Cuco Is Ridin’ At His Own Pace

Cuco is taking our Zoom call from his car, camera angled upward, California sun behind him. “I’m sorry, my mom texted. Can you ask me that one more time?” he asks, brushing off the moment matter-of-factly.

It’s a fitting setting for our conversation about his third studio album, Ridin’, which was released in May. In the Cuco universe, the car is more than just a mode of transportation—it serves as a liminal space, a studio, and a confessional. “I live in my car,” he says. “I drive everywhere. I’m always on my car, on a bike, or on a skateboard. Music’s always playing. I guess it clears my head a bit.”

For Cuco—born Omar Banos in the South Bay city of Hawthorne, California—the affinity for cars comes in part from his origin in Los Angeles. On the cover of Ridin’ is his actual car, a 1989 Toyota Supra, while track visualizers feature everything from drop trucks to old JDM cars. “Car culture has always been a thing in L.A.,” he explains, nodding also to the city’s iconic Mexican-American lowrider culture. “I wanted to show that off.”

The 27-year-old first rose to fame as a bedroom pop prodigy, blending Spanglish lyrics with lo-fi romanticism out of his parents’ house. His 2017 breakout single, the dreamy, synth-laced “Lo Que Siento,” took off on SoundCloud—earning hundreds of millions of streams and opening doors to a seven-figure Interscope deal. His critically-acclaimed psychedelic 2019 debut Para Mi was followed by 2022’s Fantasy Gateway, which integrated slicker production and a track with Kacey Musgraves—which he performed at Coachella.

Building on this foundation, Ridin’ pulls together the various threads of the singer’s previous music—from synth-pop to norteño—while introducing a distinctive soul influence. “I always knew I wanted to do a souldie, a Chicano soul record,” Cuco explains. “I also grew up hearing a lot of old rock, eighties rock, románticas. So, on the surface level, it was just me going deeper into different YouTube algorithms trying to find music.”

To this end, the album is a treasure trove of genres: Mexican boleros (which he grew up with) and corridos (which he didn’t grow up with, but his friends did) intertwine seamlessly with doo-wop harmonies and bright horn sections. Tracks like “My 45” and “ICNBYH” wear these retro influences proudly with grand, emotional choruses. Where early Cuco felt more digitally native, Ridin’ is decidedly analog.

Much of the project was produced with Tom Brenneck (Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson), whom Cuco credits with helping bring a new level of structure to his process while allowing him to maintain his artistic identity. “With Tommy, we would structure a song top to bottom before we recorded it—I had never really done that before,” he says. “But I still wanted to keep some of the psychedelic stuff. It felt like a good fusion of the psychedelic me and the other part that really just loves soulful music.”

Lyrically, meanwhile, he leaned into the simple, unfiltered emotions that define soul music—structuring many of the songs like “nursery rhymes.” “I just mean there’s nothing deep to analyze in most of these songs,” he says. “Everything’s straightforward and stares you right in the face. That was part of my purpose in making a soul record—it’s about saying something that easily captures the listener.”

It’s in the vocals where even day-one Cuco fans might be somewhat more surprised. “Now that you’re gone, I just can’t move on,” he belts in a powerful falsetto in the latter half of “Walk The Way.” “It’s one of those songs that stood out because, it was like, really, nobody had ever heard me sing like that,” he recalls.

While his early work was lumped in with what was once the bedroom pop scene, Cuco feels like he—and many of his contemporaries—have moved beyond labels. “Yeah, that was just the label of the internet, but I’ve definitely grown from that,” he says. “I guess we were just all making music in our bedrooms, but as production started increasing, we’ve all kind of established ourselves as artists.”

This evolution is just as true of Cuco’s cultural identity as it is his sound. In a landscape where bicultural artists are often expected to code-switch or choose between audiences, Cuco’s commitment to his own authenticity has become central to his artistry. His 2023 collaboration with The Marías on “Si Me Voy” underscored a generational fluidity between English and Spanish, or indie and pop.

“I feel like my pen is really strong in Spanish,” he quips. “It’s not hard for me to write a song in Spanish. There’s a lot of intricate lyrics. You can play a lot with metaphors. It feels like me being me. I’m not trying to fit into anything that I’m not, but I know a lot of people are going to relate to what I’m representing even if their story is different. Every Mexican-American grows up really different depending on what part of the U.S. they’re from. So I’m just doing my part, just playing my story.”

He adds, “As a musician, a composer, instrumentalist, arranger, producer, I’ve always done everything I can to prove that I could do anything as long as I’m actually a fan of whatever I’m making.”

Hazy, sun-soaked, and endlessly in motion, Los Angeles feels like the only place Cuco’s music could come from—a city where cruising is a lifestyle and emotion hangs heavy in the air. “L.A. has a fast vibe, but also depending on where you’re at—it can be really slow,” he muses. “I want the album to feel good for a car rider or airplane rider. That’s where the sequencing came from.”

It’s a kind of quiet positivity that underpins Ridin’—a reflection of where Cuco is now, both creatively and personally. He’s sober, and credits that clarity with helping him find balance. “I’m just taking care of myself, my health. I’m able to take care of people around me,” he says.

It’s something he’s proven from the beginning: his first merch check went toward a dishwasher for his mom, revenue from his first tour afforded a full house remodel, and the record deal bought him a house just five doors down from his parents.

Beyond that, Cuco says he doesn’t really believe in long-term goals. “I don’t have it in me to think about that or want to be more famous or anything like that,” he shrugs. “I’m not making millions and billions of bucks, but I’m also in a good place and I’m happy and I’m sober. I’m not falling out or anything like that. Me being happy and stable is what makes me feel successful.”

On social media, you might catch him skating or posting casual slice-of-life updates. “I’ll be posting music stuff and I’ll post something that I’m doing,” he offers. “I’ll be skating and doing whatever. When I’m not working, I separate myself. I like to be very present as a person. You know what I mean?”

Ridin’ is out now.