Inside the Rancho Humilde Film Starring JayDee

J
ayDee’s days under the grueling sun, picking peaches in the fields of Yuba City, California, don’t feel that long ago, especially lately. But it’s been almost a decade since the trap-corrido pioneer turned actor was grinding just to make ends meet for his family. In those days, music was a mere hobby. “The sun was barely coming up, and we were already picking,” he recalls. “You got paid for as many bins as you filled, so we had to go extra hard.”

Now, things look a lot different for the Mexican American star. He’s carved out a reputation as a secret weapon in the trap-corrido space with the band Herencia de Patrones, but he’s been revisiting his past memories for a life-changing career moment: The 28-year-old artist is making the leap to Hollywood as he plays Chito in Columbia Pictures and Rancho Humilde’s new film Clika, partially inspired by his journey. Out in theaters Jan. 23, Clika marks a major milestone as música mexicana makes its way to the big screen.

In the film, Chito knows his single mother is struggling to keep their childhood home, and the pressure to step up as the man of the house weighs heavily on him. At the same time, he’s a songwriter, surrounded by friends who push him toward the mic. The film veers from JayDee’s story and takes some artistic liberties as Chito turns to transporting drugs for the character of Tío when fruit-picking isn’t enough. The story follows him balancing making music with making fast money, only to learn there’s no shortcut to success. JayDee tapped into the trials he faced in his own life as a teen. “I’m really being myself from 10, 11, 12 years ago. I’m just putting myself in my shoes in the perspective of Chito, which is JayDee, Jesús Diego, back then,” he says, referring to his real name. “It’s not much of a difference from who I am now, except back then I was just really hungry to go out and get it.”

JayDee auditioned for Jimmy Humilde, the film’s executive producer and the head of Rancho Humilde, the música mexicana juggernaut label that first discovered JayDee when he was doing fieldwork. Humilde has said he also considered Jesús Ortíz Paz, the beloved frontman of Fuerza Regida, for the role, but ultimately chose JayDee because of his emotional connection to the story.

Like Chito, JayDee spent his free time singing classic corridos, serenading his fellow fieldworkers. After work, they’d keep playing music over food and beers. “I wasn’t looking to make a career out of it or anything,” he says. “It was just for fun. That’s why we were doing it.”

Still, he kept at it and, in the process, helped pioneer a new sound. Even if JayDee won’t claim the title himself, many in the industry credit him with pushing corridos into a new era by ­folding in hip-hop lyricism and a rap-influenced delivery. Herencia de Patrones quietly helped shape the modern corrido landscape, laying the groundwork for artists like Peso Pluma and Rancho Humilde labelmates Fuerza Regida to make it global. 

“I don’t really speak on it like, ‘I’m the pioneer, and we did this, we did that,’ but it’s more of ‘If you know, you know,’” he says. “I let my music do the talking.”

Herencia de Patrones started playing at backyard kickbacks during football games and carne asadas in 2016 and 2017. JayDee’s mind keeps going back to his first customer, nicknamed Tavo, who gave him $500 for his first paid gig. “It was definitely an eye-opener: ‘No way I could get paid like this for doing something I like.’ Time flies when you’re doing it, so it was like, ‘Might as well do it for some bread.’”

By the time things started to take off for the band, JayDee had already traded peach-picking for construction work, commuting three hours from his hometown to the Bay Area to make more money. At the same time, he was posting original songs and performance videos on YouTube that slowly began to gain traction. “Bladi420,” a home-shot corrido dedicated to his stoner friends, dropped in 2018 and quickly caught on. The song later appeared on En Vivo Desde Wounded, his first release, a live album that introduced the band’s style through a mix of covers and original songs. 

“There was nobody from Northern California popping out with any type of music,” JayDee remembers. Humilde’s label was quickly becoming a star-maker in the growing corridos-tumbado space and signed the band. Then came Pa Las Vibras in 2019, which became a clear turning point that showcased JayDee’s ­songwriting strength. 

His ascent helped inform so much of Clika, which traces the ins and outs of the música mexicana industry. But while JayDee knows that world well, he was less familiar with the complexities of acting. He’d never been on a film set before, but luckily had a few scene partners to help him along the way, including the late Peter Greene (who died in December) and Oscar nominee Eric Roberts, who plays a pivotal role toward the end of the film.

“There’s one scene where I have to get really angry, and the director [Michael Greene] was like, ‘Hey, you’re not angry, bro.’ I was like, ‘Bro, what the fuck do you mean I’m not fucking angry?’ I was cussing,” JayDee says. “ ‘This is already my sixth try. This is as pissed as you’re going to get me, bro. You’re not going to get me any angrier.’”

Roberts stepped in. “Look, bro, just pretend like your family’s getting slaughtered,” JayDee remembers the actor telling him. “I would not expect Eric Roberts to jump in with a tip like this, but I stuck to it. And sure enough, the take after that was the one.”

Clika is just one of the film projects Rancho Humilde has planned as it maps out ways of tying música mexicana with the broader culture. The genre has continued to expand: In 2024, it was the largest Latin music subgenre, with more than 13 billion U.S. on-demand audio streams. Clika bridges the musical parts of música mexicana; Herencia de Patrones released El Mundo Es Tuyo, a companion album inspired by the film, featuring both corridos and some románticas JayDee has been working on. “It’s a whole bunch of love tracks that I’ve been having stacked up for a minute, just ready to release, and now finally finding the time for it, especially with the lovey-dovey scenes in the movie,” he says.

Whatever comes next, JayDee is moving forward on his own terms. Amid heightened focus on immigration and ICE raids that have affected much of his community over the past year, he wants the film to offer a moment of relief — and a reminder that, regardless of where you come from, anyone can reach the top.

“I hope it brings hope. To show that even we were able to make it, coming from an immigrant family, working in the fields, it’s possible to make it,” he says. He’s learned a lot from filming Clika: “There are no shortcuts to living your dream.”