It comes as no surprise when young men come together to form a music group and stir a commotion — it’s historically equated to global and longstanding success. The Beatles. BTS. One Direction. N*Sync. Backstreet Boys. Panic! at the Disco. You get the point.
Enter Grupo Diez 4tro, the most recent index for sure-fire fandom. The group of four first-generation Mexican-Americans — Jesus Moreno, Tyon “Nabs,” Emanuel “Manny,” and Pablo “Pabliizzi” — combines the sounds of regional Mexican music, corridos tumbados, and American drill — a hyper-realistic subgenre of trap that was birthed in Chicago by artists like Chief Keef and further popularized almost ten years later by the late-great Brooklyn rapper Pop Smoke.
The group has been together for less than a year. In that short period, fans have streamed their handful of songs nearly 40 million times on Spotify, and the video for their most popular song, “En El Refuego,” has garnered more than 30 million views on YouTube. That growing fandom combined with a post-pandemic hunger for live music has the group currently performing packed-out shows from the West Coast to Texas and even contemplating security for trips to the mall.
“It gets lit!” exclaims 21-year-old vocalist Moreno when asked about the fans’ reaction when the group performs live. “There have been times where there are gunshots, people getting kicked out. It’s a hype show. We’ve had moments after our shows where people chase us back to our hotel after shows. If I go to the mall right now, I’ll get followed around for sure, [so] I don’t go to the mall anymore. If I do go, it’s far away from where I live, and it’s with my manager.”
Nabs, the 20-year-old guitarist, chimes in “It gets hyphy,” mimicking the sounds of screaming fans.
As for 14-year-old bassist Pablizzi, he says his parents are still adjusting to their son’s transition to rock stardom just as much as he is: “They miss me and are scared for me, but they are happy.”
But while you could compare their fandom to those of boy bands, the group doesn’t want to be boxed into those labels. “I’m from South Sacramento,” says Moreno. “Everywhere you go, there are cops. There’s a lot of shootings. I’ve had a couple of friends that got murdered down here. This is where I’m from, and it inspires me to write what I write. It’s for the people who have stories (to be told).”
Just check out the video for the band’s new song, “Lujos y Placeres,” which we are premiering here on Remezcla (see below). The name of the track might be just as deceiving as the group’s boyish looks. In the song, Moreno sings ominously about all of the street drama, the envy, the hustling that it took for his “humble family” to attain the luxuries and pleasure of the track’s title.
Group co-founder and guitarist Manuel says he and his fellow bandmates grew up listening to “old school” corridos and regional Mexican music through their parents. But they were also fans of American trap, hip-hop, and even nu-metal groups that the streaming generation holds in the palm of their hands. All these influences combine organically to become the guisado that fuels Grupo Diez 4tro’s appetite to create.
“The melodies start in my head, and then I take it to my team, and they make the magic happen,” explains Moreno. “They put it in their style. Their sauce is A-1. Manny says the way I write my lyrics boosts his playing and makes him hype. It’s unexplainable. It’s like magic. It just happens.”
Fans are undeniably taking a liking to this magic, which according to Grupo Diez 4tro, is just getting started as they continue to hit the road and get ready to release their debut album that’s “coming soon.”
Watch the video for “Lujos y Placeres” exclusively below:
