Carin León Earns Superstar Reception During Grand Ole Opry Debut: 'This Place Is Magical'

The Grand Ole Opry's capacity crowd of 4,300 welcomed Mexican singer-songwriter Carin León as he made his debut at the Nashville venue on Friday night (February 23).

Leon had one of those Advertising signTop 10 Highest Grossing Latin Tours of 2023 Colmillo de Leche's tour played Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena and Houston's Toyota Center, among other venues. It was one Advertising signThe top Latin artists on the final chart of 2023 (based on song and album performance, as well as tours). Last year, Leon scored some of his biggest Advertising sign Hits on the Hot Latin Songs chart, including “Primera Cita” and the Grupo Frontera collaboration “Que Vuelvas.” León and Maluma joined forces for “Según Quien”, which topped both Advertising signLatin Airplay chart and Regional Mexican Airplay chart in December. Last year, it won a Latin Grammy for Best Norteño album (Colmillo de Leche)

Screams of admiration and a sea of ​​cellphone lights greeted León as he took the stage in front of a crowd that was on its feet and singing along to every (mostly Spanish) verse he sang. Leon performed his 2022 hit “No Es Por Aca,” followed by a solo version of “The One (Pero No Como Yo),” his duet with Kane Brown, which the pair debuted earlier in the week at Premio Lo Nuestro 2024. It closed with “Primera Cita”, a song that marked a watershed moment of experimentation for León, who combined Mexican and soulful sounds of Memphis and New Orleans.

At one point, as León stood in the Opry's famous wooden circle, part of the Opry stage that originally sat on the floor of the Opry's previous location at the Ryman Auditorium, he knelt down and planted a kiss on the floor.

“This moment is a dream come true,” he later said from the stage. “This moment is important for my music, for my country. Having the whole family here and having country music to welcome us, to be here, this place is magical. I hope to come back here a thousand times more. Thank you so much for this moment.”

He left the stage, but only momentarily – as screams and shouts from the crowd quickly demanded that he return to the stage for another song. León obliged with an encore, and in the process, became one of the rare Opry debut artists to do an encore performance — joining a string of artists whose Opry debut performances included an encore, including Josh's Opry debut Turner in 2001, the 2016 Opry debut of rock legend John Fogerty (who had joined Brad Paisley on the Opry stage), and of course, Hank Williams' debut in 1949, when he returned to the stage for six encore.

Just outside the stage, “The One” Brown's collaborator and singer-songwriter Leon Bridges stood among a crowd of other supporters watching León's Opry debut.

Earlier in the evening, sitting backstage in Little Jimmy Dickens-themed Dressing Room 3 at the Grand Ole Opry, León was full of gratitude — and maybe a little nervousness — as he talked about achieving his dream of playing at the Grand Ole Opry.

“Being here at the Grand Ole Opry, for any artist, is more than a dream come true,” he said. Advertising sign. “For me as a Mexican, for me coming from another species, they are living the dream. We never knew we'd be here, even as an audience member, but now that I'm playing here, it makes me so proud.

“I was walking around earlier, looking at the pictures and the [artist] passages found on the walls. I cried four times reading what they said because they felt the same way I did. It made me feel so humble and reminded me why I got into music. This place is magical for any musician. The story is a love letter to music and you feel like you've entered a holy place.”

Since releasing a series of live albums in 2018, followed by his debut full-length, El Malo, in 2019, León's music increasingly embraces a range of sounds, including folk, flamenco and country. He has previously covered songs by Johnny Cash and Chris Stapleton and teamed up with Walker Hayes for a collaboration with Amazon Music.

Of his new collaboration with Brown, Leon says, “One of the first names in country music to work with who he put on the table was Kane Brown. It was around 2018 when I started listening to his music. It's like the nexus for our genre and country music to happen. I met him and his team, and he's such a humble man and a good guy and one of my friends in this game that is music. I'm very happy that he believed in our music and it's the perfect time for that to happen.”

On April 26, León will make his debut at the Stagecoach country music festival, playing on a bill that also includes Eric Church and Jelly Roll. He will be the first Hispanic act to perform at both Stagecoach and Coachella.

“It's incredible for me,” he says of these upcoming shows. “I'm kind of nervous about this show because it's a different audience, but we're going to enjoy it so much and I'm going to see some of my idols too. It's a place where I'm going to celebrate what's happening with our music and this musical revival. You can see less borders on each music. People are hungry for good music and artists don't want to fit into a box. If you have a great song, you can upload it with just a guitar and a video, and you can't deny what's good.”

León, as well as his fellow artists including Bad Bunny, Maluma, Karol G and Grupo Frontera, are at the forefront of the current worldwide success of Latin music. Latin and Country were two of the genres with the highest percentage gains in 2023, according to Luminate's 2023 year-end report, with Latin growing 21.9% to 75.26 million units in 2023 and country to grow by 21.8% to 92.19 million units in 2023.

The epicenter of León's country music-centric moments—the Opry debut, Stagecoach, the collaboration with Brown—is León's ongoing, full-length country album.

“This is one of my desires in life, to do this work,” he says. “I think this is the right time to do it and we are working on it. We are in the process of selecting songs, but there are many names we are considering.”

Similar themes are woven through the lyrics of both Regional Mexico and the province — stories of love, family, and cowboy/cowboy culture. Leon's upcoming country project could prove to be a momentous moment for the two genres to further unite. Historically, the country has seen occasional moments of Latino artists finding success on the country charts, with Johnny Rodriguez and Freddy Fender scoring No. 1 hits in the 1970s, while in the 1990s, Tejano music star Emilio Navaira, the band The Mavericks and Rick Trevino saw hits on country radio.

More recently, artists such as Frank Ray, Leah Turner, Valerie Ponzio and Veronique Medrano have been creating their own fusions of Latin and country sounds. In addition, León's collaboration with Brown extends a line of Latin artists collaborating with country artists, from Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson winning a Country Music Association award for collaboration and country hit with “To All the Girls I Loved Before” (later also recorded “Spanish Eyes” in 1989). David Bisbal, Enrique Iglesias and Becky G are among other Latin artists who have collaborated with country artists in recent years.

“Everybody wants to be a cowboy right now, everybody wants to do country right now,” León says. “People rap, they're rapped by Mexican music, or they're rapped by country music. They wear the hats, the boots. Louis Vuitton's latest collection is all cowboy. We as Americans, as Mexicans, want to be proud of who we are. We don't want to copy what everyone else is doing — those are our roots. Our hat is who we are, our boots are who we are. I'm really happy that people are looking at our culture in such a big way that it's happening right now.”