With the raw energy of corridos and the dance-floor fervor of Jersey club, Fuerza Regida’s latest creation, Pero No Te Enamores, forges a bold, unprecedented fusion. At the helm, frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz, a.k.a. JOP, embraced the risk of blending these distinct styles.
“When I first heard [Jersey club] about one to two years ago, I loved it. I was like, ‘Man, I wanna do something with it.’ I just didn’t know how. But I knew that when I did, they were gonna talk sh–t,” he tells Billboard Español. “So when it got to the point to make a new album, I was like, ‘I wanna do Jerseys and dance music, I want to move something different but still keep the original Fuerza Regida [essence], with the guitars.”
The gamble paid off. This week, the album, which was released on July 25, made an immediate impact on the Billboard charts, debuting at No. 2 on the Top Latin Albums and No. 23 on the Billboard 200. The focus track, “Nel,” marked by its emotional-yet-disillusioned tone, entered the coveted Billboard Hot 100 at 91. Additionally, eight cuts from the album appear on Hot Latin Songs.
For this new sound, Fuerza Regida enlisted music producers Gordo — known for his work on Drake’s Baltimore club hit “Sticky” — and Synthetic, the architect behind Lil Uzi Vert’s Jersey club smash “Just Wanna Rock.” “Gordo has the dance s–t on lock, he’s the man; and Synthetic, he’s killing it with the Jersey club,” adds JOP.
The San Bernardino band’s innovative leap into Jersey corridos does more than fuse two disparate genres: It carves out a fresh niche in the musical lexicon, affirming that the barrios and dancehalls can, in fact, share a singular, resonant heartbeat.
Below, Billboard ranks all 15 songs from Pero No Te Enamores, from worst to best.
https://www.billboard.com/lists/fuerza-regidas-pero-no-te-enamores-songs-ranked/