{"id":521721,"date":"2026-07-02T13:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T13:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/521721\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T13:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T13:49:07","slug":"bad-bunny-despacito-and-how-latin-music-ended-pops-english-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/521721\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Bunny, ‘Despacito’ and How Latin Music Ended Pop’s English Rule\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor decades, the surest route to international success for a Latin artist was to record in English. At Taiwan\u2019s 2026 Golden Melody Festival<\/a>, Latin Recording Academy CEO Manuel Abud<\/a> explained why that logic no longer holds.<\/p>\n

\n\tHeld ahead of Taiwan\u2019s Golden Melody Awards<\/a>, the annual Golden Melody Festival conference brings together music industry leaders from around the world to discuss global trends, innovation, and the future of music. Speaking to delegates in Taipei, Abud opened the conference, titled \u201cThe Rise of Latin Music: From Regional Niche to Global Force,\u201d by pushing back against a common misconception: Latin music, he stressed, is not a single genre. Drawing a comparison with Asian music, he argued that both are umbrella terms encompassing a vast spectrum of cultures, traditions and sounds. Today, Latin music \u2013 performed primarily in Spanish and Portuguese \u2013 reaches nearly 900 million people worldwide and generates billions through streaming, making it one of the fastest-growing sectors of the global music industry.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor decades, sounds and rhythms have been transcending borders,\u201d Abud told Variety after the event. \u201cThe evolution of Latin music from a regional genre to a dominant force on the global charts has been driven by milestones in various eras, including geopolitical history, propelling its growth as well as distribution technology such as downloading and streaming. Social media has also played a central role in accelerating Latin music\u2019s growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAbud mapped Latin music\u2019s evolution across three distinct stages. The first was built on timeless classics \u2013 Consuelo Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s \u201cB\u00e9same Mucho\u201d (1940), D\u00e1maso P\u00e9rez Prado\u2019s \u201cMambo No. 5\u201d (1949), Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz\u2019s Brazilian bossa nova and jazz song \u201cThe Girl from Ipanema\u201d (1964), and the Mexican folk song \u201cLa Bamba\u201d \u2013 songs that traveled the world through countless covers and reinterpretations, familiarizing international audiences with Latin sounds decades before crossover success became a commercial strategy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second stage arrived with immigration waves that brought Latin music into the American mainstream. Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin, and Shakira were the era\u2019s standard-bearers \u2013 but crucially, their biggest international hits were performed in English. The industry\u2019s logic at the time was simple: English was the price of admission to global success. Abud pointed to Ricky Martin\u2019s performance of \u201cThe Cup of Life\u201d at the 1999 Grammys as the first real breakthrough for Latin music in the United States.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe third and most consequential stage began with streaming and social media \u2013 and with a single song. Luis Fonsi\u2019s \u201cDespacito\u201d in 2017, performed entirely in Spanish and rooted in Puerto Rican musical identity, proved that authenticity, not linguistic compromise, could drive global success. It changed the rules of the game. Today, no artist better embodies that shift than Bad Bunny<\/a>. From opening the 65th Grammy Awards in 2023 to winning Album of the Year in 2026 with a fully Spanish-language record and performing at the recent Super Bowl, his trajectory \u2013 celebrated by Abud as the clearest proof of Latin music\u2019s transformation \u2013 was decades in the making, even if it appears sudden from the outside.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTraditionally Latin music growth has been driven by the diaspora in markets like the U.S. with Puerto Ricans arriving in New York and Cubans to Miami. In recent times, streaming has opened growth in Europe,\u201d he said. \u201cAt The Latin Recording Academy, we are pleased to see our creators at the top of global music charts; we feel this reflects the collaborative efforts over the last decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLooking ahead, he believes collaboration will define the genre\u2019s next phase. \u201cMusic is dynamic, and the landscape continues to change with the lines between genres becoming less defined as creators develop a fusion of sounds,\u201d he said. \u201cAs such, the next chapter of Latin music\u2019s international expansion will be marked by collaborations; we have seen that as a huge driver.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLanguage, once seen as the greatest barrier to international reach, is no longer the obstacle it once was. What moves audiences now is honest storytelling, cross-cultural collaboration, and artistic authenticity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor decades, the global music industry operated under a simple assumption: if you wanted to reach the world, you had to do it in English. Latin music and K-pop have challenged that assumption,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For decades, the surest route to international success for a Latin artist was to record in English. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[34882,146,236020,236748,85,46,73515],"class_list":["post-521721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bad-bunny","tag-entertainment","tag-golden-melody-awards","tag-golden-melody-festival","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-manuel-abud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}