As a child, Edgar Barrera stumbled onto his future career in the liner notes of his father’s favorite records and CDs. Thumbing through an extensive collection of Tejano, norteño, and cumbia classics, he realized someone was responsible for bringing these songs to life. “I still have a very vivid image of looking at the track lists and realizing all of the songs had been written by somebody,” he says. “I’d look at people’s names in the credits and think, ‘Hopefully someday that’ll be me.’”
Today, the 34-year-old Roma native is one of Latin music’s most sought-after songwriters and producers. He’s won 21 Latin Grammy Awards, and he earned a Grammy in 2024 for Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical. He’s collaborated with global superstars including Madonna, Ariana Grande, and Shakira, while also helping to usher in the recent regional Mexican music boom. He’s tapped into his roots by working with rising stars like Peso Pluma, the San Antonio-raised singer known for his corridos tumbados, and Rio Grande Valley natives Grupo Frontera, the six-piece band who rose to fame with their cumbia-tinged cover of Morat’s “No Se Va” in 2022.
Growing up on both sides of the border, Barrera was surrounded by music. In the Mexican city of Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas, acts including Trio Los Panchos and Juan Gabriel streamed from his grandparents’ house. Across the border in Roma, about an hour west of McAllen, he’d listen to Linkin Park and Green Day with his cousins. But music was also just in his blood. His father, Luis Alberto Barrera, was a vocalist in Mister Chivo, a popular cumbia act in Mexico and the U.S. throughout the 1970s and ’80s.
As regional Mexican music continues to explode in popularity, Barrera views his success as a continuation of what his dad started decades earlier. “I’m just connecting the dots,” he says, “so people can understand where this music comes from.”
Enjoying this article?TEXAS HIGHWAYS: What was it like spending your childhood on both sides of the border?
EDGAR BARRERA: You have a little bit of both cultures inherited. I was raised in a very Mexican household, next door to my grandparents. My dad doesn’t speak English at all, so it was a fully Spanish house, and we listened to a lot of classic Mexican music. When we would come over to the U.S. side, my cousins were listening to pop and rock music in English. It was that constant feeling of whenever you’re in Mexico, you feel like you’re too American for the Mexicans, and in the U.S., you feel like you’re too Mexican for the Americans.
TH: What’s it like to see Grupo Frontera explode in popularity?
EB: It’s really fun because people are just now discovering this type of music that has been in our roots and in our culture for so many years. But it’s new for Colombians, it’s new for Venezuelans, for Argentinians, for Chilenos, for Puerto Ricans. It’s a new standard for them, but it’s a very traditional sound for us, which is what makes it so special. That’s one of the reasons why we do a lot of collaborations: to get our music out there to places where they don’t know about conjunto, where they don’t know about the accordion and bajo sexto. Whenever we work with Bad Bunny, having him and his crew say, “This sound is really dope,” it makes me feel like, OK, we’re pushing the culture forward. We’re taking our music to the whole world now. It’s no longer regional; it’s global.
TH: What do you enjoy about collaborating with Frontera?
EB: It feels like we’re family. It’s something in the culture that just bonds us together. I like touring with them, watching them grow—because I’ve been around them since day one, when they were performing for 25 people in a local shop. Now, taking them to stages and arenas, where it’s like 20,000 people—sold out crowds in Mexico City, California, Chicago, or Argentina—it’s satisfying seeing how our music is traveling all over the world.
TH: What has your dad’s response been to your success?
EB: Both of my parents are very, very happy that a band like Frontera is having this moment, and that I get to be part of it. My dad is my biggest fan. Every time something comes out, he’s the first one to text me. I play him a lot of the songs I’m working on at the moment. He’s very passionate about music like I am, so we share that a lot. He’s still performing now, and I want to do something with him in the future.
TH: I heard you sort of got your dad involved in a record you made with Karol G. How did that happen?
EB: Karol was telling me how much Selena had impacted her career and her music, and how she grew up singing her songs. I told her that [Selena’s brother], A.B. Quintanilla, knows my dad’s music. We had a conversation once about how he studied all those conjunto acts from the ’70s and ’80s and they helped inspire Selena’s sound. Karol and I decided to do a record with similar sounds, and once I told my dad about it, he brought me some keyboards and drum sets that he hadn’t used in a long time. I made samples out of them, and that’s how we did “Mi Ex Tenía Razón.”
TH: How often do you visit home?
EB: I try at least once every month or two to come back to Texas [from Miami] to visit the family and reconnect with my roots. Coming back to my parents’ home and being there is what I enjoy the most. I go a lot to my childhood home on the other side of the border and see my cousins. I have to take a moment that’s not about artists and superstars because that lifestyle is not what I grew up with. Like right now, my mom is just cooking some carne cortada with rice and beans. That’s what I’m eating right after I finish this interview [laughs].
TH: What’s special to you about where you come from?
EB: I’ve heard other people from the Valley say, “There’s glue in the cement here.” People can’t just leave the Valley—or if they do, they always come back. I was telling Frontera not too long ago, “You guys have to leave the Valley for a little bit.” But it’s hard. The people, even the ones who you don’t know, treat you like family.
TH: How does it feel to see schools throughout the Valley offering conjunto classes now?
EB: When I was here at Roma High School, we didn’t have a conjunto class. Now, I’m very close friends with some of the people on the school board and not too long ago, they opened a class where they teach students how to play the accordion and conjunto music. Seeing that evolution in the Valley is so satisfying because the best thing you can do is teach them young. It’s crazy the amount of talent we have from this area: Mister Chivo, Intocable, Duelo, Grupo Frontera, Ramón Ayala. We’ve got to keep pushing and make people realize what we have. I hope the next generation continues to make it even bigger, take it further and further.
TH: Is that what you hope to accomplish with your label, BorderKid Records?
EB: The whole idea is for it to be a hub for artists. I want it to be a place where artists can grow and build something of their own, giving them the tools to build their catalog and helping them go on the right path. I want to be a part of encouraging more generations of talented musicians and writers and producers from the Valley to grow and make it out here in this industry.
