From Rumba to Reggaetón: Latin Music in Billboard’s Backpages

Streaming has carried Latin music to the top of the Billboard charts, but the magazine covered it for more than 100 years before Bad Bunny hopped to No. 1. From genre architects like Xavier Cugat to current hit-makers such as Karol G, and from “Bésame Mucho” to “Despacito,” the many subgenres of Latin music have for over a century added flavor to U.S. airwaves — and the pages of Billboard. What’s living without La Vida Loca?

Lingo Duo

“A great artist most certainly,” raved the Aug. 24, 1926, Billboard about Raquel Meller, a Spanish-born Broadway headliner. “These are folk songs, street ballads of her Barcelona…. For all the talk of not needing to know the language to understand there is frantic searching of librettos to appreciate” it. Billboard got the rhythm for the Nov. 2, 1940, cover story on Cugat, which described the bandleader as “aiding and abetting the present craze for the conga and tango,” and credited him for the “skillful integration of Latin American syncopation into the daily lives of the American public.”

‘Apple’ Music

“Pérez Prado’s waxing of ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’ has passed the 1,000,000-mark in sales,” reported the May 21, 1955, Billboard when the Cuban orchestra leader’s single was still No. 1 on various pre-Hot 100 singles charts. (When the Hot 100 debuted on Aug. 4, 1958, Prado’s hit “Patricia” was No. 2.) By the Aug. 18, 1956, issue, Tito Puente was big enough that his Cuban Carnival was reviewed alongside the new Frank Sinatra album. It “should attract some jazz fans as well as the more conventional Latin-American buyer.”

Latin Calling

“The U.S. Latin market had been a widely scattered field with radically different musical tastes,” reported the Sept. 6, 1986, Billboard. To make sense of it, the Oct. 4 issue introduced a new chart to address “the growing needs of the Latin market.” That chart, now called Hot Latin Songs, was compiled by staffers by “calling the top 70 Latin (Spanish-speaking) radio stations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.” (Don’t ask about the phone bills.)

Big ‘Mac’

A multipage package in the Aug. 17, 1996, Billboard covered the “exploding regional-Mexican market,” which grew because of “down-to-earth, hard-gigging performers” such as Los Tigres del Norte and La Mafia. That same year, Los de Río’s “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)” topped the Hot 100 for 14 straight weeks. “ ‘Macarena’ was largely a Top 40 event, and a sorely needed one,” noted the Sept. 7 issue. An article the following week declared that the dance craze had become a staple at “weddings, bar mitzvahs and family reunions nationwide.”

Nuevo Mundo

“English isn’t the only language of value” J Balvin told Billboard in an April 29, 2017, cover story. Prophetic words: On May 27, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” began its 16-week run atop the Hot 100 — an unheard-of feat for a song in a foreign language. Since then, many Latin artists have gone mainstream en español. “When I came into this industry,” Bad Bunny said in an article in the Feb. 16, 2019, Billboard, “I was never afraid to be myself.”

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