Entertainment

Latin artists used to have to go through labor to achieve global success. That’s not the case anymore


“You go to Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and every week there’s a Latin artist performing in Spanish,” says Leila Cobo, author of “Decoding ‘Despacito’: An Oral History of Latin Music.” And it’s perfectly normalized”.

“It’s just one example of how popular the music is, and the fact that it’s now seen as mainstream pop music isn’t just niche music.”

Latin Artists Passed Through for Decades

Perhaps the first Latin artist to “cross over” was Dámaso Pérez Prado, Cobo said, in the 1950s.

Cuban bandleader, pianist and arranger who rose to fame in Mexico playing mambo and other Latin rhythms and quickly became RCA Victor’s biggest performer in the Latin American market, Cobo. written in her book. After a version of Pérez Prado’s “Que Rico el Mambo” Recorded by the leader of a major American band Sonny Burke became a hit in the US, the label moved Pérez Prado out of the international division and began promoting him in the American pop market.
Musician and bandleader Spike Jones (left) with band leader Dámaso Pérez Prado.

“They found out this guy had music that was very popular around the world and in the United States, and they said, ‘Well, why don’t we treat him like he’s an American artist instead? for treating him as if he were a Latin American artist just for Latin America?” Cobo said.

From there, his popularity exploded, Cobo writes in her book. He Start your trip to America, sold out concert tickets nationwide. With songs like “Mambo No. 5,” “Cherry Pink (And Apple Blossom White)” and “Patricia,” he helped popularize mambo across North America, reaching Latin and non-Latin audiences.
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Over the decades, there have been several similar success stories. Ritchie Valens Made the Mexican Folk Song”la Bamba“a hit on the US charts in the late 1950s. Miami sound machine, a band led by Gloria Estefan, recorded several English albums in the 80’s. Spanish singer Julio Iglesias would go on to record songs with Willie Nelson, Diana Ross and Frank Sinatra, among others. But these examples are unusual, according to Cobo.

“Coming from Latin America and singing in Spanish is still a bit alien and uncommon for the mainstream, even though it’s happening everywhere,” she added.

All of that has changed in the late 90s with the appearance of the so-called “Latin Explosion.”

The ’90s turned the crossover into a movement

Ricky Martin’s concert at Grammy Award 1999 marked a breakthrough for Latin music.
Puerto Ricans captivated American audiences with their bilingual performance of “La Copa de la Vida“(The Cup of Life), a song that had been the national anthem of the World Cup a year earlier. At the time, Martin was already a star in Latin America, having performed for many years as part of the show. of the boy band Menudo before going on to sell out the stadium as a solo artist.
Ricky Martin's performance at the 1999 Grammy Awards marked a turning point for his career and for Latin music in general in the United States.

The executives of Sony Music Entertainment, which signed Martin to the Latin music division in the early 90s, looked at ways they could market Martin to an English-speaking audience, Cobo said.

“This is a guy playing stadiums in Latin America,” Cobo said. “If you [were a label executive and you] went to a Ricky concert in Argentina and you saw 50,000 people, you wanted to see what you could do with him elsewhere. ”

But before that time at the Grammys, most Americans had no idea who he was.

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Shortly after his bubbly performance, Martin released his first English-language album, which beat the hit single “Livin’ La Vida Loca”. Albums debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200, breaking sales records, while the single topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks in a row.
Martin started moving pop culture phenomenon that saw other Latin artists at the time achieve similar success on the US charts. Several American-borns like Jennifer Lopez (whose debut album was recorded in English) and Marc Anthony (who mainly recorded his music in Spanish before his 1999 solo album of the same name) published). Others are international artists such as Shakira and Enrique Iglesias. Four of these five crossover stars are signed to Sony Music, some credit for engineering Latin explosion.

“Right in the pivotal moment of 1999, 2000, it was a very unusual time when you had five special artists come out at once, which is not common,” Cobo said. “There’s a little bit of chance, a little bit of intent… All the pieces put together.”

While artists like Shakira debuted in Spanish and later recorded English-language albums that led to nationwide success, others like pop star Christina Aguilera, whose album “Mi Reflejo” after the success of her self-titled debut album – found fame. with US audiences before they started creating albums in Spanish. (Lopez’s Spanish debut land until 2007.)

Then streaming changed the game

But the phenomenon was short-lived, as critics later noted. And after a few years, the so-called “Latin Boom” that promised to transform the US pop market – as well as the US itself – exploded.

“The stars of the boom were not only proven to be mere comets, but the lights and bangs of the carefully crafted pop boom blinded the public to what was truly worth in Latin music – organic, multicultural sounds that continue to evolve under the radar of the mass media,” wrote former columnist Agustin Gurza in LA time in the year 2004.

After that period, Latin music fell into decline, according to Cobo.

Luis Fonsi on stage after

While some Latin pop hits like Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” made their way into the US mainstream, the Latin music industry went downhill as music went digital, she said. Piracy is rampant in Latin America, she explains, causing major studios to lose money and invest less in artist development.

But as music moved into streaming, the industry began to recover. And in 2017, a song that will take Latin pop music to a whole new level of global success: “Despacito. “
Three months after Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi’s song featuring Daddy Yankee was released, Fonsi received a call from his record label telling him that Justin Bieber had heard the track at a Colombian nightclub and want to record a remix.
The story behind & # 39;  Despacito & # 39;  s & # 39;  increase the top
A few days later, a remix of “Despacito” featuring Justin Bieber was released. The rest is history – the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for 16 consecutive weeks, breaking records at the time. It was the first Spanish-language song to top that chart since 1996’s “Macarena.” It also topped the chart for the first time. dozens of other countries, and become most viewed YouTube videos of the decade.
“It is not very easy to [top the Billboard Hot 100] when it’s another language,” Fonsi said in a 2017 interview with CNN. “It’s very special – that we were able to break that language barrier and connect with people through music. From a career level, that’s very important. But for me, I very proud that Latin music has evolved so much and people are really connecting with it.”

We are living in the era of reverse intersection

The success of “Despacito” set off a new wave of Latin music success – one that shows no signs of slowing down.

Since “Despacito”, other predominantly Spanish-speaking songs have also performed well on the charts – from J Balvin’s “Mi Gente” to Rosalía’s “Malamente” to the #1 hit “I Like”. It” by J Balvin, Cardi B and Bad Bunny.

Streaming has made it easy for listeners to explore musical scenes like reggaeton and Latin Trap those artists don’t need the marketing machine of a big label – in other words, English-speaking audiences are turning to Latin music.
Rosalia performing at the 2020 Grammy Awards.
“The world is coming together and is about to get smaller,” said Fonsi Rolling Stone in 2019. “People these days aren’t afraid to change their normal listening habits and hear different things. It’s like, ‘Hey, maybe I don’t understand every word they’re saying, but this song’ makes me feel this and it moves me and I connect with it.’ To be able to sing in both languages, work with people from all over the world, and mix styles and backgrounds culture? I think that’s really what music should be about.”

Despite huge success outside of Latin America, artists like J Balvin and Bad Bunny have recorded several songs in English and say they don’t feel obligated to do otherwise.

“Why should I change?” Bad Bunny said in a appeared recently on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. “No one has [told] a gringo artist that you have to change. This is me. This is my music. This is my culture. If you don’t like it, don’t listen to me. If you like, you know. “
Still, much progress needs to be made, some critics argue. Suzy Exposito’s LA time pointed out earlier this year that the 2021 Grammy Awards nominations largely knocked Latin artists out of the top categories and relegated them to the Latin category. But there have been some changes. Recording Academy announced in April that it will add a fifth category to the Latin sector, meaning the 2022 show will have more awards for Latin music than pop, rock, rap or country.

Others, like Cobo, hoped for more. The landscape, she said, is much more fluid in this day and age – no crossover is required. Some Latin artists switch seamlessly between collaborating with other Latin artists and American pop artists and between bilingual songs and songs in Spanish exclusively. Others choose to record primarily in Spanish because it feels authentic to them – knowing that despite their decision, or perhaps because of it, they have a lot of fans behind them.

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