Her grandmother sang mariachis when she was younger, but she also absolutely fell in love with U.S. country music because of where she grew up.
So I think it’s really fun to take something that felt very monolithic to a lot of people, and show how much color, vibrancy, and beauty is in all of it. My favorite quote of all time is, “The things we share in this world are far more powerful than anything that will divide us.”
IAN: Carín León is going to be on Tomás’s panel, and he’ll also be playing at Nissan Stadium with Cody Johnson. They recently teamed up for “She Hurts like Tequila,” which is bilingual and incorporates accordion. Cody Johnson is a white guy from Texas, which shares a 1,254-mile border with Mexico — and, of course, Texas was once part of Mexico. And then Carín is from the northern Mexican state of Sonora, that shares a 365-mile border with the USA.
At a time when the border, bilingualism, and multiculturalism are vilified by so many wealthy politicians and commentators who capitalize on outrage and division… what resonance does that Cody and Carín partnership playing this gargantuan stadium in Tennessee have for you?
TOMÁS: Seeing that crossover with somebody who’s this white man of power and privilege, blending with this Mexican man who also comes with power, but from a different place in Mexico… and seeing that in a place like Nissan Stadium, where there’s going to be such a diverse set of audience members — including more conservative-leaning folks from states like Texas, that typically don’t have the most welcoming approach to migrants…
You put those things together, and place them on a stage [as large as] Nissan Stadium — it’s like, this is where we are as a country. In reality, yes, these politicians might be finding a way to pivot and focus on whatever they think is the negativity of migration — but the beauty of it is what we’re going to be seeing there: somebody like Cody and somebody like Carín joining voices and forces to make art. I think that’s the reality, and it’s especially [powerful] at a time when the Latino community is under attack.
ANGIE: Yeah, I totally echo that. That was really well-said.
IAN: Angie, you have played CMA Fest’s Nissan Stadium before. Who would be your dream duet partner there?
ANGIE: Man, I think one of my two biggest influences: Brandi Carlile and Melissa Etheridge. If I ever got to sing a duet with them, I think I would die.
But you know what? We talk about AI, and also labels taking a chance on different unique artists. AI can only create from inputs that are already created. Luke Combs, for example, was the first of his kind in the way he looked and sounded. Everything bled out from that — I can probably think of 50 artists that look very similar to Luke Holmes. But nobody was signing big boys, you know, that could sing like that before him.
And the reason I say that is because if you want to be AI and create an icon, you have to take a chance in something that has not been done before. When I say Melissa Etheridge and Brandi Carlile, it’s because I’m gay — they had a profound impact in what I believed was possible, and also in my songwriting, because they’re so good at their craft. They were so undeniably good, that people didn’t care that it hadn’t been done before, especially Melissa [with her radio successes].
Then you look at how there’s a hole [of seizing potential for] this entire globe. More than 20 countries are Latin American, and some of the greatest music consumptions are in Spanish. Bad Bunny is outperforming so many of his English-speaking counterparts. I look at Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito.” [Editor’s note: Bad Bunny was Spotify’s most-streamed artist of the years 2020-2022. Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” collaboration with Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber spent 16 weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.]
And yet, we have a hesitation for country music truly signing and pouring money into [Latin artists]. Kat Luna [on the CMA Fest panel] is signed; but I don’t see them pouring money into her the way I’ve seen them pour money into other artists, and I challenge that. Because it’s like, do you want another one of something that’s already been done before, or do you want to take a chance and build a road that thousands can walk down? To me, that’s far more exciting. And if you’re taking bets — I’m talking about the money that labels put into developing artists — you’ve got to go for the big payout. And the ones that took a chance on Melissa Etheridge and Brandi Carlile, they will have income [for the rest of their lives].
So I feel like there’s a lot of [wise investment] opportunity here, and I like presenting it like that. Nobody wants to eat the same type of food every day, you know?
TOMÁS: On my side as a journalist, seeing the numbers — like, the numbers don’t lie. Latin music is the genre that is most growing. Why wouldn’t you want to overlap country music, another growing genre, together with that? To cater to a space that’s specifically hungry for new talent. The audience is there. It’s just a new audience that hasn’t been tapped into as much in the past. To Angie’s point: maybe we’ve catered so much to the same people, when it’s time to open the doors to other people who are also enjoying these two things at the same time.
Hearing Angie speak about her identity as an LGBTQ person, it’s the same with me. Sometimes I felt that my gay side and my Latino / Mexican side were separate — but there’s ways to overlap our different identities in a way that is meaningful, and that lands with a large amount of people. I think that that’s part of what is missing; and so with this panel, I really hope that we can bridge that gap — country fans that happen to be Latino, but also [relate to] Carín León, Mōriah, and Kat Luna.
IAN: You two have bridged into another timely topic. This is happening during Pride Month, and both of you are openly gay. Can you talk a bit more about the confluence of Hispanic and LGBTQ representations — how they maybe enhance one another, and maybe how people who are in one category but not the other can help to uplift those who embody both?
TOMÁS: I mean, for me, good music is good music. I think the identity side of it just adds a little bit of whipped cream to the amazing sundae, you know? And I think that whipped cream might be more enjoyable for somebody of both those communities, but the sundae is still going to be bomb as hell [for anyone] to enjoy. I think putting in your identity just brings in people that maybe haven’t been included in the past, but it still allows for anybody to have a good time and enjoy the music.
ANGIE: I love the way you described that, Tomás, because I feel similarly. And I say this for any group that’s marginalized — including Luke Combs, being a bigger guy and no one like him was [getting the same level of support as] pretty boys with washboard abs — anyone that doesn’t see themselves where they want to be, their art has to be so much better. Like, it has to be undeniable. You’re not getting away with a wink and a smile, you know? And I think Luke really does a great job of trying to take care of so many people; I see more empathy from Luke Combs than probably any artist out there.
I remember hearing Luke’s songs, driving around in Georgia. I remember “Hurricane” was out, him having 50-60,000 followers on Facebook, and no one would touch him. He was told over and over again, “just be a songwriter.” Same thing is happening to Latin American artists; same thing is happening to gay artists. When Brandi Carlile wrote “The Story,” her being gay was this whipped cream on top [of the sundae] that made me go to her every time I wanted to feel something.
But if the art isn’t excellent — and I mean, like, 0.05% of the world excellent — instead of being whipped cream on top, what happens is [traits that make you different from the typical label-supported artist] feels like a poison, that could kill your chances of being an artist [for a living]. I think what we’re learning now with TikTok and Instagram, and letting artists release their music on their own without the gatekeepers, is there’s a thirst for honesty.
IAN: Tomás, the fourth artist on your panel is MŌRIAH. I’ve enjoyed her recent singles in both Spanish and English versions, and her CMA Awards Red Carpet interview with Telemundo was significant for being in Spanish. I hadn’t realized that she released Christian albums in English, for Sony division Provident, as far back as 2012. What do you make of MŌRIAH’s evolution, and now getting to do songs and press in both languages?
TOMÁS: I think that becomes a result of what people are looking for, and [it’s important to] understand that if Angie wants to just drop music in English, let’s still celebrate her Latinidad in other ways. That’s celebrated if Kat Luna wants to make a Spanglish song; or versions in both English and Spanish, there’s a place for that, too. There’s space for both of those things.
IAN: In addition to CMA Fest, Angie, you’re co-hosting FEMcountry’s inaugural Nashville showcase with Leslie Fram. That is exciting for me, because I became acquainted with you and so many other great female country artists — including Megan Moroney, who became Tomás’s first Rolling Stone cover — via CMT Next Women of Country, which Leslie launched, and now she just launched her own company. You two will be hosting Abbey Cone, Brittney Spencer, Caylee Hammack, Lucie Silvas, and Rita Wilson.
ANGIE: Yeah, me and Leslie go way back. I remember the first time I showed her a music video called “Leave California,” about getting my girlfriend to leave California for Nashville with me. Leslie watched it twice, and said “Yeah, I’ll put it on CMT.” She never hesitated. Thinking back as I’m older, if she had hesitated, that probably would’ve changed my entire trajectory — like, the way I thought as an artist. She has always been so forward-thinking, so happy to embrace whatever’s people authenticity are.
What I learned from Leslie and CMT Next Women of Country is… [pause] When you’re thinking there’s one spot for you, there’s no way to not be a little competitive — and there’s a healthy competitive, then there’s kind of a destructive competitive. I felt that in the Latin community, where it felt like there was a negative [number of country music] spots for us. What has happened with each of these events we’ve done for Country Latin Association is the same thing Leslie is doing for women — put them in the same room, and magic happens. So I feel like I’m continually learning, and I’m so grateful to be mentored by Leslie. This night of FEMcountry — her first big Nashville production as her own company — I think is the beginning of what’s going to be an incredibly beautiful thing in Nashville, and I’m so grateful that she asked me to co-host it with her.
IAN: Then you’ll be very busy on Friday. Can you give a quick rundown?
ANGIE: My CMA Fest performance is at 2:50 PM on Friday, at the Chevy Vibes Stage in Walk of Fame Park. Then, Country Latin Association and Origins Music Group are doing a big “Country con Corazón” concert in Plaza Mariachi from 6-10 PM. That is so important, because Plaza Mariachi has lost a lot of business since the ICE raids — and ICE has been kidnapping even legal residents, so there’s a lot of fear of going out if you’re dark-skinned. They’re part of our community, you know, this is part of Nashville; so I would love to get a lot of people from Nashville supporting this. Believe me when I say, Plaza Mariachi will blow your minds. It’s like Mexico in Epcot; I love that place so much.
“Latino Trailblazers in Country – Presented by the Country Latin Association” takes place on the CMA Close-up Stage in Music City Center (201 Rep. John Lewis Way S.) from 1:45 PM – 2:30 PM Central on Saturday, June 7. Access is free with a Fan Fair X ticket. Visit CMA Fest’s website for tickets and more information: https://cmafest.com/tickets/.
