How One Los Lobos Video Broke Down Barriers for Artists with 'Brown Faces' on MTV (And No, It Wasn't 'La Bamba')

Jeremy HelligarSun, March 15, 2026 at 5:36 PM UTC

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Los Lobos in 1984. From left: Cesar Rosas, Louie Pérez, David Hidalgo, Conrad Lozano and Steve Berlin.Credit: Paul Natkin/WireImage -

The Mexican American band Los Lobos formed in East L.A. in 1973

The quintet made their major-label debut with the 1984 album How Will the Wolf Survive?

In 1987, they scored a No. 1 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 with a cover of the Mexican folk classic "La Bamba"

The fingerprints of Mexican American artists are all over the history of popular music in the United States. From rock & roll pioneers Ritchie Valens and Carlos Santana to country legends Johnny Rodriguez and Freddy Fender to leading ladies Linda Ronstadt, Selena Quintanilla and Selena Gomez, American artists of Mexican descent have made an indelible mark in a variety of music genres.

And then there’s Los Lobos, the stars of the new documentary Los Lobos Native Sons (named after their Grammy-winning 17th album, Native Sons, released in 2021). The film, directed by Doug Blush and Piero F. Giunti, premieres March 15 at the SXSW film and TV festival.

Best known by the masses for their 1987 No. 1 hit “La Bamba” — a cover of the Mexican folk song previously recorded and released as a single by Valens in 1958, from the 1987 Valens biopic of the same name — the band from East L.A. became only the fourth act to top Billboard’s Hot 100 with a song sung entirely in a language other than English. (Valens died in 1959 at age 17 in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson; his sister Connie appears in the documentary.)

Lou Diamond Phillips as Ritchie Valens in 1987's 'La Bamba'Credit: (Photo by Columbia Pictures/Getty Images)

Although it took Los Lobos 14 years from their formation in 1973 to top the charts globally ("La Bamba" also went to No. 1 in Canada, Australia and the U.K., among several other countries), the band had already secured a reputation for breaking down barriers in 1984 with How Will the Wolf Survive?, their first album on a major label (Slash/Warner Bros.).

Los Lobos.Credit: Bolt Media

The title track, which became their first Hot 100 entry, also became one of the first videos by a Hispanic act to go into regular rotation on MTV.

"It was the first time they had an AM hit," comedian Cheech Marin says in the documentary before humorously recalling his first impression of the single: "I, I know this man, I’ve heard this man before. Los Los Los Lobos!"

Terri Hemmert, a musicologist and DJ at WXRT FM Chicago, which played mostly alternative rock in the '80s, adds, "We loved them so much, and we’d play the heck out of them. "[How] Will the Wolf Survive?" — that was like number one. If we were a Top 40 station that would [still] be number one."

Director Robert Rodriguez, who worked with Los Lobos on soundtracks to several of his films, including 2003's Once Upon a Time in Mexico, gives his praise a more personal spin: "[How Will] The Wolf Survive?" would play all the time on MTV because the video was really great. They looked like they could be my [uncles], my family, my friends. It was really inspiring. You just had never seen anything like that before."

Los Lobos.Credit: Bolt Media

The effect was more than musical and personal, as Texas U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro points out. "Watching that video at a time where you just didn’t see that many brown faces on MTV or in these music videos was just incredible," he says in the documentary.

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Other artists weigh in on how Los Lobos were game-changers with "How Will the Wolf Survive?" — both the song and the album.

Ruben Blades: "I was not a person to sit down and listen to albums completely, but it’s an album that created such attention."

Bonnie Raitt: "That’s the best way to change hearts and minds, is to get in there, you know, with a beat, and then let people start thinking about what you’re saying. They really created a masterpiece with that tune."

In the documentary, the band, which still features four of the five original members — David Hidalgo, 71, Louie Pérez, 73, Cesar Rosas, 71, and Conrad Lozano, 75 — as well as saxophonist Steve Berlin, 70, who joined in 1982, discuss their long journey, acknowledging the heavy toll their long absences cost their families and the importance of their “ride or die” wives to their success. George Lopez, Linda Ronstadt, Boz Scaggs, Tom Waits, Edward James Olmos and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons also pop up to talk about Los Lobos' artistry and far-reaching influence.

Los Lobos.Credit: Bolt Media

Los Lobos Native Sons connects the trajectory of the band to that of Hispanic Americans over the past several decades, even touching on California's anti-immigration movement that gained momentum in 1994 with the passing of Proposition 187.

Against the odds, Los Lobos not only survived; they thrived by remaining true to their heritage. In 1992, they performed their 1978 song "El Canelo" on Sesame Street (a muppet named Canelo, created specifically for their appearance, popped by to take their food order during the performance). The band's popularity in the '80s and '90s paved a path for the emergence of Latino hitmakers like Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez in the late '90s, and in 2009, President Barack Obama invited the group to perform at the White House.

"I've never felt more American, and I've never felt more Mexican than I do now," Louie Pérez says toward the end of the film. "I saw the face of America change — and the face is brown."

Los Lobos Native Sons premieres March 15 at SXSW and screens through March 18.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”