Ángela Aguilar

Ángela Aguilar is a singer of Mexican Regional music. The daughter of traditional musician Pepe Aguilar, she has been performing professionally since she was nine years old. Benefitting from a trained alto voice, she released her debut album, 2013′s Christmas-themed Navidad con Ángela Aguilar, at age ten. Three years later, she performed in the BBC’s 100 Women Festival in Mexico City. Her proper solo debut was 2018′s Primero Soy Mexicana. Produced by her father, it was composed of historic rancheras and mariachis. Aguilar received nominations for Best New Artist and Best Ranchero/Mariachi Album at 2019′s Latin Grammy Awards, where she also performed. In 2020, she released the seven-song EP Baila Esta Cumbia, a set of modern tunes associated with and dedicated to the memory of groundbreaking ranchera pioneer Selena. Aguilar followed it later that year with the traditional mariachi EP Que No Se Apague la Musica. In 2021, she issued the long-player Mexicana Enamorada.
She was born Ángela Aguilar Álvarez in Los Angeles to Aneliz Álvarez Alcalá and Pepe Aguilar while her father was on tour. Music was not only in her DNA from her dad but also her paternal grandparents — singer, producer, and actor Antonio Aguilar and the acclaimed vocalist and actress Flor Silvestre. Her brother is Grammy-nominated singer/guitarist Leonardo Aguilar. Ángela began taking singing lessons and touring in Latin America with her father as a young child. She immersed herself in the ranchera and mariachi traditions, listening and learning from the genre’s greatest singers. In 2012, Pepe produced her first EP, Nueva Tradición. She followed it in 2013 with the Christmas collection Navidad con Ángela Aguilar. Aguilar toured with her father and did her own dates between school terms. She also performed on radio and television, and was invited to be part of the BBC’s 100 Women Festival in 2016.
In 2018, Aguilar released her first proper solo album, Primero Soy Mexicana. Produced by her father, it included 11 iconic rancheras previously recorded, performed, and associated with prominent singers including Lucha Villa, Rocío Dúrcal, and her grandmother, Flor Silvestre. Aguilar performed “Tu Sangre en Mi Cuerpo,” the album’s first single, at the year’s Premios Tu Mundo. She was nominated for Best New Artist while the recording was nominated for Best Ranchera/Mariachi. The album received praise on both sides of the border, including laudatory remarks from legendary Mexican ranchera singer Vicente Fernández. In December, Primero Soy Mexicana, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Regional Mexican Music Album.
In early 2019, Aguilar was named Artistic and Cultural Ambassador of Zacatecas, Mexico by Mayor Ulises Mejía Haro, and in May she was nominated for three awards at the annual Premios Juventud (Mexico’s equivalent of the Grammys). Aguilar performed a medley alongside mariachi singers Christian Nodal and Pipe Bueno. In July, she released a cover of Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” to the Recording Academy’s YouTube page to benefit MusicCares; it marked the first time she recorded in English.
In January of the following year, Aguilar issued the seven-song Baila Esta Cumbia, in tribute to the late ranchera singer and cultural icon Selena. Its closer was a medley of two English-language songs the singer had made into pop classics, Franne Golde and Tom Snow’s “Dreaming of You” and Keith Thomas’ “I Could Fall in Love.” As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to rage across the globe, shutting down live music in its wake, Aguilar cut the seven-song EP Que No Se Apague la Música from her home in Zacatecas, Mexico, to benefit the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund.
Weeks before her 18th birthday, Aguilar released the full-length Mexicana Enamorada. Her father produced the set and was able to enlist some of Mexican Regional’s most important composers to write specifically for Ángela. The set’s ten songs included compositions by Cheche Alara and Javier Calderón, Gussy Lau, Joss Favela, Ana Bárbara, Edgar Barrera, Ale Zéguer, Christian Nodal (who appeared on his own “Dime Cómo Quieres”), and Jesse & Joy, who appear on their “Ella Qué Te Dio.” Pepe’s keen production brought out the best in Ángela’s crystalline voice as he wed smooth modern studio sensibilities to lineage Mexican Regional sounds. Its closing track, a version of the classic “La Malagueña,” revealed the breadth and depth in Aguilar’s vocal ability. In addition to two singles taken from the record, she also released a striking non-album cover single of the Consuelo Velázquez classic “Bésame Mucho.” ~ Thom Jurek