The Rise of Latin Pop Music 🤠
The Football Fever around from the Euros meant a throwback to Shakira's 2010 hit: Waka Waka, and reminiscing the rise of Latin Pop Music over the years.
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Hi Everyone!
Last week, we wrote about the rise of Electronic Dance Music, and how far the culture has grown, to the point wherein most major sporting events have heavy influence from the EDM community.
With Martin Garrix repping the flag for Dance Music at the Euro 2020 this year, we couldn’t help but dig deep into the impact of these sporting anthems on the rise of a particular genre.
Remember Colombian Pop Star Shakira’s song “Waka Waka” from the Fifa World Cup 2010?
The song defined the beginning of a new era, the World Cup was held in Africa for the first time ever, the Internet was finally beginning to seep into every household and social media was just starting to blow up.
A perfect recipe to go viral right? And boy it did.
The video has garnered 2.5 Billion views to date on YouTube, sold 10 Million copies: making it one of Shakira’s best selling works of all time, and is among the Top 30 most-watched videos on YouTube of all time 📺
Years later in 2020, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira also performed in the Half-Time Show for the Super Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Although they did not get paid for their performance (the NFL does not pay any artist for performing at the Super Bowl) their sales increased by an insane 1,013% in the US 🤯 after their performance at America’s most expensive televised event.
It is this type of representation that has reinforced the position of Latin Pop on the global map 🌍
So how big is Latin Music really?
As of 2020, the industry is valued at $655 Million, with a CAGR of roughly 18%. Checkout the half-yearly report by the RIAA for the numbers behind the size of Latin Music in America 👇🏻
Artists like Shakira, Pitbull, Enrique Iglesias, and Ricky Martin have had a deep cultural impact which is still prevalent to this day as it paved the way for Latin artists to break through into the mainstream pop sound of the 80s and 90s.
However, the contemporary ones aren’t doing too bad either.
If you are looking to dig into some new Latin Artists, Bad Bunny might be a good place to start as he was the most-streamed artist on Spotify in 2020 with over 50 Million monthly streams from the release of his album “YHLQMDLG”.
But how did this all begin? How did Latin Music blow up to become this multi-million dollar industry? Let’s get into it 👇🏻
The origins of Latin Music can be traced back to the 1970s, the year of its development into a ballad-infused genre with the help of artists like Julio Iglesias and Roberto Carlos.
It picked up in the United States in the 80s when the clubs in New York and Miami became centers for the thriving Latin music and culture.
The biggest Latin star of the 80s, Gloria Estefan made the crossover of ballads and dance-pop hits which freed the genre from the shackles of club-oriented music and broke into mainstream sounds as American singer Selena’s posthumous album “Dreaming of You” topped the album charts in 1995 after its release.
After its initial rise in the 90s, the second wave of Latin music came in the early 2000s when artists like Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Pitbull, and Ricky Martin achieved mainstream success.
Enrique went on to release the global hit “Bailamos” in 1998- which reached the No.1 spot in Spanish Singles Chart and US Billboard Hot 100, Daddy Yankee released his global hit “Gasolina” in 2004, while Shakira scored big with ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ in 2005.
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While Latin artists were enjoying the newfound attention from the mainstream Pop culture, there was yet that one big watershed moment still yet to come.
And so it did, in 2017.
Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee revolutionized the genre with their global hit “Despacito”. The music video hit 6 Billion Views on YouTube, it was literally on every radio station, played across nightclubs and people were humming its Spanish lyrics everywhere.
Despacito topped the charts of 47 countries, and In the US, it became the first Spanish song to top the Billboard Hot 100 since 1996 🔥
Another factor that played a part in the rise of Latin Music was the collaborations that came after the genre blew up in 2017.
J Bavlin’s 2017 hit “Mi Gente” was remixed and featured the Pop legend “Beyonce” and Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” was remixed and featured “Justin Bieber”. Unsurprisingly, this became a theme in the mainstream Pop genre as artists collaborated with Latin musicians.
Justin Bieber helped in introducing “Despacito” to a new audience: his worldwide fanbase.
Premiering on YouTube in April, the ‘Despacito’ remix with Justin Bieber was an unintended crossover sensation technically primed for pop perfection. Its success allowed Latin pop music to receive unprecedented attention and smash the chart records.
For Latin Artists, this was the fastest way to the top as the songs would almost always contain English and Spanish- the two most spoken languages in the US.
The accessibility and democratization of streaming platforms such as YouTube and Spotify have made Latin America an incredibly influential tastemaker in music discovery.
Streaming played a significant role as patterns of enthusiastic fan bases like K-Pop stans emerged in the Latin Pop genre.
Spotify helped in breaking out new Latin Pop talent. In 2019, Spotify’s ¡Viva Latino! playlist highlighted nine rising artists in its original video series Radar Latino which helped increase eyeballs on the genre.
The artists enjoyed an average 49% increase in streams after being featured 👇🏻
Our Take on this?
Latinx is one of the biggest communities in the US and recent years have shown the decentralization of trends that revolved around English music. Be it K-Pop or Latin Pop, language is unquestionably no longer a barrier for music fans.
Artists like J Balvin, Bad Bunny, and Carol G have found their way into the mainstream sounds across the world, as they clock in millions of listeners on Spotify every month.
Bad Bunny also stepped out of the conventional norms as he delivered his acceptance speech at the Billboard Awards 2021 in Spanish instead of English.
The world is truly becoming one big melting pot of various cultures, and music is probably the biggest contributor to the same! 🤘🏻
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