Latin Mafia Made It Big Without a Label or Album. Now They’re Getting Ready to Play Coachella

The Mexican band of brothers talks about making their U.S. festival debut and hoping to collaborate with Karol G and Bad Bunny

In the past year, Latin Mafia have become one of Mexico’s top acts without a record label or album. The trio of brothers, who include Mike and twins Milton and Emilio de La Rosa, have embraced that artistic freedom in their music, which spans reggaeton, trap, R&B, house music, dream pop, among other sounds. At the core of their songs are messages about embracing emotions and mental health awareness. With their music resonating around the world (and a recent Karol G co-sign), the guys are now performing at multiple music festivals, including their U.S. debut at Coachella on Sunday.

“This is the first year that we’ve traveled,” Mike tells Rolling Stone. 

“It’s exciting and shocking to see how our music is crossing borders,” his brother Milton adds.

After selling-out arenas in their home country, the guys have spent this year on the festival circuit. Latin Mafia have hit the stages at Lollapalooza Argentina, Lollapalooza Chile, Colombia’s Estéreo Picnic Festival, and Costa Rica’s Picnic Festival. Though they’re based in Mexico City now, the brothers put on a hometown show in Monterrey. Their playful set drew in one of the biggest crowds at Tecate Pa’l Norte. Reflecting the band’s meme sense of humor, the performance opened with the brothers appearing in a parody of the iCarly intro. They’re very 2000s-coded with baggy jeans, skintight mesh shirts, oversized jerseys, and a mix of trucker and Mexican cowboy hats.

Mike serves as the producer of the group while Emilio and Milton are the soulful singers. In the trap-infused “No Digas Nada,” they encourage the listener to metaphorically bare it all and throw off the stigma associated with talking about mental health. With Mexican pop star Humbe in the symphonic “Patadas De Ahogado,” they harmonize about the beauty of building an emotional connection with a loved one. Then there’s the explosive perreo of “Julietota,” which later melts into a meditative R&B moment, where Latin Mafia encourages a baddie to live her best life. The guys caught up with Rolling Stone about refusing to stick to one genre, their debut album, and what to expect at Coachella. 

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The music of Latin Mafia is pretty expansive. Tell us about your approach and mixing all these different genres in your songs.
Emilio: We’re just having fun. That’s our main thing while we’re in the studio. We like to have fun. We like to be ourselves. We don’t like to limit ourselves. If you define yourself, you limit yourself. We’re just doing music. That impacts a lot of what we do. We’re always exploring new music. 

Mike: Apart from that, there’s three of us so we each have our own tastes and bring something different [to the band]. We share different music and we draw from one another. I love that so much.  

How would you describe the experience of working on music together as brothers?
Mike: Each one of us knows how the other works. We know our strong points. We’re best friends. We’re like co-workers. It’s been a really fun experience to have the opportunity to live this dream together with our family. 

What does it mean to guys to see your music go global as an independent act?
Emilio: Today, there’s a lot of ways to make music, to distribute music, to get out of your comfort zone to reach more people. That’s something we’ve always held the flag up high for. The music industry is always changing. What worked before maybe doesn’t work anymore. New things are working and other ways exist. We’re very excited to say that today you can get to where you want while being independent.

Why is it important for you guys to talk about feelings and mental health in your music?
Milton: I believe in general it’s been taboo to talk about mental health. Mexico is a country with a high suicide rate among adolescents and adults. It’s a topic that’s very common and it’s illogical not to talk about it. I’m sure at some point in your life you’ve suffered from anxiety or depression. Everyone has gone through a crisis like that because we’re human. It’s something that’s real. It’s very sad to go through mental health issues in silence. How awful to go through something that’s so loud in silence and alone. If we have the opportunity to make people empathize with that and to give that issue a voice, we’re going to do it all our lives because we’re human. Before being Latin Mafia, we’re Emilio, Milton, and Mike and we feel the same as any other person. If we can connect with people in that way, and give a voice to those emotional and mental problems, we’ll always be grateful to be able to help people in that way. 

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Especially as men, you guys are also pushing back on machismo. It’s refreshing to see you let your hair down in a crop top at your shows with these important messages. I’ve seen your fans in the LGBTQ+ community also connect with that and show you love on social media. 
Milton: We’re not in this life to follow expectations, stereotypes, or what people say you have to be. We just have to simply be ourselves. Love is love in whatever form it exists. Que chinge su madre [fuck] those who want to limit us. We’re all just human. We love and we feel, and what difference does it make the way that we do that? Everyone should do what they want to do and no one should get in between that.

“Julietota” is one of your biggest hits right now. How did that song come together?
Emilio: We first made “Julieta” like three years ago. We love reggaeton. We love perreo. We felt we didn’t want this to be 100 percent perreo. We had the idea to do what we did with “Julieta,” which starts with a bit of Afrobeat and ends in perreo. Now we wanted to do the opposite. It would’ve been easy just to do the continuation of “Julieta,” but we don’t like to do things the easy way or stay in our comfort zone. We said, “What can we do to make this different?” We decided to do “Julieta” in reverse and switch it up. 

Tell us about the experience of working with Humbe on “Patadas De Ahogado.”
Milton: We’re fortunate to be able to say that before being musicians, we’re friends. We’ve eaten at his house. He’s hung out with us. We’ve gotten to know each others’ parents. Recently, Emilio saw a meme on Facebook that said, “Make fucking music until your favorite artists became your friends and your coworkers.” We feel very fortunate to say that’s how this is turning out with us with Humbe and Jesse Baez. We’ve been able to get to know a lot of people, so it’s very beautiful. 

Emilio: I believe each one of us has artists that we dream of working with. I would love to work with C. Tangana, Dominic Fike, Bad Bunny, Danny Ocean, and Omar Apollo. 

Milton: Bad Bunny would be incredible! Ralphie Choo and Brent Faiyaz. 

Mike: Fred Again.. and Skrillex.

What did you think when Karol G said that she wanted to work with you?
Milton: We didn’t mention Karol because we feel like that could be a real possibility. It hasn’t happened yet, but we would love that. We were at her concert in Estadio Azteca. That was fucking crazy! Hopefully in the near future, we would love for her to get to know us more in person, and see what comes out of that. Something with La Bichota would be amazing! 

What can we expect from your debut album that you’re working on? You recently posted a video in the studio with Duki.
Emilio: There’s something coming [with Duki].

Milton: A lot of musical diversity. A lot of playing around with music. A lot of music with the intention of performing it live. The music will be very personal and human. 

Mike: A lot of things I feel like people won’t expect from us, but that they will like. 

How do you feel about performing on the Coachella stage next?
Emilio: Truthfully, it’s an experience and opportunity that we never dreamed could be a possibility. It’s crazy to think that something you maybe never imagined, that seemed out of reach, is now a reality. It’s an incredible experience and we’re very excited to go. 

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Milton: We’ve never been to the U.S. or Los Angeles, much less Coachella. What another amazing opportunity that the first time we’re going to Coachella is to perform our music for the people that listen to us. 

Emilio: It’s going to be fun.A lot of dancing, perreando, and also crying. We have a little surprise in store as well.