Tag: C. Tangana

A New Generation of Artists Is Reinventing Mexican Music and Captivating Listeners Around the World

September 16, 2022

Spotify data tells the story of a genre that has emerged as an unstoppable cultural force. At the end of August, worldwide Mexican music listening on Spotify grew by 56% annually, doubling the growth rate of the previous two years. And since 2019, the volume of streams has more than doubled to reach 5.6 billion.

To celebrate this movement, we’re launching a new campaign titled “México es imparable. Reprodúcelo.” At its center are three short films that celebrate artists such as Eduin Caz from the banda septet Grupo Firme, and Julión Álvarez and Yahritza y su Esencia, whose music inspires a generation that returns to its roots to generate different identities.

A genre that brings together a diversity of rhythms such as banda, norteño, sierreño, grupero, and mariachi, Mexican music is becoming one of the fastest-growing local genres on the platform. For reference, the amount of streams of the genre amounts to two-thirds of the volume of reggaeton streams on Spotify. 

In Mexico, one in every four music streams is a Mexican music track. In the United States, Mexican music ranks among the fastest-growing genres. Beyond the traditional strongholds, Mexican music artists are filling ever-larger concert venues in Latin American countries like Colombia and reaching new audiences in geographically remote countries like Chile.

All over the world, industry insiders and fans are wondering why.

Collaboration without boundaries

One key factor that explains the recent revival of Mexican music is that the genre has attracted stars from other genres, like reggaeton, trap, or hip-hop. These crossover artists have embraced the high-pitched guitar requintos that are a staple of corridos, and the wind instruments of banda music to create pop hits.

The number of collaborations between Mexican artists and international artists in the last two years reached 31,000. Which might explain why last year, 66 million listeners on Spotify discovered Mexican music for the first time outside of Mexico.

“Urban Latin music, in its expansion into the mainstream and the exploration of paths towards all kinds of genres, influenced Mexican music artists to make more collaborations,” Alejandro Grageda, Spotify Artist and Label Partnership Lead for Mexico, tells For the Record.

“The ability to find new audiences around the world, in addition to the data and best practices that Spotify for Artists offers, have served as a catalyst to accelerate these collaborations and contribute to the expansion of Mexican music.”

Collaborations have offered discovery opportunities to new fans around the world. Consider Colombian reggaeton-pop ensemble Piso 21 collaborating with Christian Nodal in “Pa’ Olvidarme de Ella.” It’s their third-most-streamed track to date, and 80% of streams come from Mexican fans. Bad Bunny’s collaboration with Natanael Cano on the 2019 remix of “Soy el Diablo” increased the latter’s streams by 172% in one week after its release. Spanish trap star C. Tangana in “CAMBIA!”—his version of a corrido tumbado—introduced Carin Leon and Adriel Favela to fans in Spain.  

The trend has only deepened, as evidenced by recent releases such as Camilo alongside Grupo Firme on “Alaska,” which performed better than their other songs in countries like Colombia and Chile. There’s also bachata star Romeo Santos duetting with Christian Nodal on “Me Extraño,” which is distinctively popular with Mexican fans. Despite Romeo having similarly sized fanbases in Mexico and America, Mexicans have streamed the song twice as many times as American fans.

Remixing traditions 

Mexican music’s rise in popularity can also be attributed to a new wave of artists who are reinventing their musical traditions and generating sounds that connect with young listeners.

“In Mexico, Christian Nodal and other young artists revolutionized mainstream music by breaking with the conventions of the genre,” says Uriel Waizel, Editor Lead for Spotify in Mexico. “At the same time, a generation of Mexican American artists draw on their own musical roots and dominant cultures, such as hip-hop. The result is an original sound and a narrative that reaffirms the identity of its generation within a multicultural landscape.”

Two genres in particular have captivated Gen Z fans: corridos and sierreño. Some nostalgia animates the resurgence of these genres, but their bucolic flavor has given way to an aesthetic and themes that are closer to urban genres such as hip-hop and reggaeton.

Corridos Tumbados combine guitar requintos with bass-heavy trap beats, which can be heard in songs from Natanael Cano and Junior H. Their more melodic variant, sad sierreño, is represented by acts like Yahritza Y Su Esencia as well as the duet Eslabon Armado, which consists of brothers Pedro and Brian Tovar.  

Grupo Firme also changed the game by mixing banda and norteño style with contemporary rhythms and ditching the traditional sombreros for a unique glam style. The band has achieved cult status for their epic live performances in stadiums across Mexico and the United States and a devotion that reaches K-Pop levels of fandom. 

“The mix of sounds in Grupo Firme’s music has been something very important because many doors have been opened. The stereotypes that Mexican music had have been broken, and fusions have been made with artists from other genres,” says Eduin.

As Mexican music finds ways to connect with new fans across generations and borders, we’ve loved watching its rapid rise across the globe. And through campaigns like “México es imparable. Repordúcelo,” we’ll continue to spotlight the artists and songs who are turning this genre into a global powerhouse.

Discover MEXCLA, the Spotify hub dedicated to Mexican music and its forays into other musical genres, and the playlist that brings together the best fusions.

5 Questions (and Answers) with Federica Tremolada, Managing Director, Spotify Southern and Eastern Europe

April 26, 2021

Federica Tremolada joined Spotify exactly two years ago as Managing Director for Southern & Eastern Europe. This diverse region is made up of 26 countries, including big established markets like Italy, Spain, Turkey, and Poland, as well as a number of fast-growing newer markets, like Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, and the Balkans. From the start, Federica knew there wouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach for her markets. 

At Spotify, Federica has combined her passion for audio (she’s been a musician since a young age) with her experience in international media and technology. Her background in negotiating and managing complex international media partnerships led her to have a deep understanding of different business models at Spotify and how to fit them into the puzzle that is Southern and Eastern Europe. 

Recently, Federica was honored on Billboard’s 2021 International Power Players list. For the Record took the opportunity to check in with Federica to hear about what she’s been up to—and what she looks forward to down the road.

What’s Spotify’s ultimate vision and goal in Southern and Eastern Europe (SEE)?

Our mission at Spotify is to unlock the potential of human creativity—by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it. The translation of our mission into the 26 markets of the Southern and Eastern European region is to enable this unique connection between artists and fans at a local level by providing the most relevant content, a highly sophisticated personalized experience, and the best product fit to local artists, users, and advertisers. 

If I think about some of the most recent campaigns we’ve launched, they had an enormous impact both locally and globally. As an example, our Sanremo 2021 campaign was a huge success! During the five days of the popular Italian musical festival, the official playlist was the third-most-listened-to playlist globally, just behind Today’s Top Hits and RapCaviar. 

What are some of your greatest achievements at Spotify to date?

One of the biggest achievements came from better understanding the diversity and priorities of all my 26 markets with high growth potential, both in terms of new monthly active users and subscribers. Being more local means providing an adequate type of support to creators and being culturally relevant for all our users regardless where they come from. This translated into multiple initiatives we launched in the region: the localization of Spotify for Artists in most of the relevant languages, the launch of an Original & Exclusive strategy for podcasts starting from our top markets that brought an Emmy-like award in Spain (Premios Ondas) for XRey, a bigger and better approach to our local marketing campaigns, artists’ promotion at a larger scale (like Sfera Ebbasta, C Tangana, ROSALÍA, or Taco Hemingway), and last but not the least, the creation of a team that could facilitate and accelerate this type of support. 

What do you view as the key headwinds that you and the region face?

The real challenge is managing complexity at a large scale. We need to make sure we stay competitive in our most mature markets by acquiring new audiences, refreshing our original and exclusive content slate at a stable pace, owning local music genres as much as we do for global trends (for example, Flamenco Flow in Spain or Disco Polo in Poland), and personalizing the Premium experience in every country. 

At the same time, it’s important not to lose sight of everything happening in countries at an early stage of growth or those still on a fast growth trajectory by fueling that growth with the right amount of resources and investments. We’ve never invested so much in local initiatives in SEE as we’re doing in 2021.

Within your market, what would you say are the most exciting or interesting trends that you’re seeing?

Podcasts are definitely one of the most interesting trends that also had a huge acceleration during the pandemic. Italy and Spain were among the two markets that quarantined first in early March 2020, and during those first few weeks podcast listening went up in those markets. This format is particularly loved by millennials and Gen Z users who identify podcasts as a more humanizing technology and also a better way to fuel self-discovery. In order to provide high-quality content around these topics, we launched three new shows in Spain (X-Rey, AM, and El Rey del Cachopo), plus three originals (Tutto Sanremo ma dura meno, L’Educazione Responsabile, and Complottisti Domestici), and one exclusive format (Demoni Urbani) in Italy in the last few months.

If we took a look at your recently played list, what would we find right now?

I love true crime in general for podcasts, so both Demoni Urbani and the recently launched El Rey del Cachopo are among my favourite titles, along with some of the shows we launched globally, like Renegades: Born in the USA or Dare to Lead with Brené Brown. From a music perspective, I love discovering new hits that I can add to my library, so Release Radar and New Music Friday are my favorite playlists during my spare time.

Stream one of Federica’s favorite Spanish podcasts, El Rey del Cachopo.

How Música Urbana is Redrawing Spain’s Musical Map

September 25, 2019

On a recent summer night in Barcelona, more than 10,000 fans sang along to Bad Bunny’s every word as the Puerto Rican star paced the stage. Their adulation was hardly surprising; the reggaeton heavyweight is one of the genre’s most popular artists. The venue, however, was less expected: This was Sónar, the long-running, avant-garde electronic-music festival, where names like Kraftwerk and Four Tet are more customary headliners. The rising rapper and pop star’s rapturous reception even here only underscored the extent to which urban music, known locally as música urbana, has taken over Spain.

The numbers bear out too. No matter how you parse the data, música urbana—an umbrella category comprising reggaeton, trap, hip-hop, R&B, and their offshoots—comes out on top. Among música urbana’s individual subgenres, reggaeton caps the list, followed by trap and hip-hop. Taking all of those categories together, música urbana has grown by 44% in the last two years and is currently the most-streamed genre in Spain.

Partly, these numbers reflect changing demographics in Spain—and, more importantly, changing attitudes. Federica Tremolada, our Managing Director, Southern & Eastern Europe, feels Spanish teenagers today “are used to having classmates from Ecuador or Colombia and hearing different accents from across Latin America. They are more used to sounds like reggaeton.” 

Música urbana has traditionally been driven by artists from the Americas—particularly Panama and Puerto Rico, widely considered the twin birthplaces of reggaeton, and Colombia, home to artists like J Balvin, Karol G, Maluma, and the Puerto Rican transplant Nicky Jam. But Spain is gradually emerging as a source of música urbana in its own right. Rosalía’s reggaeton collaboration with J Balvin, “Con Altura,” might be the most visible evidence of the phenomenon, with more 250 million streams to date, but in many ways it’s just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, música urbana by Spanish artists has seen 80% growth in worldwide popularity over the past two years.

Little by little, Spanish artists are beginning to carve out their own lanes within a genre traditionally dominated by Latin American musicians. The Madrid-based trap artist C. Tangana—one of Spanish música urbana’s biggest stars, with over 5 million monthly listeners—brings an unmistakably Madrileño attitude that sets him apart. Granada’s DELLAFUENTE draws upon his flamenco roots in music that fuses reggaeton, trap, and tropical.

And while there is no distinctive Spanish sound, says Federica, the fact that the worldwide música urbana scene is a big melting pot works in Spanish artists’ favor. “Listening to an urban song from Puerto Rico, Colombia, or Argentina, you can’t really tell the difference other than the accent and the slang they use,” says Federica. “I wouldn’t say there’s a sound to each region, the way there was maybe five years ago.” And the more that urbano artists collaborate internationally, the more exposure they get.

For example, Rels B has done collaborations with Latin American artists and worked with Latin American producers. Tangana has put out songs with Paloma Mami and Becky G. Maikel Delacalle worked with Sky, a super-popular Colombian producer who works with J Balvin. Those collaborations have helped Latin American artists find an audience in Spain, and Spanish artists to reach Latin American fans. 

The big question now is: What comes next? As música urbana connects Spanish-speaking audiences around the globe, it seems inevitable that Spanish artists themselves will continue to put their own unique stamp on the music—whether that means DELLAFUENTE collaborating with groundbreaking flamenco artist Lin Cortés or indie group Cupido releasing a remix of the hit single “Autoestima” featuring Lola Indigo and Alizzz.

With the Iberian urban scene growing at a fast clip, these are some of the Spanish música urbana artists to listen for: 

C. Tangana

Since emerging a decade ago, the Madrid rapper’s hypnotic delivery, futuristic beats, and savvy taste-making have placed him at the forefront of the Spanish scene.

Rels B

The Mallorcan rapper is the rare Spanish música urbana musician for whom Spain isn’t his No. 1 streaming market—it’s Mexico.

Lola Indigo

This Operación Triunfo contestant has parlayed collaborations with Mala Rodríguez, Maikel Delacalle, Lalo Ebratt, and Don Patricio into an effortless balancing act between pop and música urbana.

Maikel Delacalle

On both his solo tracks and collabs with Rels B, Cazzu, and Fuego, this Tenerife-born singer brings a serious dose of R&B smoothness to Spanish urbano.

DELLAFUENTE

Granada’s DELLAFUENTE represents his native Andalusia by weaving elements of flamenco into his music.

Mala Rodríguez

The Seville-bred musician represented one of the first generations of Spanish rappers back in the early 2000s, and her recent collabs with DELLAFUENTE and Lola Indigo prove she’s still a force to be reckoned with.

Alizzz

This Barcelona producer graduated from early releases on Diplo’s Mad Decent offshoot, Jeffree’s, to become Spain’s premier beatmaker, with dozens of records under his belt for the likes of C. Tangana, DELLAFUENTE, Becky G, Aitana, and even a pre-fame Rosalía on the C. Tangana collaboration Antes de Morirme.

Bad Gyal

The Barcelona artist is heavily influenced by Jamaica’s dancehall scene and is leading a wave of women making a major impact in the reggaeton and neo-perreo scenes, including Ms Nina, La Zowi, and Bea Pelea.

Interested in exploring more? Check out De Tranquis, Radar Urbano, and Leyendas Urbanas.