Rodrigo y Gabriela Release Their First-Ever Vocal Song

09-16-2026

(PPR) GRAMMY-winning guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela have shared "Somos Como Tu," a joyous, rhythmically charged new single that marks a historic first in their two-decade-plus career: the first Rodrigo y Gabriela song to feature lyrics and vocals. Arriving alongside an accompanying video, the track appears on the duo's forthcoming album, OurHome, due September 18th via ATO Records.

For a duo whose worldwide career has been built around the expressive possibilities of two guitars, "Somos Como Tu" opens an entirely new dimension of their music. Rodrigo Sanchez takes the lead with soulful vocals while Gabriela Quintero answers with a rapid-fire cadence, their voices surrounded by effusive hand percussion and ecstatic gang vocals from a group of local fans. The result feels unmistakably Rodrigo y Gabriela even as it ventures somewhere they have never gone on record before.

Its title translates to "We Are Like You," and the song turns that simple phrase into a larger statement about migration, displacement, dignity, and shared humanity. Written from the perspective of people searching for a path and a place to belong, "Somos Como Tu" considers the arbitrary circumstances that separate one life from another while returning again and again to the idea that beneath those divisions, our experiences and humanity are shared.

"I wrote that song when I was living in Paris in 2015 and always loved it, but for some reason we could never come up with a version that sounded like us," says Sanchez. "We decided to try again for this album, and it turned into something that felt very powerful and honest, and even more relevant than it was 10 years ago."

That decade-long journey gives "Somos Como Tu" a particular place within OurHome. Rodrigo y Gabriela have spent much of their adult lives moving between countries and cultures, beginning in Mexico City, finding their first major audience in Ireland, and eventually building a global career that has taken them around the world. On an album centered on the idea that home can be something internal rather than geographic, the song widens that question to consider what belonging means for people whose circumstances force them to leave home behind.

The track also represents an unexpected evolution for two musicians who have spent over 20 years communicating without words. Since their international breakthrough, Rodrigo y Gabriela have developed a musical language built around Sanchez's fluid lead lines and Quintero's fiercely rhythmic approach to acoustic guitar, turning instrumental music into a vehicle for emotion, storytelling, and connection. "Somos Como Tu" brings actual language into that conversation for the first time, without abandoning the physical energy and percussive interplay at the heart of their sound.

Recorded in Japan and self-produced by Sanchez and Quintero at NK Sound Tokyo, OurHome emerged after a period of creative frustration led the duo back to the fundamentals of what they do best. Returning to the textural fluidity of acoustic instrumentation following the electric-guitar-heavy sound of 2023's In Between Thoughts...A New World, the album reflects Rodrigo y Gabriela's decades-long relationship with Japan and the sense of artistic and personal renewal they have repeatedly found there.

"We've always felt drawn to Japan because of the art and aesthetics and attention to beauty," says Quintero. "There's also something about being there that invites you to look inward, to reconnect with who you really are and what gives you meaning."