Do we like them?

Do we like Peso Pluma?

Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words about any group turned up and he backed migrants, but the glamorised narco lyrics and a thin record on other issues keep it mid-table.

Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija was born in Zapopan, Jalisco, in 1999 and raised in Guadalajara. He picked up a guitar at 15, learning off YouTube, and used songwriting as his outlet. His stage name, meaning featherweight, came from a suggestion by former boxer Marco Antonio Barrera. His first studio album came out in 2020, the second in 2021.

The row he can't shake is narcocorridos, songs that sing about drug-trade figures. He told a Mexican outlet in 2023 the genre was “muy satanizado” and said of the lyrics “Esa no es mi vida diaria”, meaning he is representing what the corrido says. At Coachella in 2024 he answered the criticism through the staging of his set rather than a direct statement. Where you land depends on whether you read it as storytelling or as glamorising violence.

In 2023 banners appeared in Tijuana with death threats, allegedly signed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, telling him not to play. He cancelled that show, and promoters later cancelled five more, with one promoter blaming logistics. That's him on the receiving end of threats, so it doesn't count against him either way.

The cartel-link talk is the murky bit. In February 2025 Latin Times relayed claims by journalist Luis Chaparro, on a podcast, that US agencies had a large investigation into the singer, and a podcast host's claim that border agents question him for hours. The article reported no charges and no official confirmation, and said Peso Pluma had stayed silent. Allegations from a podcast are not findings, and we're not treating them as one.

On the harm check, nothing turned up from him against LGBTQ+ people, trans people, women or the planet, though we found little from him on climate either. In June 2025 he, his management and his label put out an Instagram statement standing with immigrants during the Los Angeles raids. They said they had donated to four immigrant-rights groups. That's the clearest thing he has said and done on how people are treated.

Nothing fresh we could verify lately. The big 2026 items were a US arena tour announced in January and his pulling out of Colombia's Estéreo Picnic festival, which organisers put down to the tour clash.