Leslie Grace

Leslie Grace did not spend 13 years away from music standing still. She became a leading lady, stepped into the world of superheroes and found a new creative language through film. Now, in 2026, she has brought all of those versions of herself back to where her career began.

On May 1, Grace released Amor, ¿Quién Eres?, her first full-length album since 2013. Across 14 songs, she moves through bachata, Latin pop and R&B while reconnecting with the Caribbean sounds at the foundation of her music. Some of the material reaches all the way back to songs she began writing at 19; other pieces grew out of journals and experiences accumulated during the years she was building a second career onscreen.

© Daniel Boczarski

For Grace, that return also carries the perspective of a Dominican American artist who learned early that she did not have to fit neatly into one category. Born in the Bronx to Dominican parents and raised in Florida, she was discovered by producer Sergio George as a teenager. Her bilingual bachata interpretation of “Will U Still Love Me Tomorrow” became a breakthrough, taking her to No. 1 on Billboard’s Tropical Airplay chart and making her, at 17, the youngest woman at the time to top Latin Airplay.

Acting dramatically expanded that world. Grace played Nina Rosario in Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights, bringing her music, performance and cultural identity together on a much larger canvas. She was then cast as Barbara Gordon in Batgirl, although Warner Bros. Discovery ultimately canceled the film’s release in 2022 while it was in postproduction. Grace continued building her acting career while finding her way back to recording.

By 2025, that musical return was already taking shape with singles including “AYAYAY” and “INMERECIDO.” In 2026, the two sides of her career came together with unusual clarity.

© Astrida Valigorsky

At SXSW, she arrived with two films: Jonás Cuarón’s Campeón Gabacho and Ryan Booth’s Stages, in which she plays a rising singer on tour. Stages went on to win the festival’s Best of Texas Award. Weeks later came Amor, ¿Quién Eres?, an album informed not only by the singer Grace had always been, but by everything acting had taught her about character, storytelling and trusting her own creative instincts.

Speaking with ¡HOLA! in 2026, Grace described music as the foundation of her career while explaining that performance, whether through a song, a film or dance, has always been part of the same impulse to communicate feeling. That connection now feels especially clear.

At 31, Grace is not simply returning to music. She is bringing more than a decade of experience into a new chapter, one that allows every side of her artistry to exist on her own terms.