More than a decade after “Inténtalo” ignited a cultural movement, the Mexican DJ trio is inspiring a new wave of tribaleros.
The Big Apple was also part of 3BallMTY’s first major breakthrough. During the Mexican tribal boom of 2012, the trio appeared at LAMC (Latin Alternative Music Conference), and in outlets including Billboard and Remezcla, as “Inténtalo” helped take its Monterrey-born sound beyond the parties where it first caught on.
In 2012, 3BallMTY made tribal guarachero impossible to ignore. The DJ-producer trio fused Mexican music cadences, cumbia and electronic music into the explosive sound of “Inténtalo,” its first major hit with El Bebeto and América Sierra.
The song reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart, while the album of the same name topped Top Regional Mexican Albums and entered the Billboard 200 at No.
That year, the group swept nine Billboard Mexican Music Awards, including new artist of the year, duo or group; artist of the year, duo or group; and song of the year.
A month later, it won the Latin Grammy for best new artist. Its ascent was accompanied by a full-fledged cultural movement: tribal dance crews, elaborate Mexican pointy boots and a VICE short film originally released in 2011 that helped take the scene beyond the parties where it flourished.
Titled Mexican Pointy Boots, the video documented dancers in Matehuala, San Luis Potosí, and their cowboy boots with exaggeratedly long — and sometimes upward-curving — toes, helping a local aesthetic reach an international audience before social-media virality became the norm.
For 3BallMTY, the current moment isn’t just a nostalgia trip — it’s proof that tribal (and the hybrid musical language the group helped bring to the mainstream) has continued to evolve.
Otto says the genre’s momentum cooled somewhat in the middle of the last decade, but he started noticing another shift around 2019. Now, he sees DJs and artists responding to the rhythm itself across a Latin electronic landscape that includes a particularly active Chilean guaracha scene.
Sheeqo Beat points to artists and producers, including Plox, Río Roca, Martín White and Berrío, as part of the larger Chilean movement pushing guaracha forward.
For the trio, that cross-border growth is a reminder of the impact of a sound born from Mexican youth culture — and the global conversation now surrounding it. Its influence can also be felt in new fusions of guaracha, alt-pop and reggaetón throughout Latin America and the U.
The visual markers associated with tribal are returning, too. The cover of the group’s recent single “Quiere Lo Suyo” features a silver pair of the genre’s signature long-toed boots as “El Tribélico,” a hibrid of tribal and corridos bélicos, in collaboration with Morenito de Fuego, Sahir Montoya and Grupo 3 Mandos.
3BallMTY ainda encomenda botas de artesãos em Matehuala, San Luis Potosí, um dos primeiros epicentros da estética e de suas equipes de dança.
Rincón says Rosalía’s team contacted them while she was in Monterrey to try to find a pair: “She wanted to wear them,” he says.
The trio is careful to position itself as a key popularizer, but not the genre’s sole creator. “We redefined it, because pre-Hispanic tribal already existed with earlier DJs in Mexico City, like Ricardo Reyna and D-Mouse,” Sheeqo Beat explains.
The original trio’s rise was exceptionally quick. Rincón, Otto and Sheeqo Beat were teenagers when they began sharing tracks through 4shared and email lists, eventually drawing the attention of Mexican superproducer Toy Selectah, who encouraged them to turn it into a formal project.
Rincón stepped away from 3BallMTY in 2016 to pursue individual projects, while Otto and Sheeqo Beat continued with the group. Looking back, Rincón says he was a different person during their initial rush of success.
He also acknowledges the pressure of navigating such a sudden ascent when the members were only 14 to 16 years old. “When this took off, I remember having a certain vision for the project, and it was so intense that it led me to make bad decisions,” he says.
The current tour has given the group a different kind of validation. “It’s allowed us to experience really great things. For example, filling an auditorium with 3BallMTY as the headliner.
That’s something we had never experienced before, and it’s been incredible,” Rincón says.
That renewed sense of purpose has resulted in a string of releases, including “Son 123Ball” with Deorro; and “Chicas Tribaleras,” a remix featuring neo-perreo artist La Goony Chonga — who made a special appearance at Pier 17 — as well as Miss Bashful and DJ G2G.
The Deorro collaboration was especially meaningful, according to Otto. “Deorro has understood that Mexican music and tribal cadences in cumbia and electronic music work — and the audience really likes it,” he says.
The group says a new album is nearly finished, though it is still deciding on its final releases and sequencing. For now, it expects the project to arrive in the first quarter of 2027, preceded by “Baila Tribal” with Danny Flow and “Ojitos Chiquititos,” a Spanish-language collaboration with Romanian pop artist Alexandra Stan.
Billboard attended the Pier 17 concert as a guest of 3BallMTY’s team and Patrón Tequila, the event sponsor.
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