Maná

Latin rock icons Maná rank among the most commercially dominant recording and touring forces in the history of Latin music. Within their home country of Mexico they accumulated hundreds of gold and platinum certifications while scoring more than fifty number-one singles worldwide, collecting numerous trophies at the Grammys, Latin Grammys, Billboard Awards, and MTV Video Music Awards, claiming the Premio los Nuestro prize on fifteen occasions, and moving in excess of forty million units.

The quartet first assembled in Guadalajara in 1986, uniting vocalist Fher Olvero, guitarist Ulises Calleros, bassist Juan Diego Calleros—Ulises’s brother—and Cuban-Colombian drummer Alex González under an initial Polygram contract. Displeased with the creative path the label envisioned, the group migrated to Warner Music ahead of the 1992 arrival of their debut album Falta Amor. Ulises soon departed, making room for keyboardist Iván González and guitarist Cesar Lopez, the latter pair appearing solely on the landmark 1994 release Donde Jugaran los Niños?, the project that established Maná as major figures in Latin rock. The live document En Vivo surfaced in 1995, the same year guitarist Sergio Vallin debuted with the band on Cuando los Angeles Lloren.

Following the 1997 issuance of Sueños Liquidos, the ensemble attracted mounting international notice, especially in the United States, momentum reinforced by the 1999 MTV Unplugged set and their contribution “Corazón Espinado” to Carlos Santana’s Supernatural. Santana reciprocated by guesting on the 2002 album Revolución de Amor, which confirmed Maná’s superstar stature and secured them a Grammy for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album. Four years afterward they delivered their sixth studio effort, Amar Es Combatir, tracked at Miami’s Hit Factory; the set opened as the highest-charting Spanish-language debut by a group on the Billboard 200. Five years elapsed before another studio album materialized, though the live recording Arde el Cielo appeared in 2008. After multiple postponements, Drama y Luz finally emerged in 2011, entering the Billboard Top Five before ascending to number one. A subsequent world tour moved twelve million tickets, among them seven consecutive sellouts at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, after which the band paused and scattered a few singles across the next four years.

They resurfaced with the advance track “Mi Verdad,” a duet between Shakira and Olvero that simultaneously topped multiple charts. The resulting studio album, Cama Incendiada—issued in April 2015 and marking the first occasion the group enlisted an external producer, George Noriega—reached number one in Spain along with Billboard’s Top Latin Albums and Latin Pop Albums charts. In 2017 Maná joined Dhruv Kumar for “Creatures of Habit,” included on the Pieces That Do Not Fit EP, and the following year they partnered with steel guitarist Kay Das on the album Awapuhi Ginger Blossom.