A University Trip to Latin America Opens Students’ Eyes & Ears: What They Learned

This past summer, we were selected among 13 Syracuse University students in the Bandier Music Business Program to study the music business hands-on by visiting five cities across three countries in Latin America.

Bandier visits different emerging music markets almost every spring, with previous trips touching down in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Korea and Indonesia, among others. This year, for the first time ever, Latin America was our destination, and we visited Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, where we met with over 75 executives across virtually every sector of the music business. We gratefully learned from top executives at Spotify, YouTube, Sony, Universal, Warner, Live Nation, Believe and countless local labels, publishers, collecting societies and more. We also attended multiple festivals (including Laufey at Popload in Sao Paulo!) and nightclubs, immersed ourselves in local culture, and enjoyed incredible food. 

What we encountered challenged what we know about the music industry in the U.S. and opened our eyes to the different opportunities and challenges to be found in different territories. Here are our takeaways as students of the music industry looking to make an impact across countries and cultures.

Different Strokes

Some of the aspects of the music business in Latin America were surprisingly (at least for many of us traveling there for the first time) different from what we’ve known in the U.S. For starters, YouTube ad-supported models were much more important in these markets. In the United States, paid subscriptions easily account for more than two-thirds of the total recorded music market, and 80 percent of streaming revenues. But in markets like Colombia, ad-supported streaming was worth nearly 40 percent of the entire market. This puts enormous focus and importance on finding ways to improve conversion rates from ad-supported to paying subscriptions.

Relatedly, with much of the internet access coming from mobile partners, music partnerships with telecoms become even more important. In Brazil, for example, Deezer offers “free” service with TIM Brasil; and in Colombia, Claro users having access to Claro Música, now a top five service in the country.

Merch was also very different from our U.S. experiences as we traveled; counterfeit merch thrives in some of these markets, to the point where some tours and shows have accepted they cannot compete with the enormous markdowns happening just outside Latin American venues.

And finally, as AI-generated music rises in popularity, we were fascinated to learn more about Latin America’s legal framework, rooted in continental law, including moral rights. While the U.S. enforces moral rights in some ways, largely in the context of encoding them into other laws, these rights were more powerful and central in Latin America. Moral rights are not transferable and are distinct from economic rights (like copyright) and focus on the author’s personality and identity. We heard from certain executives that moral rights could be used as an important tool for protecting artists from AI engines that might look to train without permission. 

What’s Next (Emerging Genres in South America)

We aren’t just studying the music business – we are all also huge music fans. And we found a lot of exciting new sounds in our travels that deserve a bigger audience. In Colombia, Latin Afrobeats, a blend of African diasporic beats with reggaetón and champeta, is showing regional growth on the DSPs, and combines elements that will already be familiar to music fans. Executives told us that this movement largely emerged from Cali, and has spread along the Atlantic coast to Cartagena, Barranquilla and elsewhere, with consumption growing in Bogota, behind artists such as Zaider, DFZM, Hamilton and Junior Zamora. (If you want to know more about this, read Billboard‘s excellent list The New Generation of Afro-Colombian Artists: 10 Gems to Know.)

In Brazil, Funk Brasilero, a genre deriving from the favelas and peripheries of major cities, has been around for a decade or more now, but deserves to expand beyond the country. Some of the favorite songs and artists we discovered on this trip include DJ Caio Prince, MC Jacaré, MC Delux and MC Pedrinho. While often known for its samba, Pedra do Sal was one of many center stages where we were able to fully absorb the culture and energy of Funk Brasiliero. Where is this energy in the pop versions of funk that get pushed in the States? The genre is held back by the disorganization of those driving it as much as anything else. But we, along with many of the other Bandier students on the trip, felt that these hyper-local scenes that are youth-driven offer authentic soundscapes for the next global crossover. 

Mexico in the Crosshairs? 

Latin music’s path north — from South America, through Mexico and into the U.S. — makes it all the more concerning that Mexican artists have had to cancel tours because of visa issues. Even big artists like Grupo Firme and Julión Álvarez have had concerts canceled because the Trump administration has revoked their visas. At least one major label executive we spoke with acknowledged that they were keeping an eye on this increased U.S. scrutiny, particularly as it relates to corridos. The U.S. government has cited these specific songs as glorifying cartels, while at the same time, some local Mexican governments have been banning them. If these issues continue, they threaten to disrupt the distribution pipeline that has been so successfully running south to north in recent years. 

Brazil vs. LATAM

Brazil operates as both part of and apart from the LATAM music business. While often grouped under the “Latin” umbrella, Brazil’s linguistic, cultural and historical differences create a distinct industry ecosystem. Spanish-language charts are often dominated by Mexican or Colombian acts, but Brazil has built its own parallel, Portuguese infrastructure, with its own genres like funk, Sertanejo and Forro. This makes it all the more remarkable that Brazil has re-emerged as a top 10 IFPI market, underscoring how important music is to the population. We felt it in the clubs and on the streets, and everywhere from sports bars to restaurants.  But it also presents unique challenges for crossing over Brazilian acts. We learned that most Latin American music works its way up South America and into Mexico before crossing over to the States; a lack of Spanish makes this path much less likely. 

Props to Puerto Rico

We didn’t visit Puerto Rico on this trip, but the influence of the island was everywhere – and powerful, thanks to the expansion of reggaetón. Even before we touched down in Bogotá and Medellín in Colombia, we knew that reggaetón was not only a ruling genre in the country, but that the Colombian version is a worldwide phenomenon, behind artists like J Balvin and Karol G. As a Puerto Rican (Adriana) writing this, I can attest that I know a thing or two about reggaetón, but upon immersing myself in Colombian culture, I took note of a few differences the genre has there.

Though not always, Colombian reggaetón tends to sound more pop-oriented with more bouncy melodies. Another factor is the production tends to be more minimalist, focusing on the genre’s signature dembow rhythm, while Puerto Rican reggaetón usually carries more instrumental elements. The end result, however, is the same: Reggaetón is a unifying force throughout Latin America.