Ángel Ortiz, the restless mariachi who innovates in the genre with anime and video games
The musician from the State of Mexico is experimenting on social media by adapting TV series themes to traditional Mexican music. He now juggles his work in three bands with a combined following of tens of thousands
Ángel Ortiz remembers sitting down at his computer to record when he was about 15 years old. “With the little I knew, I made recordings. I intended to share them […] I’m talking about 20 years ago; social media wasn’t so common in Mexico,” he says on the other side of the screen. Those early attempts led him to share banda and English-language versions of songs on his social media, a drive that has led him to expand the — sometimes immovable — boundaries of the mariachi genre. Memories of the arcade machines he played as a child inspired him to adapt the sounds of video games and anime to mariachi, an experiment that has been very well received online years later. Ortiz (State of Mexico, 35 years old) already has more than 300,000 followers on TikTok, 100,000 on Facebook, and 50,000 on Instagram.
He speaks from his studio in Texcoco, State of Mexico, the same one where he usually records his content. It’s there, in that small, white, soundproof room, that he explains he’s always uploaded his videos to social media as a hobby, although he’s recently managed to monetize them: “It’s not much, but it does help; it motivates you to keep doing it, because you can’t really make a living from the love of art.” He started uploading the anime versions about four years ago, during a moment of inspiration. Ortiz had seen people uploading versions of a song by the British singer Adele to YouTube, and an idea came to him: “How cool would it be to hear Adele’s voice with mariachi music?” The video quickly gained popularity.
But it didn’t end there. He recalls that his rise on social media began something like this: he picks up his phone and social media notifications start popping up: “Hey, do the Zelda theme,” “the Zelda video game theme,” “do it, do it.” He replies, “Yeah, I’ll do it one of these days.” He starts listening to the game’s orchestration and thinks, “It would sound nice with mariachi.” That was the beginning of the boom he’s experiencing now. “From there, the views went into the millions on TikTok, and on Instagram, my followers started growing like never before. Same on Facebook. I think it was definitely those Zelda themes,” he explains.
The musician was born into a mariachi family. “It’s very common for mariachi music to be a family business, where the grandfather teaches the father, the father teaches the son, the son teaches the grandson, and so on,” he explains. He grew up watching his father teach the trade to his older brother, and he was captivated by the sounds of the instruments. “As a child, you often prefer to play and do other things, but I always enjoyed experimenting with instruments. From a very young age, I had to learn to sacrifice some things that other children did in order to pursue this career,” he says.
He began music theory and singing lessons when he was about seven or eight years old, and aged around 12, he learned to play the violin, his main instrument at a professional level. By that time, Ortiz had already made his debut in the profession, playing at events with the “10 songs I had learned.” “It wasn’t a mariachi band as such yet, it was a small group with my dad, my two brothers, and me,” he recounts.
Ortiz’s experiment was a bold idea in a community accustomed to classics like El Rey, Cielito Lindo, and Volver, Volver. He recounts that audiences outside the community warmly embraced these musical forays; but within the mariachi scene, the situation was somewhat more complicated: “It’s a very traditional community, sometimes very closed-minded […] It’s a little difficult for colleagues to accept or look favorably upon someone doing something not so close to the traditional.” However, he believes it shouldn’t be a source of conflict when “things are done well and respectfully.”
Ortiz hasn’t stopped since childhood. The musician — who also completed his studies in history — now combines content creation with his work in three mariachi groups: one with his brothers; another with Mariachi Gama 1000, a more experimental group that seeks to blend music and dance; and as a musician with Pepe Aguilar, where they play 100% Mexican music. He often finds it difficult to find free time. “Sometimes, it’s impossible. Right now, I had to take a couple of days off because of illness [a mild respiratory condition], and I already have a lot to do. Wanting to cover many bases means sacrificing some free time or leisure time,” he says.
His growth on social media has translated into strong support from his family for the project. At first, they asked him why he was recording himself, why he was putting himself out there. “As time went on, when they started seeing followers, when they invited me to events, when they recognized my work, they got involved too,” he explains. In his small studio, with his instruments stacked in a corner, he has repeatedly emphasized the essential support of his wife and brothers in developing his online presence. It’s part of the story that has led to people now requesting songs like You’ve Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story when he plays at parties with the mariachi band he forms with his brothers. “Obviously, we play our traditional repertoire because I really like it, and people do too, but we do try to include that element of innovation,” he concludes.
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