3BallMTY Is Back — And So Is Tribal Guarachero, Mexican Pointy Boots and All: ‘Every 10 Years, Things Come Back Around’

On an August Monday, four days after weather forced the postponement of their show, 3BallMTY packed The Rooftop at Pier 17 in New York. It was another sign that the Monterrey trio — which returned to the stage with its original lineup in 2025 after eight years away from major touring — has reconnected with a new generation of Latin ravers and tribaleros.

Now, the group has a plan to build an even closer bond with that community beyond its current Club Conexión Tour. Billboard can exclusively reveal Tuesday (Sept. 1) that Sin Permiso Sessions by 3BallMTY, a recurring 360-degree live experience, will bring Erick Rincón, Alberto Presenda (DJ Otto) and Sergio Zavala (DJ Sheeqo Beat) into smaller venues alongside the community that has grown around their sound.

Inspired by the Boiler Room format, each night will begin with an individual DJ set from one of the members, before all three join forces for the full 3BallMTY show. Presale and early access will be managed through private codes via Laylo, intentionally keeping capacity limited.

The goal isn’t simply to play smaller rooms, but to curate from doors open to the final track. “It’s going to be 3BallMTY parties where we’ll be playing all night,” Sheeqo Beat tells Billboard backstage, before the group’s Pier 17 set. “It’s going to be really cool. They’re very intimate shows, in smaller venues, maybe 500 to 1,000 people, and you’re literally playing while the crowd is right there next to you.”

That intimacy represents the next phase of a comeback that began last year. The original lineup reunited for the La Vuelta Tour in 2025 and has maintained its momentum ever since through tour dates and festival appearances at EDC México, MXLAN Festival in McAllen, Texas; Lollapalooza Chile in Santiago; Sueños Festival in Chicago; and Michelada Fest in El Paso, Texas. In 2026, the group has stayed on the road with its Club Conexión Tour, which has already hit dozens of cities and included sold-out dates in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Nashville, Denver and New York.

“New York means a lot to us, because this is where we first started traveling and getting people to know the project,” Otto says. “And now, being back with a tour that’s been very successful for us, it’s an incredible experience.”

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. 126.

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.

Otto recalls that the movement also found a major audience in the U.S. through Mexican immigrant communities. “A lot of migrants moved to the United States and brought that fashion with them,” he explains — citing areas around Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, Texas, as markets where tribal culture continued to grow.

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.

“I remember someone always saying that every 10 years, things come back around — with music, with fashion, all that kind of stuff,” Otto says. “And I feel like this time around is completely different. Artists, DJs — everyone is paying attention to the rhythm now. Not necessarily to the 3BallMTY project, but the rhythm is really hitting. It’s also a genre that comes from Mexico, with Colombian roots and African roots in the percussion. It’s a great moment for the genre.”

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.S.

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 still commissions boots from artisans in Matehuala, San Luis Potosí, one of the earliest epicenters of the aesthetic and its dance crews.

On Monday (Aug. 31), Rosalía shared an Instagram image wearing white leather boots with dramatically long toes stamped with “La Rosalía.” And Cain Culto, one of Billboard Latin‘s June On the Radar picks, unveiled the cover of his upcoming album CULTO, out Sept. 24, wearing knee-high brown cowboy boots with similarly pronounced points. They are not necessarily direct references to tribal guarachero, but the images echo a visual language that the scene helped popularize.

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. “I think we redefined it, in order to take it toward a more commercial, more mainstream sound. And norteño above all — that’s where we come from.”

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. “I wanted to experiment a little, so I stepped away from the project, but the project continued,” he says. “There was a bit of a break in 3BallMTY, but I feel like the return has been really right.”

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. “But now we’re where we always wanted to be.”

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.

“We’re much more involved in the tour now, 100% — in production, in making the merch — and we’re still 100% in charge of producing our own songs,” Sheeqo Beat adds. “That’s our flag. It’s how we started, and it’s the origin and authenticity of the project.”

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.