FRUKT GLOBAL SCENES #5 - MEXICO GOES GLOBAL

While Latin American acts like Karol G, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin have dominated global charts in recent years, there haven’t been many global stars emerging from Mexico, which has tended to have a more traditional music sound than many of its southern neighbours. But this changed in 2023 with three of Spotify’s top 10 most streamed songs in the world (released that year) coming from the updated Regional Mexican scene, with traditional Mexican guitar ballads given an internet-filtered reggaeton/rap reboot.

The three tracks were from artists who have all blown up over the last year - Eslabon Armado, Yng Lvcas, and Grupo Frontera, and in addition, Peso Pluma, Junior H, Carin Leon, and Fuerza Regida have become worldwide superstars singing in Spanish, proving once again English is no longer dominating the lists of global hits. 

These artists are now collecting phenomenal streaming numbers, with Peso Pluma close to 15bn Spotify streams alone, and Junior H close to 12bn. And although these acts’ audience is very focussed in Central and South America, plus the US and Spain, there are signs of them breaking out with Spanish-speaking strongholds too. Pluma has become an iconic figurehead for the nation’s music scene, now also signing his own development record label to Sony, which will release new artists including Jasiel Nunez and Tito Laija.

Reggaeton has been a break-out genre over the last decade but in Mexico it is truly huge, with the country listening to the genre more than any other nation, according to Spotify’s For The Record analytics. And this has led to the artists creating their own localised take on the sound, with the heavier reggaetón Mexa sound creating huge energy and rising superstars such as Bellakath and Dani Flow (who teamed up for one of 2023’s biggest hits in the country ‘Reggaeton Champagne’ which has nearly 200m plays now). It’s a booming scene, driven by a highly tuned-in young audience.

And this wave of new Mexican talent is also fuelling increased demand for music by fans within the country. According to IFPI’s annual Global Music Report (2024 edition) music revenues in Latin America rose again for the 14th year in a row, with Mexico growing 18.2% year-on-year, a huge increase. This was mostly due to the continued growth of legal music streaming, which makes up over 85% of the region’s revenues.

Mexico is an incredibly passionate area for music fans, with Skander Goucha from Universal Music Latin America stating in the Global Music Report, “Mexico is the number one streaming market for many superstar Latin artists, such as Feid and Morat and among the top five streaming markets for many international artists, such as Billie Eilish and The Weeknd.”

Its live music scene is growing too, with a number of major festivals celebrating an increasing number of local-raised global superstars, while away from the mainstream, Pitchfork just staged the debut of its global music festival in Mexico City in March, with King Krule, Kelela, Sky Ferreira, JPEGMAFIA, Billy Woods, and Marie Davidson just some of the acts playing. 

It might have been less represented on the world stage than Puerto Rico and Columbia in recent years, but Mexico has had a phenomenal few years of music growth and is now fully established as a hotbed for global talent. Stay tuned!