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Acuna singer-songwriter Emiliano Ortiz has released “Pompeya,” the lead single from his forthcoming album Música Country, an eleven-song project built around a simple but still uncommon idea: making original country music in Spanish from northern Mexico.
Since launching his project in 2020, Ortiz has released four singles and an EP and has steadily built an audience around his interpretation of country music in Spanish. His music has taken him to stages across Mexico, including MTY Country Fest, DuckFest, Festival del Rodeo Saltillo and HEB Grillmaster.
His independent project has grown to more than 13,000 monthly Spotify listeners and 60,000 followers on TikTok, establishing Ortiz as one of the emerging voices in Mexico’s growing Spanish-language country scene.
Supported by Mexico’s Programa de Estímulo a la Creación y Desarrollo Artístico (PECDA), Música Country expands on that trajectory with eleven original songs written by Emiliano Ortiz and produced by Obed Alejandro Reyes (Attaboy) around the experiences, landscapes and identity of northern Mexico.
The album draws from the traditions of American country music while approaching them through a distinctly Mexican and Spanish-speaking perspective.
“Pompeya” focuses on the pressure young people feel about their future — the weight of expectations, uncertainty, anxiety, and the feeling that they should already know who they are supposed to become.
The song was inspired in part by a phrase Emiliano heard in an interview with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who told young people that they have “a hell of a lot of time” to find their way.
The title Pompeya turns that idea into a metaphor: a city buried by a force beyond its control, reflecting the way expectations and uncertainty can sometimes overwhelm young people before they have had the opportunity to find their own direction.
The track features Brent Mason, one of the most recorded guitarists in Nashville history and a twelve-time Academy of Country Music Guitarist of the Year. A Musicians Hall of Fame inductee, Mason helped define the sound of the Telecaster in 1990s country through recordings with artists including Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn and George Strait.
His unmistakable Telecaster playing on “Pompeya” creates a direct connection between the Nashville tradition and an emerging Mexican project developing original country music in Spanish.
For Ortiz, Mason’s participation carries significance beyond the recording itself. His contribution represents a meeting point between the history of modern country music and a new generation of artists developing the genre outside its traditional borders.
The visual identity of “Pompeya” draws from psychedelic imagery associated with the Grateful Dead, introducing another layer to a project that deliberately brings together country tradition, Mexican identity and contemporary influences.
With Música Country, Emiliano Ortiz is not attempting to reproduce American country music from Mexico. He is building an original Spanish-language expression of the genre from the northern border of the country — using its musical language to tell stories that belong to a different place and generation.
“Pompeya” is available on all digital platforms.
