Carlos Santana and Becky G are using their new collaboration, “Mi Gran Amor,” to speak to a reality many Latin families in the U.S. know intimately: the fear, grief and instability caused by immigration enforcement and family separation. Set for release Thursday (May 28) at 8 p.m. ET, the pan-Latin rock track — written and produced by Edgar Barrera — pairs an urgent narrative with Santana’s searing guitar work and Becky’s emotionally grounded vocal.
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The song brings together three Mexican and Mexican-American artists from different generations and corners of Latin music. It also marks Santana’s third single tied to his forthcoming album, following recent team-ups with Grupo Frontera (“Me Retiro”) and Carín León (“Velas”). For Santana, “Mi Gran Amor” was an opportunity to make his playing communicate something bigger than the lyrics alone.
“As always, I want my guitar, the melodies, to sound and feel like a universal hug,” Santana tells Billboard Español by phone from Detroit before heading on stage. “Now more than ever in this planet, we need unity, harmony and oneness. That’s a universal hug.”
That idea runs through the heart of “Mi Gran Amor,” which frames immigration policies not as an abstract political debate, but as an everyday rupture felt inside homes, relationships and working-class routines. On the track, Becky sings, “Migra, mi gran amor se fue por culpa de la migra” — “Migra, my great love is gone because of la migra” — using the colloquial Spanish term often used to refer to U.S. immigration authorities such as ICE.
For Becky, stepping into that story required humility. “In all honesty, I think it was first and foremost accepting my privilege,” she tells Billboard. “As someone who was born here in the States, I will never truly understand what it is to walk those steps.” Instead, she says, she approached the song by “allowing myself to be just a vessel for those voices that can’t speak up right now.”
For Barrera, the song’s origins were pressing and personal. The songwriter-producer says he began writing “Mi Gran Amor” in McAllen, Texas, after learning that a friend had been detained by ICE that same morning. “Right now the world needs more songs with purpose,” he says. “This is the reason why we wrote this song … to help those people that don’t have the voice.”
Like Becky, Barrera acknowledges the limits of his own point of view while still feeling a responsibility to speak up. “I was born here in the U.S., so I can’t feel maybe that from the same perspective that maybe somebody that’s actually going through it can feel,” he says. “But at least I can relate to it and be part of that voice.”
Barrera adds that he plans to donate all royalties he earns from the song to families impacted by ICE detentions in the border region, including for legal support.
Santana, who is set to carry that same spirit onto the road with his ongoing Oneness Tour with the Doobie Brothers, returns to the message he hears inside the song itself: connection over division. Later this year, he’ll also bring it to Las Vegas for his An Intimate Evening With Santana: Greatest Hits Live run. “Anybody who comes to a concert, they’re going to be validated and celebrated,” says the legendary guitarist. “Santana is a force that speaks way beyond politics or religion. It’s a unifying frequency.”
Listen to a teaser of “Mi Gran Amor” below.
