Latin Mafia Made It to the Top By Feeling It All
The Evolution of Latin Mafia
Before our interview begins, Milton de la Rosa — one of the vocalists in the Mexican band Latin Mafia — is busy playing the harmonica. “It’s crazy. It’s relatively simple until it isn’t. Playing clean notes is hard. We’re working on that right now,” he says as his twin brother Emilio and his older brother Mike arrive.
Latin Mafia, made up of the trio of brothers, just arrived from a trip to Paris, capping off an intense year that shot them to the top of the Latin music scene. During a rare break, they speak with Rolling Stone en Español about their latest project — and how they’re working on their mental health, learning new things, reflecting on success, and taking their career to the next level.
The guys have known how to step out of their comfort zone and evolve when necessary, breaking rules, and understanding that music is felt deeply. With that approach, they have connected with an increasingly large audience, going from 200-person crowds to 200,000-capacity venues.
A Foundation of Closeness
Clearly, their closeness as brothers came long before they became a band. They shared bunk beds since they were little — the kind with a mattress that slides out from the bottom. “We’ve always been very close. We played football, went to music lessons together. We’ve always been a very close-knit family. We slept in one room, in a three-tier bunk bed,” Emilio says.
“Even after we’d been able to make a living from music for quite some time, when things were going relatively well for us, we still lived at our parents’ house… Closeness isn’t something new for us; it’s something we’re very, very used to,” Milton adds. “I think that’s been pretty key to our dynamic as a project, not just as brothers or as friends. There’s no filter when we say, ‘No, for real, that’s terrible, that sounds wrong, we have to do something else.’ We really don’t hold back among ourselves.”
The Art of Getting Good
That relationship with music has also been changed over time through hard work and personal discipline, as they continue to evolve even after achieving success with their debut. Milton references Tyler, the Creator: “He once said that he had to work at becoming good… that he was already doing things and had to learn to play the piano. He didn’t feel naturally gifted.”
That idea resonates directly with his own process. “Even if I don’t feel good at something, I’m very good at getting good at things,” he says, in contrast to the more intuitive talent he recognizes in his siblings. “Mike is a genius at production… Emi has a very refined ear, very good taste,” he adds. “I’m not afraid to screw up a million times because I know that, eventually… if there’s something we don’t know, we’re going to do it wrong until we get it right.”
Redefining Success and Mental Health
After an intense year, taking a break meant starting to look inward and asking questions that don’t usually come up when everything is moving so fast. “I was talking to a psychologist because right now I’m seeing three psychologists and a psychiatrist. I said: ‘We’re going to tackle this from every angle.’ I’m bombing the anxiety and depression,” Milton confesses.
“There will be a lot to write about…,” Emilio jumps in. “After TODOS LOS DÍAS TODO EL DÍA, we felt like we had nothing left to say, nothing left to talk about. Now, we definitely have a lot to say. It’s cool to be, in a way, grateful for your most vulnerable self, to be at peace with your saddest self, your most depressed self, your most anxious self. In the end, it’s a part of you that exists, and even if you want to get rid of it, it’s something that will always be with you.”
Today, Latin Mafia is in a phase of rediscovery and reinvention, committed to growing without losing the everyday life that keeps them grounded.
