Jesse & Joy stop after two decades as Jesse Huerta steps back from the duo

Jesse & Joy, the Mexican sibling duo who have been releasing records since the mid 2000s, are stopping. Jesse Huerta published a message on his own Instagram setting out why, and it is a personal statement rather than a band announcement: he says he has decided to take time to be with his family, to look after himself and to give himself the breathing room he now feels he needs.

The language is careful and it is all about health. He writes that he understands he has to put his wellbeing first, that the decision comes from a place of love and from needing to protect his peace and his mental and emotional health, and that he needs to live at a different pace, be more present with the people close to him, and carry on growing, creating and exploring other paths. Nothing in the message points at a disagreement, a contract or a label.

On what happens to the act itself, he was warm rather than final. He called Jesse & Joy a fundamental part of his life and said that sharing the road with his sister, and watching their songs become part of other people's stories, is something he values deeply. He thanked Joy Huerta for the good memories and for letting him accompany what he called one of the most beautiful voices on the planet, with his hands, their songs and his own voice.

He was similarly direct about the catalogue outliving the arrangement. "Nuestra musica nunca parara," he wrote, our music will never stop, describing it as something bigger than the two of them that now lives through the people who listen to it. For a Latin Grammy winning act whose hits include Corre, Dueles and Ecos de Amor, and whose albums Con quien se queda el perro and Un besito mas defined a stretch of Latin pop radio, that is a reasonable read of where the songs sit now.

The stopping is not immediate. He said he will meet his professional commitments up to a show on 17 November in London, and in a later post extended that to 5 December. As of publication Joy Huerta had said nothing publicly, which leaves the one question the announcement raises unanswered: whether this is Jesse stepping back from a duo that continues in some other form, or the end of the act, which the outlet's own headline treats it as.

Artists framing a step back around mental health rather than a split has become the more common script. KATSEYE's Sophia Laforteza announced a hiatus on the same grounds this year, and Maribou State paused after finishing a tour rather than working through it. Jesse & Joy are the rare case where the act is also a family, which historically makes these announcements harder rather than easier, as the Band Perry's siblings demonstrated in public. More latin news is on the hub.