CW32_Latin Mafia and Fred again...

​“We believe it’s important to keep things genuine and human in our music, because we feel like we’re living in a time where there’s a lot of emptiness and soullessness,” says LATIN MAFIA's Milton de la Rosa during our CLOSE UP interview with him and his two brothers, Mike and Emilio de la Rosa, last January.

​Since they began releasing music, the trio wrote from personal emotions and lived experiences, their lyrics raw and unafraid to soak in vulnerable, sensitive topics. It's this honesty that first drew their audience in. A feeling Emilio echoed when he told us, "We're communicating things we feel really did affect us. When we convey something like this, we genuinely feel it can connect with someone else who's felt the same."

The three brothers from Monterrey, Mexico, began making music as a pastime, but after their early videos struck a chord with audiences online, they decided to pursue it seriously. The group went on to release music independently, their singles racking up millions of streams and leading them to sell out major venues across Mexico before signing to a label. This success drew attention from major artists globally, and most recently, Fred again…

​This collaboration shouldn't have come as a surprise. Over the past year, the two have teased it: sharing music snippets on livestream, LATIN MAFIA taking the stage at Fred's USB002 show in Mexico City in 2025, and, last week, on July 26th, Fred released a 35-minute film documenting a single-take recording session, titled "under the fabric (Mexico City, 11th December 2025)," where he and LATIN MAFIA sit, perform, and record songs together. And yet, no one could have expected what happened next.

The following day, a shared post went live on Instagram, announcing that the two would be live-streaming as they added the final touches to a mixtape they'd been working on together over the past couple of years. They explained they wanted to share what they'd created together over that time. They'd be getting together in Mexico City to finish the project, streaming the process on YouTube non-stop until it was complete.

​During our interview, Mike told us, "No one teaches you how to make an album or a music project, or how it feels to pour all your emotion into it. It's something we're still figuring out." With this livestream, fans got exactly that, a front-row seat to two acts figuring it out in real time.

At LagoAlgo in Mexico City, starting at 1 pm on July 28th, the LATIN MAFIA brothers, along with Fred again.. and his brother Benjy Gibson, streamed as promised. 

Fans could tune in anytime, anywhere: on their phones during the morning commute, or on their laptop at home before falling asleep. For 50 hours straight, they could drop ideas into the chat in real time.

Audiences watched the weather shift outside the studio's giant windows: sun fading into rain, rain settling into a calm blue that washed over the room at sunrise as the artists rested on their giant, white Ensemble Dune sofa. It was the same couch they recorded on, talked on, and sat in silence on while surrounded by instruments, equipment, and work spread across the floor. Slowly, the space became their own: pictures and posters went up on the walls, and in giant orange letters, they painted an announcement for the show that would follow: a live performance in Mexico City at Palacio de los Deportes, where fans could see what they'd watched come to life.

Nearing the 51-hour mark, the artists announced they’d finished their project: 9 months & 50 hours, an ode to their collaboration and the time spent with their audience online. Tickets went live in that same moment and sold out in 30 minutes.

At the show, the fans became the heart of the collaboration. In the crowd were people who had watched hours of the livestream, and others who'd only caught snippets on Reels, but all of them danced and sang along to songs they'd helped shape with their own comments and ideas. That moment shone through especially when LATIN MAFIA sang "Te Estoy Correteando," the track they'd first previewed on a livestream a year earlier. Hearing it performed in full, the crowd sang so loud they nearly drowned out Milton and Emilio's voices. That energy was written all over Fred's face as Emilio dove into the screaming audience during the bass drop of "Quiereme."

That same instinct, to close the distance between artist and audience, is something Emilio spoke to us about months before any of this began.

Last year, after LATIN MAFIA performed "Siento que merezco más" on the COLORS stage,​ Emilio shared a piece of advice with us, one we now know he lives by: "Our advice to others would be to always create with the intention of forming genuine connections with your audience. Take care of yourself, value yourself, and protect your relationships." 

We will be thinking about these words of advice and this project's creation for far longer than 9 months and 50 hours.