User:Bjmalex/Latin Music

United States
The origins of Latin Music in the United States dates back to the 1930’s with Rhumba. Rhumba was prominent with Cuban style ballroom dancing in the 1930’s, but was not mainstream. It wasn’t until the 1950’s and 1960’s that Latin Music started to become intertwined with American culture. Latin music is starting to become mainstream in the US as Latin artists are teaming up with English speaking artists. In 2017, a song named, “Despacito” by Justin Bieber, Luis Fonsi, and Daddy Yankee had 4.5 billion views on YouTube. In 2017, six of the top ten viewed songs on YouTube feature Latin Artists. The song was the beginning for the boom of Latin music in the United States. Some of the most popular forms of Latin music are Salsa, Bachata, Regional Mexican music, Tango, Merengue, Latin Pop, and Reggaeton. Today, reggaeton is a very popular style that combines reggae and American hip-hop. Some of the most popular artists today are Daddy Yankee, Melymel, J Balvin and Nicky Jam. In 2018, Latin music came second in total video streams with 21.8% market share. Latin music listeners tend to be younger, more tech savvy, 95% of Latin music coming from streaming suggests, according to Jeff Benjamin.

Immigration and globalization has caused Latin music to skyrocket in popularity. Historically, the United States and Britain have had control over the music industry but the internet and technology has allowed for diversification and local music to become more prominent throughout the world. The technological advancements have allowed streaming services to flourish that offer a wide variety of music without having to pay for each individual song/album. The increase in Latin artists working with English speaking American artists has caused songs such as Ritmo by An American band, The Black Eyed Peas, and J Balvin, a Latin singer, to be number one on the billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart. This increase has caused Latin music sales revenue in the US to rise from 176 million to 413 million dollars in 2018. From 2016 to 2017, the amount of latin songs on the billboard hot 100 increased from four to 19. Latin music surpassed Country and EDM in terms of album sales in the US in 2018. This trend has caused pop music in the US to adopt certain styles from Latin music. This has some experts questioning whether less popular Latin genres will become more niche in the future as record labels focus on products in industries with a greater concentration of money.