The last time Mexican singer Humbe performed in the U.S. was at a mall in El Paso, TX. His aunt ran a radio station in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, who had a friend organizing a music festival. Like many teen stars before him, the then 16-year-old was invited to sing at a few mall performances. Reminiscing from a hotel’s conference room a day before his Dueño del Cielo album presentation in Mexico City’s Palacio de los Deportes arena, Humbe remembers standing on a small stage set up in between two stores, facing about 20 chairs occupied by random shoppers. He sang tracks from his debut album, 2017’sSonámbulo, which he now says he doesn’t consider his own, given he didn’t write or produce them. “It was lovely,” he remembers in Spanish, his smize peeking through sky blue-tinted sunglasses.
Eight years later, he’d stand on a 360-degree stage in the middle of the arena, surrounded by fluffy clouds that would also adorn the Dueño del Cielo era iconography, colored in hues of dusty pinks and deep blues. Throughout the show, he swung from a swing and even floated atop the crowd. The fans in attendance had no idea what he would be singing that day when they bought their tickets. Instead of going with the hits, Humbe presented Dueño del Cielo in its entirety in sequence, as he prefers the album to be listened to. He glided and danced to 22 songs, including the previously released singles “Morfina” and “VETIVER Y AMARETTO,” as well as viral hit “fantasmas,” in which a full mariachi band accompanied him, and fan favorite “REM.” Standout deep cuts include his first incursion into cha cha cha, “VEGAS,” and the harrowing “MURALLAS.” At the end of the show, Humbe levitated from the stage while singing the album closer, and a curtain fell from above, surprise announcing Dueño del Cielo’s release.
A tour announcement soon followed the new album, a trek through Mexico and, for the first time, 23 cities in the U.S. this upcoming Spring. “I can’t believe I’m going to sing in New York,” Humbe muses. “It’s a bit unreal. And to think that I’m going to cross that border, I still can’t believe it. I never sing in the U.S. Well, just that one time when I was little.”
Two days prior, Humbe had his dress rehearsal at the arena, where he realized approximately 700 people worked production for this single show. Going into it, he knew this would be a one-night-only performance, noting that he wanted to experience it like a spectator, too. For 2026, the task is to translate such an ambitious and awe-inspiring show to more compact venues. “I was just talking to my team about the beauty behind making that beast of a show into one that’s only a microphone, and that’s it,” he shares. “Some shows will be very intimate, and I think that’s what gives them more magic.”
While a big show could imply more pressure, Humbe finds smaller shows “difficult,” in a sense. “The fact that they’re more intimate, because the audience is at a more critical [vantage] point… They see your pores from much farther [at an arena show],” he jokes. “Each event is its own war, but, obviously, it won’t have the same magnitude as the [Palacio de los Deportes show]. I can’t do it on a tour, it’s impossible. So it’s [about having] a balance between those two worlds. But at the same time, I’m very happy with both.”
“The cost of your new life is your old one. You’re never going to evolve if you don’t allow yourself to be loved by life.”
In order to be able to fully construct what would eventually be the world of Dueño del Cielo, Humbe had to get out of his room. “I needed to leave the four walls where I was very frustratingly finishing this album, which didn’t deserve that. It needed a little bit more time,” he explains. He had been working on the record for a while and didn’t want to rush it. “I needed to separate myself from any type of distractions, like the Xbox, literally,” he says with a chuckle. He wanted to go elsewhere and focus on music. So he went to Iceland.
What Humbe found once in the Arctic country was a number of ironies. He went into the experience wanting to make a Bon Iver-like album, with “more celestial vibes,” as he describes. And you do find that in the LP with songs like “MAGIA OSCURA” and “NIRVANA.” But those came 10 days into his stay in the country, when he experienced a storm that left him in darkness. But when he first arrived, he was welcomed by the midnight sun, experiencing sunlight 24/7. “We didn’t see nighttime the entire time we were there, so I think that’s one of the reasons why we wrote so joyfully before going to the sadder songs. Because when we first got there, it was very beautiful. It was a paradise,” he notes.
“To our surprise, the first song we worked on when we got to Iceland was a cha cha cha,” Humbe shares. He would also later birth his first reggaeton-tinged track—something he swore he’d never do—“VETIVER Y AMARETTO.” “[I had to go to Iceland] to make a reggaeton, yeah, please,” he says with a laugh. “[We found] that type of conflicting emotions there, but those are the type of trips that help me open up.”
These experiences led Humbe to make Dueño del Cielo an album about reinvention. Just a year after working on his reconstruction through 2024’s Armagedón, Humbe is parting with the notion that you have to stay loyal to your current self. “You fall in love with the person you currently are, and when you’re content, you want to stick to it. So when something changes, everything starts to fall down,” he says. Armagedón was destruction, an asteroid crashing into Earth, setting everything you know to be true ablaze; Dueño del Cielo is a renaissance of self, embracing the art of going with the flow. “This album taught me that change is necessary, that the cost of your new life is your old one. You’re never going to evolve if you don’t allow yourself to be loved by life.”
Dueño del Cielo is out now.
