This millennial duo launched Cynthia, a print magazine about música Mexicana for Zoomers
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It was a highly stylized photo of DannyLux looking like a space matador that caught my attention.
I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram at some point last fall when I came across the image — the “Jugaste y Sufrí” teen idol is looking into the camera, the whites of his eyes obscured by the shadow cast by a mop of curly hair; he is donning a lilac traje de luces while holding a laser blaster. With my curiosity piqued, I clicked on the post to learn more.
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That was my first introduction to Cynthia, an independent bilingual magazine focusing on the world of música Mexicana, a genre with a very long history in the United States that has exploded in popularity on a global scale over the last decade thanks to a slew of Gen Z acts. The global pandemic was a pivotal moment for the genre: Many of the artists dominating the streaming charts nowadays were autodidacts who got their start in their bedrooms during the COVID-19 shutdown, learning to play their instruments via YouTube tutorials, sharing their progress on TikTok and building massive fan bases online in the process.
The glossy periodical released its inaugural issue in January (it will be putting out two more this year), featuring profiles of artists like cumbia pop princess Estevie and Francisco “Poncho” Alfonso of Arsenal Efectivo (the band, considered the godfathers of trap corridos, performed at the De Los showcase at the South by Southwest music festival earlier this week). The highlight of the magazine is easily its imagery; the first issue features the work of photographers Guicho Palma, Monica Zulema, Patricio Malagón and others.
Cynthia is the brainchild of Steven Rodriguez, 37, and Javier Ramirez, 42, two friends from the Greater Los Angeles area who met in 2013 while teaching woodworking in Pasadena for a local nonprofit. Though Rodriguez moved to Mexico a few years later — first to Monterrey, then to Tijuana before finally settling down in Mexico City — the duo stayed close, sharing corridos they heard and liked online. Rodriguez says it was his job as co-owner of an independent printing press, as well as the downtime that came with a global pandemic, that inspired him to work with Ramirez on their own project.
“We were printing a lot of books and magazines for other people, and finally I was like, “F—, dude, let’s just try to make our own magazine,” Rodriguez told me at Cynthia’s L.A. launch party, held at Coyote Studios in Boyle Heights in late February.
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1. Sam Vasquez with a goat from a Cynthia Magazine shoot (Photo by Angelica Grijalva) 2. A group of friends in a music festival of regional mexicano in Mexico City. (Photo by Valentina Lara) 3. Santy and Alex of the music group Santy y Su Estilo Unico hanging out in Brooklyn, New York. September 2024. (Photo by Sarah Messinger)
It didn’t take long for them to figure out what their publication would focus on.
“It was always this,” Ramirez added, referring to música Mexicana. “We noticed something was happening and we needed to be involved. We were just thinking of doing something for fun, and it quickly snowballed.”
Rodriguez says he knew they were on the right path after a visit to Riverside with his girlfriend. The two found themselves stranded after their car broke down and had to be rescued by his mom, who took them to the Galleria at Tyler in Riverside, the shopping center he went to frequently when he was younger.
“I noticed that every single kid under 20 was a ‘takuache,’” he said, referring to a look that’s synonymous with the Edgar, which has become popular among young Latinos and is often associated with the world of música Mexicana. It dawned on him that the younger generation were leaning heavily into their parents’ culture.
“There’s something really alternative about this brown aesthetic,” Rodriguez continued. “I grew up as a punk emo kid who would go to the Glasshouse in Pomona to watch bands from Omaha, Neb., that I related to. I thought, ‘These kids have [música Mexicana]; none of them have to find their way through hardcore white-guy music if they don’t want to.”
The duo said they were blown away by the positive response they received from creatives and industry professionals alike.
“When we started building this thing, not a single person ever said no to us. No one told us that it was a bad idea,” Ramirez said. “The reaction was always very positive. People would say, ‘Oh that sounds amazing! Let us know how we can help!’ From stylists to photographers, people really wanted to be a part of this.”
Cynthia is by no means a large-scale operation. Only 3,000 copies of the first issue were printed, and despite targeting millennial and Gen Z audiences, two generations whose formative years were spent online, the magazine doesn’t have much of a digital footprint — its website is barebones and its Instagram follower count is at 2,800 as of this writing. It also feels counterintuitive to launch a physical magazine when print is dying (interestingly, my colleague Gustavo Arellano wrote about another Latino-focused print publication launched this year in his latest column).
Still, it’s hard not to root for Cynthia. As someone who writes, assigns and edits a lot of stories on música Mexicana, and who genuinely believes that covering it nowadays is what I imagine covering hip-hop in the late ’80s and ’90s must have felt like, I can’t help but feel a kinship with Rodriguez and Ramirez. It’s incredibly heartening to see that the duo are giving the genre the high-end, glossy treatment I think it deserves.
And how do they measure success?
“To hear someone say, ‘Wow, this is so cool! This is what I’ve always wanted to see!’ when you show them the magazine,” said Ramirez. “That really resonates with me. Just putting something out there that you’re truly proud of without anybody else’s approval.”
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De Los at SXSW 2025
As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, the De Los team headed down to SXSW to host our second annual music showcase. This year’s lineup included Conjunto Rienda Real, Arsenal Efectivo, Los Sultanes del Yonke, Midnight Navy, Edgar Alejandro and Bolo the DJ. I wasn’t able to make it to Austin this year because of new dad duties, but from what I’m told, it was quite the desmadre. Don’t take my word for it. Tomás Mier over at Rolling Stone said it was “likely the most-paisa music event of the week thus far.”
In addition to our showcase, the De Los team has been chronicling the Latin music scene at this year’s festival on our live blog, which you can read here.
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