The world’s top four tunes, streamed over 20m times on one day in May, share one feature: they are all sung in Spanish
earlier this month Spotify’s four most-streamed songs were “Ella Baila Sola”, an upbeat tune with a prominent trombone; “Where She Goes”, mixingand rap; “un x100to”, medium-tempo and heavy on acoustic guitar and accordion, and “La Bebe”, a slow, mostly electronic bit of reggaeton, a style from Puerto Rico with a beat adapted from Jamaican dancehall. On the surface, these songs have little in common.
English-speaking culture is not going to lose its global prominence any time soon. But the inexorable rise of Spanish-language music, film andreflects several, interconnected trends. For a start it shows the increasing importance of streaming services, such as Spotify and YouTube. It hints at how Latin Americans, particularly the young, are hungry to spend their cash on culture—and have more in common than they may think with others across the region.
A second reason for this boom is that these musicians operate across national boundaries. This collaborative nature of the music means that the big hitters appeal far more widely than just in their home countries. What is more, the fans are dedicated. According to’s analysis of five years of data from Spotify, up to 2021, Spanish-language music listeners are far more likely to listen predominantly to the same artists than listeners in other parts of the world.
Likewise Becky G sings with Peso Pluma and Feid with Young Miko . Bizarrap, an Argentine producer, has made collaboration his brand, churning out hits with a parade of others from around Latin America. His song with Shakira venting at her ex-husband Gerard Piqué, a Spanish former footballer, quickly smashed streaming records by becoming the most-streamed track in Latin music on Spotify in 24 hours and the fastest Latin track to reach 100m views on YouTube, taking just over two days.
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