Latin Pop Thrives, No Bieber Required

By THE NEW YORK TIMES JUNE 2, 2017

The Popcast is hosted by Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic for The New York Times. It covers the latest in pop music criticism, trends and news.

At the top of the Billboard Hot 100 sits a remix of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” featuring Justin Bieber singing in Spanish. It’s the first Spanish-language song to top the chart since “Macarena,” and a useful mirror of the current musical moment. Mr. Bieber has been using styles borrowed from black and Latin music for years — here he was returning the favor.

There have been complications, naturally: Recently, in a nightclub, Mr. Bieber crudely performed the song with the exception of the actual words, replacing them with packing-foam blahs and at least one “Dorito.”

So, a less feel-good story of cultural exchange and respect, then. Either way, to dwell on “Despacito,” even the pre-Bieber version, is to focus on a strain of Latin pop — middle-aged mainstream singer partners with a late-career rapper for credibility boost — that is, if not on the wane, then at least of less importance than ever.

The last few years have seen numerous shifts in the sound of Spanish-language pop: Colombian reggaeton (J Balvin, Maluma) giving a bright sheen to the Puerto Rican original; Dominican dembow (El Alfa) emerging as an eccentric counterweight to reggaeton; and in the last couple of years, Latin trap (Fuego, Bad Bunny), a Spanish-language take on American hip-hop, growing in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the United States.

On this week’s Popcast, for a conversation about Latin music’s speedy and constant evolution, Mr. Caramanica is joined by Isabelia Herrera, the music editor of Remezcla, and Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, the culture editor of Jezebel.

Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee - "Despacito" ft. Justin Bieber Video by LuisFonsiVEVO

Email your questions, thoughts and ideas about what’s happening in pop music to popcast@nytimes.com.

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