We have been stating this in the press for a while: Latin music and with them the Spanish language, have infiltrated the global pop mainstream (From Madonna’s duets with Maluma to Bad Bunny’s successes, etc.). This is despite the fact that the recent Latin Grammy awards, although they presented Seville as a beautiful setting, did not leave a triumphant mark on the purely Spanish note. The perception is that SpainBeyond the Rosalía talisman, Few join this great international wave, The situation does not seem to change in 2024.
I don’t just mean Reggaeton’s commercial dominance. We have already seen how a genre that seemed to us an exotic relic and a pure niche, such as the Mexican region, gained striking momentum in 2023 by merging with new urban languages (to run lying while incarnated by a person Featherweight, who performed at Sant Jordi and the Wizink Center weeks ago). Moreover bachata. And these days, ‘Billboard’, the unofficial organ of the American music industry, warns that the corrido tumbado will shift strongly towards the so-called so-called thing in its New Year’s predictions. ‘war dance’ (with commercials like the producer’s duet marshmello with group Directed Force) and its different forms cumbia (Mexican, in foreground) and Texan style. Add in other emerging trends: one that is explicitly Christian and one that combines Latinity with hints of Africa or Asia.
What about Spanish music? There is no sign in this projection of the broad strokes that will dominate emerging and influential Latin music on a global scale. It’s time to remember this There are more Spanish speakers in the United States today (57 million, although not an official language) in spaina country that has fallen to fourth place (behind giant Mexico and Colombia). And although the comparison creates a certain giddiness, it is true that the United Kingdom ceded its representation of the English language to the United States decades ago.
Meanwhile, other times singers and pop-rock groups (Camilo Sesto to Hombres G) They built the American continent with great success, Now the tide is going in the opposite direction.: There are Bad Bunny, Karol G, J. Balvin, Bizarrap, Rauw Alejandro, Sebastián Yatra and many more. Should Spain take music more seriously as an exportable industry and means of cultural and linguistic dissemination? The world has never seemed more receptive.