Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

latinometrics OP t1_j64npvc wrote

From our newsletter:

Is Puerto Rico the music capital of the world? 🇵🇷

Puerto Rico, with 3.3M people or 0.4% of LatAm's population, is the birthplace of 6 of the region's top 10 most streamed artists on Spotify. Many of them are also top artists worldwide.

There is no way such a stat is a product of chance.

There must be an incredible force behind the success of so many artists from a tiny island roughly the size of Connecticut, the US's 3rd smallest state.

For over a hundred years, the island has been the motherland of original music genres:

• Bomba by enslaved Africans

• Plena by Jíbaros (native farmers)

• Danza (adapted from Europe's contradanza)

• and more recently, Reggaeton and Latin trap

The US territory, the only one that maintains Spanish as the official language, has one of the world's highest concentrations of music stars per capita (perhaps the highest).

When looking at Spotify streams, singers like Ricky Martin or Chayanne are at a disadvantage because they became big well before Spotify existed, so they do not appear on our chart.

However, the last 20 or so years have brought about a new era of rappers like Residente and reggaeton superstars, best exemplified by Bad Bunny, currently the most streamed artist on the planet for three years in a row.

Bad Bunny was inspired by “the King of reggaeton,” Daddy Yankee, who is 4th on the list despite also having somewhat of a disadvantage. His iconic song, Gasolina, came out in 2004, when your writer still burned custom CDs and used a Walkman.

Gasolina was listed as #50 by Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and there's absolutely no way you haven’t heard it before.

Colombian J Balvin is number two on the list and has more streams than Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift. Behind every great artist, there's a great producer.

In J Balvin's case, that person is “Sky Rompiendo,” who is responsible for some of J Balvin's greatest hits and collaborations like Safari with Pharell Williams. Sky has also produced songs for Ozuna and Maluma, also top 10 artists, and many other Latin stars.

So, undoubtedly, Puerto Rico and Colombia LatAm's music capitals. The big inexplicable question is: why are there 0 artists from Brazil and Mexico in Latin America's top 10? 🇲🇽🇧🇷

2

Veggies-are-okay t1_j64uxbn wrote

Woohooo another thing America can pillage from Puerto Rico!!!

−6

XMORA t1_j6579mg wrote

The title inside the graphic is wrong.

−3

Koso92 t1_j65889m wrote

Hands up if you only know 2 of these artists

16

DM-me-ur-tits-plz- t1_j65eoln wrote

Kinda makes sense, people from Puerto Rico have easier access to the finely oiled machine that is the US entertainment industry.

Signing with US labels brings more exposure, being bilingual also doesn't hurt.

67

Veggies-are-okay t1_j65lsz3 wrote

As is the case with most other countries/territories in the Western Hemisphere, America did a lot of meddling. Many corrupt governors were either instated or propped up (many of which went against their own people). Tried not to find a super sensationalist summary and I think dude below does a pretty good job of laying out the facts. Really interesting stuff and gives a lot of context onto why Hurricane Maria was such a disaster (beyond the whole blowing everything away part).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XildppzzHpI

−1

Massive-Cow-7995 t1_j65m9b0 wrote

No one in Brazil has any ideia who half of the people in this Graph is, it looks like the top 10 latin american artists in the US no shit puerto rico would have a high number, im suprised Mexico isnt on the list

Edit: the fuck is Drake doing on that list

2

ReturnToOdessa t1_j65mfvt wrote

I'm aware of Puerto Ricos political situation and know a few things about its current and past history. I was just wondering how your comment related to music artists because I'm not familiar with its music business and failed to see the connection.

3

ptvlm t1_j66320f wrote

The legend says the artists in grey are international for reference, so I assume that's to indicate the relative popularity of Bad Bunny.

FWIW, I know most of those artists, and I live in Spain (no interest in reggaeton, etc., but it's played a lot). Maybe it's just the relative language popularity?

6

dog_eat_god t1_j66amgm wrote

Somewhat off topic, but Puerto Rico is an amazing place that deserves far more respect from the US than it gets.

6

partytown_usa t1_j66ewnl wrote

They’re to Latin America what Iceland is to the US and Europe.

−2

Jonathan-Shimshoni t1_j66ha1n wrote

Wait “bad bunny” is the most streamed artist worldwide?

Literally never heard of him but fair play he’s probably good

0

lucyfell t1_j67ys3y wrote

Was not expecting camilla to be on this list

1

Massive-Cow-7995 t1_j683p3n wrote

Again, the vast majority of Brazilians do not know who bad bunny even is, maybe spotify audience is not representative of most of our population

Edit: Your source claims the list comes from Global audience, it represents the most viwed artists from Latin America world wide, this list donsnt represent total music production nor actuall popularity inside latin america only

1

Massive-Cow-7995 t1_j685bdc wrote

I've seen the source of this graph and it's just the most streamed latin american artists globally.

That doesnt take into account nations with a more insular music culture like Brazil, this chart from the most streamed music 2 days ago represents alot more acurratly who the average Brazilian streams.

What annoys me the most is the fact this graph is just misslabeled and painting a very large wrong picture of the region, it makes no sence for Brazil and Mexico, two nations with massive local music industries and population to not be on a list about latin american audience, unless you group in American and European audience giving the American based artists that have a more global appel a massive advantage

2

Massive-Cow-7995 t1_j685tir wrote

>why are there 0 artists from Brazil and Mexico in Latin America's top 10?

Because you just took your list from the most streamed artists globally, and just assumed that represented latin american audience aswell, to go even futher to say Puerto Rico and Colombia is Latin American music capitals based on that is just wrong on so many levels

2

ismaelsow t1_j6hzneb wrote

Didn't now any of these artists apart from Drake and Taylor Swift. r/dataisbeautiful as music discovery tool, learned something today :)

1

mikevago t1_j6i5vs9 wrote

This is good news for my Boomer mom, who calls every Spanish-speaking person Puerto Rican.

1