By Megan Lopez | Latinitas Magazine
The music industry in Latin America is not a new thing. Globally the awareness of Latin Pop/Urban music is taking the main stage everywhere and Latino musicians couldn’t be more happy about it, and they have technology and social media to thank for this, according to speakers from the music industry at SXSW on March 15, 2018.
A question the speakers asked is, why is this happening so fast? One answer is that technology, social media and access to the internet all over the world have enabled music to be shared in a whole new level. Before social media and technology, it was harder to distribute music all over the world, but now the industry is flourishing with all genres.
“The reason we have Latin American artist booming is the language. they want to hear Urban music and trap music in Spanish.” said Montero.
What’s happening now with Urban Latin music, according to owner and producer of Epicentro- Robert Montero, is a good thing for alternative markets because it opens a window for music lover all around the world to hear the different genres of Latino music, such as merengue and music with influences from Colombia, for example.
The language has a lot to do with why the Latin music is booming, said Montero. He mentioned how you hear the language each day more and you have to know where those words are coming from. You not only have the booming music of Latin America but there is also the culture in the arts- such as film. People are going onto Netflix and some of the trending shows you see are Narcos, Jane the Virgin, and El Chapo. Latin America appears to be everywhere now.
Montero said there’s a huge and rich Latinx culture to dig into and you have kids who can make music in their bedroom. There is no limitation of social status or class or economy, you have kids with the ability to post their own music all over the world by just the click of a mouse. The limitations of being too poor or too young don’t exist on the web. Getting discovered doesn’t always mean going through music industries anymore, when you have all the access right in front of you on a computer.
According to Montero he said they are getting more listening numbers than huge artists here in the U.S. because people want to hear Spanish. American artists are asking Latin American artists to do remixes on songs because it’s what people want to hear. You see this in songs such as “Mi Gente” and “Despacito” which are in the top charts.
Latin American music is only at the start of its growth and will only become more popular as time passes. From the looks of it, it will be here to stay and continue to take it’s grab on listeners and grow it’s presence on the main stage of music industry.
About the author:
Megan Lopez was born and raised in Austin, Texas and graduated with a degree in Mass Communications / Electronic Media from Texas State University.
