While recording his latest album, Eden, Eden Muñoz landed himself in the emergency room a whopping four times, all to monitor his fast-beating heart. “I consider myself a relatively healthy person,” the Mexican singer-songwriter says today, still sounding a bit perplexed by the situation. “It wasn’t stress — I know stress.”
After consulting multiple cardiologists, Muñoz visited one more (who was also a good friend) and finally got his answer: He was told that the process of making Eden proved too energizing. “It was a type of excitement that didn’t let me sleep because it felt like I was wasting time,” he recalls. “I needed to be in the studio.”
And though the hospital trips were nerve-racking, Muñoz welcomed the excitement — it was a feeling he hadn’t experienced in relation to music in a long time. Since launching his solo career two years ago after more than a decade fronting Calibre 50, he has enjoyed a whole range of new emotions. Most importantly, Muñoz says, “I know what it feels like to be happy again.”
The 34-year-old first entered the scene in the early 2010s as Calibre 50’s lead singer, accordionist and songwriter. The group — which became one of the most successful norteño bands of all time — placed seven No. 1s on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Albums chart and landed more than 20 No. 1s on Regional Mexican Airplay. Despite the success, Muñoz felt something was off — and was craving more.
He announced his departure from Calibre 50 in early 2022 and, soon after, launched his solo career. “I was very limited as part of a group,” he says. “I felt that I could give a lot more at the production level.” As it turns out, making music on his own terms proved fruitful. Over the past two years, Muñoz has scored four top 10s on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart, including the title track to 2023’s Como en los Viejos Tiempos, which topped the list. He has also placed five entries on Hot Latin Songs, including a top 10 hit with his debut solo single, “Chalé!”
Yet it’s Eden, released in August, that Muñoz feels most proud of. “I had been pleasing others for so many years that it was only fair that I do what makes me happy for a change,” he says. “This album reflects that transition.”
Eden arrived as Muñoz’s second album on Sony Music Mexico, which he signed with last year in a partnership with Sony Music Latin, and his third full-length since launching his solo career. The project spans 15 songs on which Muñoz fuses the traditional banda and norteño sound that have characterized his music with genres that have also shaped his musical palette: bachata, country and rock’n’roll.
While mashing up música mexicana with other styles would have been frowned upon by purists just a few years ago, when it mainly catered to an older audience, the decades-old genre is now reaching a new generation of listeners, thanks to a wave of young Mexican and Mexican American hit-makers who have embraced a more nuanced approach. By modernizing lyrics and borrowing from genres including trap, hip-hop and country, regional Mexican music has earned the approval of Gen Z — and Muñoz is leaning in.
“When I was creating this album, I broke out of my comfort zone to rebuild myself,” he says. “This album served as an exercise to see how far I can go and where I draw the line so it doesn’t go outside of Mexican music. It was like creating the perfect salad with a balance of protein and carbohydrates.”
Now, with Eden behind him, Muñoz’s heart is at peace. “I have my studio, a little lake next to us where I go fishing, and I love to cook. I have everything here,” he says of his home in Mazatlán, a resort city in Sinaloa, Mexico, where he lives with his wife and children when he’s not on tour. (His Como en los Viejos Tiempos U.S. trek began in August.)
His newfound creative freedom hasn’t only benefited the music, but has altered his perspective, too. “I know I’m not at No. 1, and I probably never will be, and that’s cool,” he says. “I feel f–king great. I do what I want. I work with the people I want to work with. I’ve matured. That, to me, is being in my prime.”
This story appears in the Sept. 28, 2024, issue of Billboard.
