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If your first meeting with singer-songwriter El Bebeto was as the sunglasses-sporting, skinny black jacket-clad guest vocalist swaggering his way through 3BallMTY's smash "Inténtalo," you'd be forgiven for assuming that he was another pointy boots-obsessed, über-hip tribal scenester. And, well, it's not that he isn't -- it's just that the artist born Carlos Alberto Garcia Villanueva also has a pretty steady "day job" as the leader of a seriously up-and-coming banda.

Yes, long before his sojourn in the club with 3Ball's beat-makers, El Bebeto was building a serious career for himself in Mexican regional music. He was singing at parties around his native Sinaloa at age seven, joined his first band at 13, and along the way, earned fans like revered musician José Molina Serrano for his soulful tenor and confidence with regional Mexican styles. By 2010, Villanueva had formed Banda Patria Chica and released his debut album on Universal, the horn-drenched, pop-friendly banda Sinaloense effort Quiero Que Seas Tú.

His guest spot with 3BallMTY only increased El Bebeto's global profile. But lest his banda fans think he'd gone totally pop on them, he quickly donned a cowboy hat again and put out another collection of banda-fied slow jams and sauntering party cuts, this year's Ese Soy Yo. So believe us when we say that this multi-talented kid is going places -- maybe quite a few of them.