State Champ Radio Latin music
Vallenato, a folkloric genre with roots in the department of Cesar, northern Colombia, has seen many artists take its essence beyond their homeland. Taking as a basis its typical instruments, such as the accordion, the snare drum, and the guacharaca — and adding modern musical arrangements that have given it a contemporary sound — artists […]
In their much-cited 2023 paper “Glocalisation of Music Streaming within and across Europe,” Will Page and Chris Dalla Riva note that the rise of global streaming platforms correlates with the strengthening of local music.
This seemingly contradictory state is what the authors refer to as “glocalisation” — or “glocalization” in the American spelling. And in Latin music, that phenomenon has led to a spike in local genres like corridos, banda, funk and Argentine rap in recent years.
According to Pedro Kurtz — Deezer’s head of music for LATAM, speaking on a SXSW panel titled “Latin Music Momentum In The Age of ‘Glocalization’” on Tuesday (Mar. 12) — it’s about relatability.
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“We listen to music that we relate to, that represents us culturally. You look at artists and they’re speaking my language, and everything moves from there.”
Kurtz appeared on the panel alongside Cris Garcia Falcão, MD of label and artist strategy/GM of Latin at Virgin Music, and Sandra Jimenez, head of music in Latin America at YouTube — and the conversation (which I moderated) often turned lively between the three Brazilian executives.
Their points of view not only highlighted the glocalization phenomenon and how democratization and streaming dramatically changed Latin music, but also the similarities and differences between the Brazilian and Latin American markets, which many tend to lump together — even though they’re vastly different.
Although Brazil is an enormous and powerful market, the music is in Portuguese, and there is still a language barrier that must be broken down in order to break through internationally; even Brazilian megastar Anitta had to sing in Spanish to get noticed.
But, notes Jimenez, “There is no language barrier for Spanish. It’s almost like one big country. It’s a region with more than 300 million people. It’s a huge region.”
Its sheer size has given the region clout.
On YouTube, Latin America is “one of the top three regions in the world in terms of music consumption,” said Jimenez. For Deezer, added Kurtz, “It’s the second most important region in terms of streaming and engagement.”
And the vast majority of the content consumed on streaming platforms in Latin America is local.
For example, Falcão said that before the pandemic, “It was more about Anglo content. Now, it’s more democratic. Everyone should understand our region and our culture and adapt.”
Those who do, win. In Brazil, more than 80% of music consumption is local. In Mexico, says Kurtz, “72% of our streaming comes from local artists. It’s a big number, and local branches are getting more autonomy. Back in the day, we had other forces pushing music.”
Beyond the numbers, there are other intangibles. The Latin diaspora globally has led to music in Spanish, in particular, being consumed all around the world — and that phenomenon was accentuated during the pandemic. “It made us more internal,” said Jimenez. “It wasn’t possible to meet with friends and family, so we created community.”
As Latin music consumption has increased, so has music creation and investment in the region. Kurtz says that starting in 2020, Deezer has seen its number of weekly pitches in the region almost double — reflecting an increased interest in making music.
“It’s about people valuing their own cultures, and the charts are basically a mirror of that,” he said.
Mexican superstar Thalia attended Billboard‘s Latin Music Week to exclusively present four songs from her new EP of Mexican music. Attendees at the “Premiere Party” on Tuesday night (Oct.r 2) were the first to hear the first single “Bebé, Perdón”, released at midnight, in addition to “Te Va a Doler”, “Para Qué Celarme” and “Choro”, part of the album that will be titled A Mucha Honra.
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The album, which she said she had been working on for almost two years, will be released in early 2024 under the Sony Music Latin label. Under the production of Jimmy Humilde, it will include collaborations with Ángela Aguilar and Dania from Grupo Sin Límite, the Mexican superstar announced.
Dressed in a monochrome white outfit, blue boots, and shiny gloves, the Mexican singer shared with the deputy editor of Billboard Español Sigal Ratner-Arias, the moderator of the event, details of the creative process with Humilde, one of the promoters of the global phenomenon of the new wave of Mexican music with whom she partnered to produce it, and who also went on stage for a few minutes.
Humilde says that he made his first call with Thalia “trembling with emotion”, because of the admiration he has for her as an artist. However, he found a very calm person and the connection was immediate, he mentioned. They soon began working on the project with which Thalia wanted to delve deeper into her roots as a Mexican.
“The requintos evoke something in the soul, something in the heart, something of longing, something of oblivion, of pain, of love, something distant but close,” she said. “And then accompanied by the lyrics… I needed to sing this type of content in my songs. In this album I have discovered a more heartbroken, spiteful, painful Thalia.”
Regarding the moment that Mexican music is going through, which now enjoys a global reach, the singer noted: “We have always been in fashion. Our music has always been current, and at full strength, we have never stopped in all the musical genres that Mexican music encompasses, which is totally broad, it is beautiful. What is happening now is that the new generation, I feel, is embracing the sounds that move your insides: the requintos, the accordions, they are rediscovering (Mexican music) … I think they are making it their own.”
“That she is adapting and coming to support this genre is incredible,” added Humilde about Thalia’s new foray. “Imagine, having someone with so much name, so much power, so much history entering the new genre that we have in our Mexican music is something super cool.”
To decide who would accompany her to connect with her roots in music with more regional Mexican sounds, Thalia had a very methodical approach. “My father was a criminologist,” the star recalls. “I remember that I would sit on the table and he would tell me: ‘Always ask, always analyze… you look for something that you need to know.’ And when this movement came out, criminologist Thalia Sodi came out, and I said, where did this come from? Who was the precursor? Who was there from the beginning?… and I came to mister Humilde.”
Humilde took Edgar Rodríguez, producer and close collaborator, to meet with the artist to work on the project. Thalia’s words to Rodríguez were: “I don’t bite. I want to sound like me, like Thalia, but not. Help me so I can let go of the crutches that I use, that I love, my styles… Tell me, I’m not going to get angry. I want to learn; I want to change and learn other things. And we did it.”
“I’m happy, excited precisely because tonight, like Cinderella, the float is going to change… We’re going fully in,” said the singer about the first single of the album, “Bebé Perdón,” that is now available.
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“This song hurts me, I put it on repeat in the car while I drive… It doesn’t hurt me because of a personal relationship, because it’s not what I’m living. I am very happy, very grateful in my life, but it touches a vein of nostalgia, something that no longer exists, that is already gone, a part of nostalgia for our country, somewhere in our life history”, she said.
On the visual side, the superstar says that the video was recorded in California with 115-degree temperatures that caused the soles of her boots to melt on the pavement while she was alert for the rattlesnakes that inhabit the area. The singer performs the song in an open field, dressed in a silver sequin top with fringes, accompanied by three musicians and a truck.
Celebrated for more than 30 years, the 2023 edition of Latin Music Week includes a Superstar Q&A with Shakira; the Legends on Legends chat with Chencho Corleone and Vico C; Making the Hit Live! with Carin León and Pedro Capó; a panel with RBD’s Christian Chávez, Christopher von Uckermann, and Maite Perroni; Superstar Songwriter discussion with Edgar Barrera and Keityn, among many other panels, Q&As and workshops. See the ultimate Latin Music Week guide here. This year’s Latin Music Week, taking place Oct. 2-6, also includes showcases by Peso Pluma, Mike Bahía and Greeicy, DannyLux, and Fonseca, to name a few. Check out the dates and times for the showcases throughout the week here.
Official partners of the 2023 Billboard Latin Music Week include AT&T, Cheetos, CN Bank, Delta Air Lines, Lexus, Netflix, Michelob ULTRA, and Smirnoff.
Latin Music Week coincides with the 2023 Billboard Latin Music Awards ceremony, which will broadcast live from the Watsco Center in Coral Gables, Fla., on Thursday (Oct. 5) and will air on Telemundo. It will also broadcast simultaneously on Universo, Peacock, the Telemundo App, and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean on Telemundo Internacional.
Latin music, long seen as a trend that ebbed and flowed through the years, is finally being seen as a true market player — with mainstream American labels, TV shows and even management companies increasingly courting (and signing) Latin acts.
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But to truly succeed in the Latin market, those mainstream players must proceed with caution and cultural intelligence. That was the sentiment among industry leaders at a recent “State of the Latin Industry” panel during the Latin Alternative Music Conference in New York July 12.
“Obviously it’s a natural consequence of what’s happening with Latin music globally and it was to be expected,” said Roberto Andrade, managing director for Warner Music Latina. “[But] it’s positive as long as you work in partnership. In our case, we signed [Argentina rising star] María Becerra to Warner Latina, but we’re associated with [American label] 300 Entertainment, so they can also bring opportunities to the table. As Gus said, ‘Work in what you know.’”
He was referring to Gustavo López, CEO of Saban Music Group, who earlier in the panel had been particularly passionate when talking about the industry’s current gold rush regarding regional Mexican music — a market López worked with extensively during his days as president of Mexican labels Fonovisa and Disa, between 2008 and 2011.
“It saddens me when people talk about a Mexican music ‘boom,’ when it’s been 60% of the Latin music market for the past 40 years,” he said. “Make no mistake: Companies like Del, Rancho Humilde, have taken advantage of the opportunity major companies left to the side, and they’ve done it very well, and they’ve done it with the right teams. I ask labels to not get into genres they don’t know without the right teams, because they’ll f–k it up.”
Gustavo Lopez, Colleen Theis, Alex Gallardo, Leila Cobo, Mickey Sanchez and Roberto Andrado pose at the LAMC State of Latin Music Panel on July 12, 2023 in New York, NY.
The same principle, he said, applies to mainstream American labels rushing into Latin. But, he adds, “It’s also the artist’s responsibility to decide who he goes with. That’s where it all starts. If you’re simply going with X executive because he did a thousand things in another market, and now he’s going to do it in the Latin market, be very careful. If they don’t have the right team to execute, it’s going to be tough. It’s not just about money. The biggest danger for an artist is to take money from a place that doesn’t add knowledge.”
In the past year, many record labels and management companies, big and small, have made moves into the Latin market. Among the most noteworthy: J Balvin recently signed a management deal with Roc Nation after three years with SB Projects. In turn, Ozuna signed a management deal with SB Projects. Karol G signed to Interscope, and last year, regional Mexican sibling trio Yahritza y su Esencia unleashed a bidding frenzy before signing with Columbia Records.
Historically, however, there are few, if any, long-term success stories of core Latin acts either managed or signed to mainstream companies. Instead, the big wins have come from artists who partner with labels from both sides of the aisle.
“Partnerships are the smart way to go,” says Alex Gallardo, president of leading Latin label Sony Music U.S. Latin, which has the longest history of partnering with its mainstream counterparts with acts like Shakira and currently, Rosalía, whose EP RR with fiancé Rauw Alejandro (another Sony Latin act) is a joint release between Columbia and Sony Music US Latin. From the other end, DJ Marshmello has been releasing a string of successful singles featuring Latin artists under Sony Latin, including the global hit “El Merengue” with Manuel Turizo.
“I feel many Anglo labels sign stuff without understanding the language, the culture or the media,” said Gallardo, making the parallel with partnerships between Latin majors and indies. “I help you go further because I bring you my knowledge. But what knowledge can I bring you if I don’t understand your world or what you’re doing?”
From an observer’s point, it is impossible not to recognize the opportunism displayed by many who for decades, paid scant attention to Latin music. But Latin music can’t be ignored anymore, not at a global scale; this week, 47 tracks on Billboard’s Global 200 chart are in Spanish, and typically, 30% of Spotify and YouTube’s weekly global charts are Latin. It can’t be ignored in the U.S. either, where, according to Luminate’s midyear music report, Latin music registered a 21.9% percentage growth year over year, more than any other genre except for World Music (which encompasses non-U.S. genres like K-Pop and Afrobeats). Latin also managed to grow its overall share of the market significantly over the same period last year, from 6.25% to 6.72.
Gallardo says he’s conflicted by what these numbers represent to those who have long been outside the Latin market: “Are you signing this artist simply because you want your little piece of market share, because the numbers are good, or because you are really the best partner possible to take a career to the next level? The latter should always be the true reason.”
Which is not to say that mainstream companies cannot do a good job with Latin music. Witness The Orchard, which has been entrenched in the Latin market for decades and has distributed Bad Bunny from the beginning of his career.
“We’ve been working in Latin music from the onset,” said Colleen Theis, COO of The Orchard, noting that the distributor has had its Latin team in place for over 20 years. “For The Orchard, we put music out, and we pull people in rather than deciding what people are interested in. That really underlies that for us Latin music IS general market music, and we work in the general market. I’d rather empower the label base that we have to be the general market, than give those key artists to an American label who is Anglo.”
Shakira and Bizarrap‘s new song has been trending on social media since its release Wednesday night, with fans, artists and celebrities (mostly) applauding the Colombian star for speaking out against her ex in “BZRP Music Sessions Vol. 53.” But two names mentioned in the tune also had something to say.
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No, we’re not talking about Shakira’s ex, soccer star Gerard Piqué, and his girlfriend, Clara Chía Martí. The brands Casio and Renault, manufacturer of the Twingo car, jokingly responded to their respective mentions in the song, when Shakira implies that the soccer player left her for someone of lesser status.
“You traded a Ferrari for a Twingo/ You traded a Rolex for a Casio,” she sings.
“Today we got quite a few notifications for a mention of CASIO in a song. CASIO watches and keyboards and calculators are for life,” the company’s Education Division tweeted from its verified account, with the hashtags #Harder, #Better, #Faster, #Stronger.
Meanwhile, Renault Spain responded using part of the song’s chorus, “A she-wolf like me is not for guys like you,” as well as a reference to the name of Piqué’s lover in which Shakira says: “She has a name of a good person/ Clearly… it is not what it sounds like”. (Clara, in Spanish, means clear.)
“For guys and girls like you. Turn up the volume!” the company tweeted, using hashtags including #clearly #young #agile and #mischievous. The company accompanied the post with an image of a red Twingo with a circle with the number 22 on the driver’s door.
The number refers to the verse “I am worth two 22-year-olds,” the age that Clara Chía would have been when she and Piqué began their relationship. (Check the full translated lyrics of the song here.)
Willy Chirino is celebrating his 50-year music career with a series of tributes, activities and releases — including a mural in Miami’s Calle Ocho, a street with his name in New Jersey, a museum exhibition, a concert and a new album.
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The singer-songwriter behind salsa classics like “Medias Negras” and “Pobre Diabla” was waiting for the right moment to release Sigo Pa’lante, his first studio album in more than a decade, which finally came out in December. With reggaetón becoming more and more entrenched in popular taste, he says he was taking his time to study the landscape.
“There was a transition in music after my last album that was very dramatic,” he explains to Billboard Español about his hiatus. But the 50th anniversary, with all the fanfare and the news surrounding it, was the perfect occasion to release the album he’d been working on for the past three years.
Although he wasn’t really hibernating — in recent years he’d released an album of traditional Latin American songs with his wife Lissette (Amarraditos), two Christmas albums (Llegó la Navidad and Willy & Lissette Navidad En Familia) and other covers sets (My Favorites and My Beatles Heart) — Sigo Pa’lante (which means “I keep going”) is his first project of new music since 2008’s Pa’lante.
Composed of 12 tracks, it opens with the joyous “Imagínate” and includes collaborations with Gilberto Santa Rosa (on the first single “La Música”), Leoni Torres (“Para Mi Viejo”), El Chacal (the album’s title track), Lissette (“Mi Corazón Es Un Pueblo”) and his daughter Jesse (“Agua De Marzo,” a cover of the Brazilian classic “Aguas De Marzo” by Antonio Carlos Jobim).
It closes with an anthem of freedom for Cuba, “Que Se Vaya Ya,” a song as energetic as it is emotional, released in September 2021 with contributions from Lenier, Micha, Chacal, Osmani García and Srta. Dayana. “Let them take all the bad things/ Let them go, let them go/ We can’t take the beatings anymore/ Let them leave now/ Because the people suffer and keep quiet/ Let them go, let them go/ Let them take the shrapnel/ Let them go now ”, they sing in Spanish.
Chirino, in fact, dedicates Sigo Pa’lante to his fans in Cuba, where he says that people continue to listen to his songs “despite all the mishaps they have suffered to do so.”
“They’ve payed a price that is not money, because listening to my music for a long time was totally prohibited,” the artist continues, adding that “when they found them listening, [the authorities] beat them, imprisoned them, took their boomboxes away. In other words, they were mistreated simply for the fact of listening to my music. So that for me has a special recognition”.
Although he clarifies that his songs are not currently banned in his native country, he says that his anti-Castro stance has made him persona non grata, and that his requests to perform in the island have never been answered.
Chirino debuted in 1974 with the album One Man Alone, and has released more than twenty albums since — but his career began earlier, as part of different bands and orchestras. The 50th anniversary dates back to 1972, when he says he began to use his own name when creating music as a solo artist.
On the Billboard charts, he’s scored 13 entries on the Tropical Albums listing, seven of which reached the top 10: Sarabanda in 1986, Acuarela del Caribe in 1990, Oxígeno in 1991, South Beach in 1993, Cubanísimo in 2005, Pa’lante in 2008 and Llegó la Navidad in 2012. He’s also had six entries on the Hot Latin Songs chart, two on Latin Airplay, and two on Top Latin Albums.
To mark his half century in music, the winner of awards such as the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Billboard Latin Spirit of Hope Award has been honored in his adoptive city of Miami with a mural in Little Havana’s Calle Ocho. The 60 by 55 foot work was commissioned by the Miami Mayor’s Office to Chilean artist Alexandra Seda and was unveiled on October 28.
Additionally, the city of West New York, NJ paid tribute to Willy Chirino on December 15 by naming a street after the Cuban salsa star. Accompanied by personalities such as Paquito D’Rivera, the singer (along with mayor Gabriel Rodriguez) unveiled the blue sign for the Willy Chirino Way — at the corner of 54th Street and Boulevard East.
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And the celebrations continue in 2023 with a retrospective exhibition of his career at the HistoryMiami Museum that will be open to the public from January 27 to September 10, and a big concert on March 11 at the James L Knight Center in Miami.
“It really feels great, and to see the people’s reaction is really beautiful,” says Chirino. “I thank God for this extraordinary life that he has given me … For having my family healthy and well, but also for the number of people throughout the world who listen to my music, who dance to it — because that’s what it was made for.”
Barely a week ago, Carin León was announcing the release of his conceptual live album Cura Local (En Vivo) as a “treat” he wanted to give himself for Christmas. On Thursday (Dec. 22), three of its videos are trending on YouTube, including the one for “Dame Un Beso Y Dime Adiós” featuring Grupo Yndio, at No. 1.
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Released on Dec. 15 under his own record label, CL Music, Cura Local (En Vivo) includes 33 covers of songs that Carin León grew up listening to, like “Línea Telefónica,” also by Yndio; Roy Rosas’ “Cuando Toque Mi Piel,” and Los Apsons’ “Triste Luna.”
“I wanted to bring together the great artists from Hermosillo, those that I listened to in my childhood and my teens, and have the world see them,” the singer explained in a press conference in his native Hermosillo, Sonora, in northwestern Mexico, the day before the release. “We have a unique flavor and I want people to understand much more about Carin and my connection with these people, who are part of my DNA.”
“In Sonora, from the 70s to the 2000s, we had our own sound; we had our own way of sounding like a band, like a norteño. With all due respect to my Regional Mexican colleagues, we have always been different here, we have never wanted to look like anyone else, not even in the way we dress,” he added, surrounded by some of the acts featured in the album, such as Los Honorables, Manuel “El Indio” Ortega, Oscar Toscano, Roy Rosas, Alex Ramírez and Grupo Yndio.
Of the 33 songs in the set, 28 have music videos, three of which were trending on YouTube Thursday morning: “Dame Un Beso y Dime Adiós” featuring Grupo Yndio, at No. 1 with more than 3.8 million views; “Línea Telefónica” also with Yndio, at No. 12 with over 950,000 views; and “Déjenme Llorar” featuring Martín Ramos, at No. 20 with 600,000 views. The total views for the album’s videos already surpass 10 million.
According to a detailed report by Oplaai, a company that distributes León’s music, from Dec. 15-19 Cura Local (En Vivo) exceeded 4.5 million streams, with Spotify being the main platform, followed by Apple Music.
Prior to these stats, the singer assured at the press conference that more volumes will be released “because there’s still a lot of music to rescue,” and pointed out that “although singles prevail these days, I still think of making albums and concepts.”
Here are the 10 most-viewed videos for Cura Local in its first week:
1. “Dame un Beso y Dime Adiós”, Carin León Ft. Grupo Yndio
2. “Línea Telefónica”, Carin León Ft. Grupo Yndio
3. “Déjenme Llorar”, Carin León Ft. Martín Ramos
4. “Cuando Toque mi Piel”, Carin León Ft. Roy Rosas
5. “Abrígame”, Carin León Ft. Alex Ramírez
6. “Celos”, Carin León Ft. El Boca Aguada
7. “Triste Luna”, Carin León Ft. Los Apson
8. “Presa de tu Amor”, Carin León Ft. Manuel “El Indio” Ortega
9. “Las Higueras”, Carin León Ft. Fabián Gómez
10. “Tal Vez Sea Mejor”, Carin León Ft. Fabián Gómez
Much has been written about Bad Bunny‘s remarkable year, but he’s not the only Latin artist who made headlines in 2022. From Karol G‘s record-setting tour to Coachella featuring the most Latin acts ever on the lineup to Daddy Yankee‘s manager going to prison, the year was chock-full of big news in Latin music. Here are the 10 stories that helped define the genre’s biggest year yet.
Year of the Bunny
With a smash-hit album and two back-to-back, record-breaking tours this year, Bad Bunny redefined success for a modern Latin artist. The Puerto Rican hitmaker had his biggest year to date, finishing out 2022 as Billboard’s top artist of the year and releasing the first all-Spanish album (Un Verano Sin Ti) to be ranked No. 1 on the Billboard 200 year-end albums chart. He also finished as the year’s top touring act — making him the first Latin act to do so — with a total gross of $373.5 million from 1.8 million tickets sold across 65 shows (the combination of El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo and World’s Hottest Tour). But the superstar wasn’t done yet, as year-end tracking ended while he was still in the middle of the Latin American leg of World’s Hottest Tour. After finally wrapping that run on Dec. 10 in Mexico City, he closed 2022 with a record-breaking $435 million in tour grosses on the Billboard Boxscore charts. Named Spotify’s most-streamed artist globally for the third consecutive year and Apple Music’s 2022 artist of the year, Bunny’s genre-hopping Un Verano Sin Ti also made history last month when it became the first Spanish-language album ever to be nominated for the Grammy Award for album of the year.
That One Time Latin Music Surpassed Country
In its first streaming week in May, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti (which spent 13 nonconsecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200) accounted for 18% of all U.S. Latin on-demand streams, pushing the genre’s streaming market share past country for the first time ever and resulting in its highest streaming week to date with over 1.8 billion weekly ODA streams. That’s bigger than any weekly streaming total for the country genre so far, according to Luminate.
Karol G Sets New Touring Record
This year, Colombian powerhouse Karol G made touring history with her ambitious $trip Love Tour. The trek finished its run as the highest U.S.-grossing tour ever by a female Latin act, grossing $69.9 million and selling 410,000 tickets across 33 shows in North America, according to Billboard Boxscore. With $Trip Love, the “Provenza” singer surpassed the totals earned by Jennifer Lopez‘s $50 million grossing It’s My Party World Tour in 2019 and Shakira‘s 2018 El Dorado World Tour, which grossed $28.2 million. Karol’s AEG-produced arena tour followed last year’s Bichota Tour — the superstar’s first-ever headlining trek in the U.S. — which grossed $13.4 million and sold 192,000 tickets across 26 shows in North America.
Postponed Tours
Not all Latin touring efforts ended in success stories. J Balvin, Anuel AA and Ozuna postponed their 2022 tours for a multitude of reasons, from production challenges to personal matters. In April, just seven days before his CMN-produced Jose tour was set to kick off, Balvin took to social media to deliver the news of its cancellation to his millions of followers. “COVID has caused some unforeseen production challenges, and I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise of giving you the absolute best show possible, he wrote in English and Spanish. In July, Anuel announced that he was rescheduling the Las Leyendas Nunca Mueren U.S. tour — presented by CMN and slated to kick off in August — to 2023. In a statement, the Puerto Rican artist explained that he was pushing back the tour to focus on personal matters. “I’ve been thinking that I need to take some time to recharge my batteries,” he said, noting his desire to “reorganize” his personal life and career. (New dates have already been announced for next year.) On the other hand, Ozuna — who announced dates for the U.S. leg of his OzuTochi Tour in May — postponed without giving an official explanation. His and Balvin’s tours have yet to be rescheduled.
One Latin Executive Goes to Prison, Another is Due in Court in 2023
In May, Daddy Yankee and Natti Natasha’s manager Raphy Pina was sentenced to three years in prison for illegal possession of firearms. The veteran music executive and producer, who also founded Pina Records in 1996, is currently serving his time in federal prison in Florida. Also making headlines for his legal woes in 2022 was DEL Records CEO Angel del Villar, who was arrested in June for alleged shady dealings. Currently released on bond, del Villar is charged with “conspiring to violate the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act,” according to an official statement issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and “conducting business with a Guadalajara-based concert promoter with ties to Mexican drug cartels.” DEL Records is the indie regional Mexican label that’s home to the chart-topping group Eslabon Armado, who in May made history when their album Nostalgia became the first Mexican music album ever to hit the top 10 on the Billboard 200. If convicted of violating the Kingpin Act, Del Villar — whose trial is expected to begin in October 2023 in Los Angeles — could face a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison.
A Shakeup in Jenni Rivera’s Estate
Earlier this year, Jenni Rivera’s daughter Jacqie Rivera took over as head of her mother’s estate — replacing her aunt Rosie Rivera, who had been at the helm since the regional Mexican singer’s untimely death in December 2012. Since taking over, Jacqie tapped Izabel Nicholas as general manager for Jenni Rivera Enterprises, while Oswaldo Rossi has remained the estate’s lawyer and Entotal Agency is handling artist management. When Rivera died ten years ago, at age 43, she was the single most successful woman in regional Mexican on the Billboard charts, boasting over 26 entries on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart. Most recently, Rivera’s children (Chiquis, Jacqie, Michael, Jenicka and Johnny) released “Misión Cumplida,” a song written by their mother in 2008. The song is part of Rivera’s forthcoming album — set to be released by Sony Music U.S. Latin — that will include other unreleased songs the Rivera estate discovered after her death.
Close to That Billion-Dollar Mark
U.S. recorded music revenues were up in the first half of 2022, according to the RIAA, growing 9% in the first six months of the year — but Latin music far surpassed that percentage increase, with revenue growing 23% in the first half of the year for a total of $510 million. Latin music is now on course to generate over $1 billion in the U.S. by year’s end. According to the RIAA’s Latin-specific report, shared exclusively with Billboard Español, music streaming formats were the “fundamental growth driver,” comprising a staggering 97% of total Latin music revenues. Among total streaming revenues, paid subscriptions comprised the biggest source of sales at 71% — accounting for 69% of overall Latin revenues at $350 million.
A Very Latin Coachella
From Karol G to Anitta to Nathy Peluso to Grupo Firme, Latin artists took over Coachella this year. The 2022 edition of the festival — which returned to Indio, Calif. in April after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic — doubled the number of Latin acts from the 2020 roster with more than 20 multi-genre Latin artists. The move reflected the overall demand for Latin artists and the success Latin acts enjoyed once live events resumed. According to data from concert discovery app Bandsintown, between Jan. 2019 and Jan. 2022, the interest of live music fans in the top 16 Latin artists on Coachella’s 2022 lineup grew by 533% on the platform. This included Grupo Firme, who alone saw a 5,294% growth in fan interest on Bandsintown during that timeframe. This year, Firme made history by becoming the first banda to ever perform at Coachella, while Anitta became the first Brazilian to perform a set on the fest’s main stage.
Latin Goes Global
Latin music had a banner year not only in the U.S. but in other markets including Europe, where Latin acts are finally seeing a breakthrough. Artists such as Bad Bunny, Karol G, Rosalía, Maluma, Anitta and Camilo are spearheading the globalization of Latin music on the continent, making inroads in a market that was slow to latch on to the genre just a few years ago. Global touring powerhouse Rosalía has earned $28.1 million (so far) and sold 343,000 tickets across three continents on her Motomami world tour, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, landing her at No. 7 on the year-end Top Latin Tours chart. Also going global was Mexican crooner Marco Antonio Solís, who toured Europe for the first time, holding shows in Paris, Madrid and London as part of his Que Ganas De Verte world tour. Additionally, Camilo had a historic and record-breaking performance in front of the iconic Puerta de Alcalá in Madrid in September, drawing a crowd of more than 80,000 fans.
‘90s Nostalgia
Last year, Los Bukis reunited after 25 years to embark on their historic Una Historia Cantada stadium tour, presented by Live Nation — ultimately landing the group at No. 6 on Billboard’s Top Tours of 2021 with a total gross of $49,667,153. In 2022, they returned with a second leg of the tour, during which they played two back-to-back shows at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. At that venue, the group gathered 100,000 fans over two nights, breaking their previous record at the venue set in 1995. The success of the Los Bukis reunion started something of a nostalgia-driven movement in Latin music this year. This trend included the inaugural Bésame Mucho festival, which took place at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 3 with a ’90s-’00s-inspired lineup of pop, regional Mexican, merengue, cumbia and rock-en-español artists — and sold out in just 12 minutes. This coming February, a ’90s Latin pop concert featuring Magneto, Kabah, Caló, Sentidos Opuestos and more is slated to take place at Los Angeles’ YouTube Theater.
This story is part of Billboard‘s The Year in Touring package — read more stories about the top acts, tours and venues of 2022 here.
At some point during Daddy Yankee’s ongoing La Ultima Vuelta tour, which kicked off this summer, publicist Mayna Nevarez looked around and took stock of what was happening around her.
“I was with him at sold out arenas in Seattle, Denver, Sacramento and, I swear, it brought tears to my eyes,” says Nevarez, who owns Nevarez PR in Miami and has been Yankee’s publicist for over 15 years. “For so long it was cities like Miami, Los Angeles, New York — big Latin hubs — and we forget that the United States is so much more than that.”
Daddy Yankee is no stranger to big tours; in 2007, for example, he played 17 U.S. shows, and in 2019, he played a fabled 12 sold-out dates at Puerto Rico’s Coliseo de Puerto Rico. But La Ultima Vuelta (The Last Tour) has been his biggest trek by far, selling over 1.1 million tickets for a $125.3 million in gross ticket sales during the tracking period, from Nov. 1, 2021-Oct. 31, 2022, landing him at No. 13 on Billboard’s Top Tours tally.
Yankee’s numbers point to Latin music’s potential for big touring success beyond Bad Bunny and beyond the cities that were long considered Latino strongholds. In 2022, Latin artists of all sizes and genres filled arenas, theaters and festivals, underscoring the huge potential and growing presence of Latin music across the country.
The fray, of course, is led by Bad Bunny, who tops this year’s Top Tours chart with a $373.5 million gross across 65 shows in arenas and stadiums with a combined attendance of nearly 2 million. Bunny’s World’s Hottest Tour broke venue revenue records in 12 of the 15 U.S. markets that it played, including Yankee Stadium, Chicago and Washington, D.C. The North American leg of tour averaged $11.1 million per show — the biggest per-show average gross by any artist in any genre in Boxscore history (dating back to the late 1980s).
At this moment in time at least, Bad Bunny is “a unicorn,” says Henry Cardenas, de CEO of CMN, which promoted Bunny’s U.S. tour in partnership with Live Nation. “No one does what he does.” But at a touring level, “What Bad Bunny really did is take Latin music to industry execs who aren’t Latin, and make them realize there was a viable market,” says Nelson Albareda, founder and CEO of marketing and promotion company Loud and Live.
Loud and Live, which is owned by Albareda, is a prime example of Latin’s growth in touring. The entertainment, marketing and promotion company was launched four years ago and in 2019, pre-pandemic, produced around 50 shows. This year, it came in at No. 14 on the Top Promoters chart, with $96.5 million in gross ticket sales for 386 shows.
“Overall, touring is definitely stronger, and shows are doing better, including in emerging markets like Seattle, Salt Lake City,” says Albareda. “Secondary markets are here to stay and it’s not just the A acts. It’s not a fluke. I think you’ll see the Kansas City, Minneapolis, Nashville, Raleigh, Salt Lakes also do well. The Latino population is now much greater and definitely they’re in every city.”
This allows for vertical growth that may not be always visible on the touring charts. Loud and Live’s roster, for example, includes touring stalwarts like Ricardo Arjona, who ends the year at No. 63 on the Top Tours list ($31.5 million gross on 32 shows), but it also includes rising star Camilo, who just fell short of the Top 100, grossing $11.4 million and selling 149,000 tickets in 28 shows.
Tours by smaller acts, says Jorge Juarez, co-founder of management and promotion company Westwood Entertainment, can still yield impressive margins. Rising Mexican rapper Santa Fe Klan, for example, played 23 markets on his first U.S. tour, selling some 7,000 tickets per market at an average $100 ticket price, per Juarez. And regional Mexican acts have seen a surge in ticket sales as well.
“There’s been a general tendency of growth here for the last two years. Certainly, a lot of factors post-pandemic that gave a surge, but we were already on a trend of growth,” says Hans Schafer, senior vp of Latin touring for Live Nation. “It was inevitable that we would reach this point one way or the other […] The sort of evolution that we’re seeing in different genres within Latin is all adding to that. More music, more new artists. Better production at all levels. Connectivity with multigenerational fans.”
On top of that, the growth of the U.S. Latino population and its middle class cannot be discounted as a factor in the overall growth of touring and consumption. According to Nielsen’s “The Evolving Hispanic Consumer” study from 2021, in the next 40 years Latinos will contribute more growth than any other U.S. population segment, contributing 53% of population growth in the next five years and 58% of the growth to 2060. In terms of buying power, from 2010 to 2019, Hispanic buying power increased by 69%, outpacing non Hispanics (41%).
According to a Pew Research Center Statistical Portrait of Hispanics published in July 2022, Latino demographics have grown “in just about every corner of the nation. While California, Texas and Florida hold about half of the U.S. Latino population, the fastest growth rates are in states like North Dakota (up 148% between 2010 and 2020) and South Dakota (up 75% over the same period).”
The growth has profound impact at many levels. In the last decade, for example, Latinos became the largest racial or ethnic group in California for the first time, a fact that explains why cities like Sacramento and San José are now major touring destinations for Latin artists of all stripes.
The direct result of a Latin population with acquisition power can be seen at the new SoFi Stadium, which opened in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and hosted its first full stadium shows with Los Bukis, the romantic Mexican group that had its heyday in the 1990s, on Aug. 27 and 28, 2021. The stadium also hosted two nights of Bad Bunny this last September.
“The way we position ourselves is, we’re in Los Angeles, we’re in Inglewood, we’re 50% Latino,” says Adolfo Romero vp of programming for SoFi Stadium, Hollywood Park and YouTube Theater, which has held sold out shows by the likes of Rosalía and Mexican rockers Caifanes this year. “We looked at many different artists [for SoFi opening night] and when we saw this opportunity with Los Bukis, we were very aggressive. I think it kind of opened the eyes to the industry to see that Latin acts could do stadiums. That led us to do two nights of Grupo Firme in 2022, and now we have two nights of Bad Bunny.”
Romero says that when he booked Los Bukis for what would be their first-ever U.S. stadiums, the prospect of selling over 70,000 tickets for a Mexican nostalgia act didn’t make him loose sleep. “I come from [major league] soccer. If we can sell 70,000 plus for soccer here, what’s the difference?” he says. “It’s the same demographic. We have disposable income. A lot of our community was working in the service industry. Now, many of their kids are college grads.”
2022 was the year of Bad Bunny. The superstar rules Billboard’s year-end Top Artists chart for the first time and his blockbuster release Un Verano Sin Ti is the year-end No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Albums recap. It’s both the first time that an act that primarily records in Spanish is the year’s top artist, and a mostly non-English-language set is the biggest album of the year. (Billboard began compiling the year-end Top Artists category in 1981, and albums in 1956.)
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The 28-year-old Puerto Rican (born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio) crowns the year-end Top Artists tally thanks largely to the extraordinary success of his second No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the all-Spanish-language Un Verano Sin Ti, and its slew of hits on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart. Un Verano Sin Ti debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated May 21 and spent 13 nonconsecutive weeks atop the chart – the most weeks at No. 1 since 2016. The set also never left the top two positions of the weekly list in its first 24 weeks – becoming the first album to spend its first six months in the top two.
Un Verano Sin Ti also marked just the second all-Spanish-language album to reach No. 1 on the weekly Billboard 200, following Bad Bunny’s own El Ultimo Tour del Mundo in 2020.
Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts dated Nov. 20, 2021 through Nov. 12, 2022. The rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology details, and the November-November time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate. The Top Artists and Top New Artists categories ranks the best-performing overall acts, and new acts, of the year based on activity on the Billboard 200 album and Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, as well as Billboard Boxscore (touring) data, for the 2022 tracking period.
Explore All of Billboard’s 2022 Year-End Charts
Bad Bunny also profited from the continued success of four of his other albums – YHLQMDLG, El Ultimo Tour del Mundo, X 100PRE and the boxed set Anniversary Trilogy – all of which charted on the Billboard 200 during the 2022 tracking year. In total, Bad Bunny places four albums on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums chart – Un Verano Sin Ti (No. 1), YHLQMDLG (No. 36), El Ultimo Tour del Mundo (No. 69) and X 100PRE (No. 165).
Un Verano Sin Ti saw 22 of its 23 songs debut on the Hot 100 concurrent with the album’s release (the one album track that didn’t debut had already hit the list in 2019). On the year-end Hot 100 Songs recap, Bad Bunny places seven titles, led by “Me Porto Bonito,” with Chencho Corleone, at No. 20. Fueled by the success of the 24 songs he placed on the Hot 100 during the chart year, Bunny is No. 1 on Hot 100 Artists recap for 2022.
Bad Bunny is additionally 2022’s top male artist for the first time, while Taylor Swift is the top female (No. 2 on the overall list), Glass Animals is the top duo/group (No. 18 overall) and Latto leads the 2022 Top New Artists chart (No. 34 overall).
It’s Bad Bunny’s first time as the year’s top male, while for Swift, it’s her sixth time as the lead female (she was also tops in 2020, 2018, 2015, 2013 and 2009). She notched a pair of new No. 1s on the Billboard 200 during the chart year — Red (Taylor’s Version) and Midnights — which finish at Nos. 5 and 4, respectively, on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums chart. It’s the first time one act has two of the top five year-end biggest albums since 1975, when John Denver was Nos. 3 and 4 with John Denver’s Greatest Hits and Back Home Again.
Glass Animals also triumph as the year’s top/duo group for the first time, largely powered by the act’s smash single “Heat Waves” – the British band’s first No. 1 on the weekly Hot 100. It also broke the record for the longest-charting Hot 100 hit (91 weeks) and wraps 2022 at No. 1 on the Hot 100 Songs year-end recap.
