“People haven't seen me this raw and honest,” Ángela Aguilar tells Apple Music about Mexicana Enamorada. Released mere weeks before her 18th birthday, the album sees the rising young third-generation member of the celebrated musical family coming into her own—and bringing more of herself to the table in the process. “This is the evolution of all that music—the mariachi and the pop—and just what inspires me,” she says. Genre-agnostic yet undeniably informed by the richness of música mexicana, the album builds on her prior ones with a mix of past and present, leaving plenty for fans of all ages to enjoy. All the while, she stays passionately committed to authenticity and artistry, even when singing about heartbreak in revealing and personal ways. “These songs talk about things that happened to me,” she says, “and I feel like if people can identify with them, I didn't live it in vain.”
Despite the expectations and pressures that come with her famous surname, Aguilar remains open-minded and curious about where she’s heading as a singer and songwriter. “I feel like I'm too young to know where I'm going to go or to know what the destination is of this journey which is my musical career,” she says. “I just hope and wish that I will fight for what's true and what’s honest, and that whatever I do is genuine and filled with the most love and respect, doing things that can fulfill me, not other people.” Read more below about some of Aguilar’s favorite songs on the album, in her own words.
“Ahí Donde Me Ven”
“I feel like ‘Ahí Donde Me Ven’ was a really good way to start growing myself as an artist. I started when I was very, very young—professionally when I was like nine. So obviously now that I'm weeks away from my 18th birthday, your emotions grow and the way that you interpret grows, and I feel like people have never seen me speaking so truthfully about what I've lived through. And the author of that song really learned how to encapsulate that in me.”
“Fuera De Servicio”
“It was really an emotional experience that I lived through, and I kind of wanted to express it. I didn't know how to tell my friends and I didn't know how to tell my family about it. I just didn't know how to explain it to myself. I was like, okay, so I'm going to go to the piano and see what happens. It was one of those times where you just didn't even want to look at your phone, because you knew nobody was going to send you that text that you wanted to read or have that call from the person that you wanted to hear their voice. So that's what inspired me: just heartbreak.”
“Dime Cómo Quieres” (feat. Christian Nodal)
“It was a good collaboration bringing, I think, two important characters in the new generation of Mexican music together. We didn't really work together like back and forth or anything, but I think in the end we brought together a lot of people, which is pretty cool.”
“Se Disfrazó”
“I try to envision myself in the stories of the songs that I sing. If there is a 5% similarity, I focus on that 5% and I try to make people feel that sadness. I am immersing myself in the story. And sometimes it's happened where I'm perfectly happy and I go into the recording studio to sing a sad song and I end up having tears on my face. You have to put yourself in that role.”