LIZ VO: Hola, hola Pulso Fam. This week we have something special — former co-host Maribel Quezada Smith is back to talk about something that could potentially be our most divisive episode yet. I’ll let her explain.
Maribel Narration: Almost 30 years after Gloria Estefan, the queen of Latin pop – performed her hit “Mi Tierra” at the 1994 Grammy Awards. Bad Bunny kicked the show wide open with one of the most memorable acts in Grammy history.
[Clip of Bad Bunny Grammy performance]
Liz Narration: This three-minute moment was a proclamation by nuestra gente, that Latino culture is pop culture. But what happened in the nearly 30-year span between Gloria Estefan’s and Bunny’s performance that drove Latin music to the top of the Billboard charts?
Maribel Narration: And how did everything Latino turn into a fashionable global trend?
[Bright music begins]
Reaching beyond “mainstream” audiences far and wide, including white America? And making Bad Bunny own lyrics ring true, “ahora todos quieren ser Latino, pero les falta sazón, batería y reggeatón.” I’m Maribel Quezada Smith.
Liz Narration: And I’m Liz Rebecca Alarcón, today we’ll be exploring five key moments that in our view, helped fuel the millennial “Latino Boom”. Welcome to In Confianza. We’ll be right back.
[Bright music fades out]
Maribel Narration: So, Liz. Let’s premise this episode by letting people know two things: one, we know that Latin music has been global for more than 30 years, we are not trying to erase any of that history.
Liz Narration: That’s exactly right. And in this episode, we’re focusing on those five key moments that we at Pulso believe have fueled the popularity of Latinos in pop culture over the last 30 years. Which is basically our millennial generation’s life-span.
Maribel Narration: And, I don’t know about you, Liz. But I believe that pop culture is inspired by two things: music and fashion. And that’s why we’re looking at the Latino Pop Culture boom through the key moments in history that are marked by Latino artists.
Liz Narration: I agree Maribel, those are the two components that I think of when I try to define what’s cool, what’s not, what’s in, what’s out. I loved doing the extensive research, and the much debate that went into figuring out what those elements that really stuck were. So here they are: five transformational moments in pop culture that were made possible by Latinos.
[Investigative music begins]
Maribel Narration: Ok, let me take you back to a very different time. The late eighties, early nineties, when anglo artists ruled the pop music charts in the U.S., and Gloria Estefan was the biggest ambassador that Latinos had. Gloria was originally from Havana, Cuba – and she fled with her family to Miami as a toddler in the nineteen sixties.
Liz Narration: Along with dealing with the difficulties of being an immigrant and adapting to a new country, she had to take care of her father who was a disabled Vietnam veteran, while her mom worked to provide for the family. That’s how Gloria turned to music and poetry, to process her difficult emotions.
Maribel Narration: Then her life started to change when she discovered singing in public, and later met her band, led by a keyboardist called Emilio Estefan. He heard Gloria sing and you see where I’m going with this right, Liz?
Liz Narration: They fell in love, of course! Eventually, that led to building the world-renowned Miami Sound Machine which rose to popular success in the early eighties.
[Investigative music fades out]
Maribel Narration: Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine were topping the charts in the U.S. But in 1990, Gloria suffered a catastrophic bus accident which nearly killed her. She was left with a broken vertebra in her back, and the doctors were not hopeful about a full recovery.
Liz Narration: But Gloria was used to setback and she wasn’t going to let this stop her, Maribel. She made a miraculous comeback, making appearances at the 1991 American Music Awards, the 1992 Super Bowl halftime show, all while traveling the country with her successful ‘Into the Light tour’. And all the while, she was looking fierce.
[Clip — GLORIA ESTEFAN AT THE AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS]
Liz Narration: Now I don’t know how many of you all remember Estefan’s performance — talk about the irony at the 1992 Super Bowl Halftime show. She performed “Get On Your Feet” two years after her devastating accident in front of the Statue of Liberty. There’s just so much symbolism there.
Maribel Narration: I know, her black rhinestone corset is from that show gives me coquette aesthetic vibes.
Liz Narration: She had this vibe that she showed through her clothes that was so 90s, right? The grunge but the wholesome look all connected. And you could see it, like you said Maribel, through her outfits in her shows. So absolutely — her fashion inspires her music and all of that obviously affects trends, culture, lifestyle, and everything else around us.
Maribel Narration: This brings us to our first major moment in modern Latin pop music history. The 1994 Grammy Awards.
[Clip — Estefan at the 1994 Grammys]
Maribel Narration: It’s halfway through the show, and Gloria Estefan comes on stage wearing this gorgeous – guess what color dress, Liz?
Liz Narration: Black, of course!
Maribel Narration: Yes! She’s clad in this all black long sleeve turtleneck dress and you can kind of see her leg peeking through the slit of the mambo ruffled skirt.
Maribel Narration: There are neon palm trees on the stage, and her entire Miami Sound machine band is behind her. And all of them are wearing tuxedos, it was very formal and what I would call a “conservative chic” look.
Liz Narration: Then you have these solos, by Latino artists who take over the bridge of the song. Sheila E. did her percussion magic.
[Clip — Sheila E]
Liz Narration: And then you have Tito Puente…
[Clip — Tito Puente]
Liz Narration: Of course there’s Arturo Sandoval, the famous Cuban trumpeter. It just was pure Latino vibes. AND the first time a song was performed completely in Spanish during the Grammys.
Maribel Narration: Then in 99 she performed again at that year’s Super Bowl after Stevie Wonder. Safe to say that Gloria Estefan owned the 1990s Latin pop game.
Liz Narration: When I was a little girl, all I could see were the few Latina/Latino actors on Sesame Street. Other than that, it was Gloria and that was it. That’s why her Grammy and Super Bowl performances which we just combined into one huge moment for the purposes of this episode were just so defining for our generation.
Maribel Narration: Meanwhile, while Gloria kept shining on and off stage, her husband Emilio Estefan was already mentoring the next set of pop superstars. Starting with Ricky Martin.
Liz Narration: A lot of people might now know this — Emilio and Gloria had a significant hand in the mentoring of the millennial generation of superstars.
Maribel Narration: That’s right, Liz. Like the artist of our second huge moment in Latin pop history, Ricky Martin! And this is the moment when he performed his song, La Copa de la Vida, at the 1999 Grammy awards.
[Clip – Ricky Martin at the 1999 Grammys]
Maribel Narration: And he comes on stage at this performance wearing these sexy leather pants, and that sweater look that was so very Y2K. And just exudes confidence. This moment is considered by the media as the biggest move to galvanize the presence and mainstream access of Latino culture in music – not only in the United States, but in the world.
Liz Narration: But why? Why was this specific moment so galvanizing? I mean Gloria Estefan had already performed at The Grammys — and won, five years before this.
Maribel Narration: That’s a great question, Liz. If you ask me, there was just way more press around this particular moment.
Jesus: We were just getting off of the so-called Latin boom.
Liz Narration: This is Jesua Trivino, Senior director of industry relations and global Latin at Tidal.
Jesus: I’m pretty sure it was Time Magazine that had Ricky Martin on the cover and they coined that phrase.
Maribel Narration: Time magazine ran with the headline: “Latin Music Goes Pop”. I asked Jesus why he felt they picked Ricky Martin as the representative of this Latin music pop boom in the U.S.
Jesus: He had the Telenovela stuff, World Cup momentum, and then on top of that, he’s an amazing performer. And listen, we’re in a superficial society still. The guy’s an Adonis, so that also helps.
[Percussive music begins]
Liz Narration: Mr. Living La Vida Loca himself. He was in commercials, he graduated to a pop supergroup and then moved to New York to pursue his telenovela and soap opera career.
Maribel Narration: Ricky ticked many boxes for the American audience, and the press had plenty of receipts on Ricky Martin’s track record of success to prove that Latin music was poppin. However, as we moved forward into the 2000’s decade, we did see the Ricky Martin effect in other mediums.
Liz Narration: For sure, after that we started to see more Latino artists being showcased, not just in music, but in TV shows, movies, cartoons. Remember when Dora The Explorer came out — that was in the year 2000! The George Lopez Show in 2002, Ugly Betty in 2006, Selena Gomez made her Disney Channel debut in 2007.
Maribel Narration: The 2000’s were like a renaissance for Latin pop culture in the U.S. Everywhere you went you saw a J Lo poster or a Ricky commercial. But you know what wasn’t mainstream yet?
[Percussive music fades out]
Liz Narration: Reggeaton!
[Reggaeton-style music plays]
This genre was in its beginning stages of becoming the powerhouse of music that it is today.
Cris: It was a very pop driven world at that time, urban wasn’t as popular as it is now. And Reggaeton was kind of like looked down upon, even in Puerto Rico.
Maribel Narration: That’s Cristina Novo-Bernal, founder of Public Relations agency Artistry & Records. Cris was a talent booker for a show called “The Roof” on Mun2. I don’t know if you remember that. And she has those receipts when it comes to how hard it was to get the mainstream industry’s attention for reggaeton and other “urban” artists.
Cris: We were trying to make The Roof that mainstream show where we can showcase what the people wanted.
[Reggaeton-style music fades out]
Cris: We had Daddy Yankee. We had Teyo. We had Ivy Queen, Nina Sky, Lumi D, All the major players that are, again, global superstars now, the mainstream wasn’t taking. There was a lot of barriers. They didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense for them, right? Even I want to say more than five years ago, it was still hard to pitch a Jimmy Fallon to have Latin artists on their show.
Maribel Narration: And needless to say, the vibe started to shift in New York City, the capital city of urban music.
[Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” Plays]
Cris: We had, the boom of gasolina, and everyone wanted to dibble and dabble in reggaeton, right? Everyone wanted their hands on this space.
Maribel Narration: And soon after that, Merriam Webster added the English word “reggaeton” to their dictionary in 2009, and by 2010 DJs across the U.S. were starting to sprinkle this Latino flavor into their playlists.
[Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” Fades Out]
Liz Narration: Now, we’re talking, this was my era, Maribel. This was the decade of Dalmata, Hector y Tito, Daddy Yankee, Tego Calderon, Zion y Lennox, N.O.R.E, Wisin y Yandel, Don Omar! These were the artists that made up my 20s.
Maribel Narration: And Even though Latin artists from pop to reggaeton were getting playtime in many clubs around the country, Very few reggaeton artists made the top 100 charts in the 2000’s decade. Now, two lucky artists were Daddy Yankee and N.O.R.E., with two individual songs each.
Liz Narration: The other Latino artists on the top 100 charts that decade were Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and Carlos Santana. I guess if you count Christina Aguilera and Enrique Iglesias, they were there too.
Maribel Narration: But, Liz, none of these artists had their Spanish songs inside of the top 100. Then, in 2010, we started to see more of the reggaeton flow showing up in the top 100 music charts, including ELEVEN songs that featured Pitbull in the 2010’s.
Liz Narration: The homegrown Miami talent, Mr. 305. Because of Pitbull, there was no way you could avoid Latinos that ENTIRE decade. He had collabs with Usher, Kesha, JLo, you name it, that man’s shiny head was everywhere.
[Percussive music begins]
All of these steps led the way to the biggest latino hit in US history
This after the break.
[Percussive music ends]
Liz Narration: Years of Reagatton success in pop music had paved the way for an explosive arrival on the charts — our third game changing moment in Latin pop Music history.
[“Despacito” plays]
Maribel Narration: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee with “Despacito”.
Liz Narration: The song was already popping off inside of the top 40, but of course – someone thought it needed a little gringo boost so in came Justin Bieber for the remix, and that just pushed the song all the way to number one!
Maribel Narration: Despacito spent sixteen weeks at number one! The first song in Spanish to reach that coveted spot since The Macarena in 1996. Are you doing the math? Yup, that’s 21 years between these two songs, four U.S. Presidents, and so much more had changed in this time. Here’s music publicist, Cris Novo again sharing how the music industry adjusted to these changes.
Cris: I think Spotify was like an amazing tool as well as Instagram and YouTube to show our globalization. Once they saw how huge it was and how these moments were becoming epic for them also as well as the artists and the floodgates started opening.
Maribel Narration: The floodgates that Cris Novo refers to here, Liz, are the opportunities for more Latinos headlining, collaborating on hit songs, getting shine and showcasing our talents on the global stage.
Liz Narration: We have to point out that for better or worse, technology played a huge role in finally bringing these artists the mainstream attention that other Latino artists never got. Social media and mixtape stardom on platforms like SoundCloud, gave onetime underground Latino artists…an invitation to perform at the biggest sports events of the year.
And that is how we arrived at our fourth biggest moment in Latino-pop culture history. The 2020 Super Bowl halftime show. In my hometown of Miami, Florida. Let’s relive this moment together.
[Clip – 2020 Super Bowl halftime show]
Liz Narration: So first, Shakira comes out — dazzling in her genre-bending amazingness. She played Rock, her signature Middle Eastern sound, Mapalé from Colombia, which was my favorite part, brought out Bad Bunny for a cameo and even crowd surfed. Then J Lo comes out with her old school bangers and gives a nod to her acclaimed performance in Hustlers, by killing it on the pole, at 50 years old, no less. After a medley of salsa and hip hop, she closed it out with a political moment protesting our government putting children in cages. Shakira and J Lo gave us some of the best 13 minutes in entertainment with a beautiful representation of so many rhythms that influence our community’s sounds. With more than 300 million views, this is the most watched halftime show on NFL’s YouTube channel ever.
Maribel Narration: This was the first time that Roc Nation, the entertainment company founded by rapper and producer Jay-Z, took over the production of the Super Bowl halftime show. And they changed the way artists were being approached and considered. So instead of interviewing several acts like an HR department, Roc Nation asked the artists who they felt made the most sense to do the show, and according to Jesus Trivino, this is how we got our first-ever Latina headlined halftime at the Super Bowl.
[Sounds of NFL game lightly plays underneath Jesus]
Jesus: American football, It’s the biggest sport in the in the U. S. and it’s watched by everyone, meaning not just the people in Miami, not just people in New York, but middle America. So for them to get like just a blast of Latinos in their, in their face. They were forced to watch it. “Hey, we’re here. And we’re not going anywhere.” And on top of that, adding the next generation of J Balvin and Bad Bunny.
Liz Narration: And this was one of the first times that we saw Bad Bunny make it to a truly global stage.
Maribel Narration: But he was already killing it, as well as J. Balvin. Bad Bunny already had eight songs in the global top 20 spots, including the number 1 hit song with Drake, MIA. He was also Spotify’s fifth most streamed artist globally in 2019. And J Balvin was the fifth most globally streamed male artist in 2019.
Liz Narration: So I guess it made sense why Shakira and J Lo would pick these two guys to share the stage with. I know they got some criticism because folks wanted to see people of different skin colors and of different genres on the stage. But nonetheless, having them on that stage really catapulted what happened in the years after the halftime show. We saw a noticeable increase in Latin music, flavor and vibes all around us.
Maribel Narration: It’s true, we saw TV shows like Los Espookys, Gentefied, Wednesday, and of course more music being created and made popular by our very own people. And for the first time since 2017 with Despacito, we started hearing songs in Spanish playing on top 40 stations. By the end of 2020, Bad Bunny had the number one most streamed artist spot on Spotify with more than 8.3 billion global streams! The man jumped five spots in one year!
Liz Narration: And J Balvin was not too far behind, he was the third most streamed artist globally in 2020. And in 2021 guess who’s back again for the top spot?
Maribel Narration: Bad Bunny.
Liz Narration: With over 9.1 billion streams without releasing a new album. He was followed by Taylor Swift, not the other way around.
Maribel Narration: In 2022 for the THIRD time in a row, the most streamed artist, according to Spotify was Bad Bunny, breaking a record that no other artist had ever broken before. So of course, it made sense that he would be the artist that graced the stage for our fifth and final groundbreaking Latino pop culture moment of this episode…
Liz Narration: The 2023 Grammy Awards! Let’s hear it!
[Clip — Bad Bunny at the 2023 Grammys]
Liz Narration: It is impossible not to move your body when you see this opening. So, the colors and the music and the drums, the dancers dancing plena. And then all of a sudden, Bad Bunny emerges from the group to be rapping in Spanish. And that stage with the bobbleheads behind him, you could see the crowd of artists just stand up and start clapping. It is just so infectious. It’s like Latinidad in 30 seconds.
Maribel Narration: And I loved seeing Giancarlo and Taylor Swift. They’re like up moving and grooving. Everybody’s dancing. Everybody’s soaking it in. It definitely is a pivotal moment in all Latino culture to have him perform, right there at the Grammys.
Here’s Jesus Trivino again
Jesus: He was the first artist to get nominated for album of the year. For an all Spanish language album, that’s never happened before. There’s millions of people that don’t understand what Bad Bunny is saying. They don’t understand what Chimba is like, but they’re listening to it because it’s, it’s a vibe and their friends are listening to it.
Maribel Narration: The performance was so unapologetic and genuine. In the 24 years since Ricky Martin’s Grammy Award performance, I think culturally, we’ve gained the confidence as a people to exist more effortlessly and showcase who we really are, without feeling like we have to “put on a show” for the anglo-audience. And I think that Bad Bunny’s performance did just that. People listen to music differently now. That’s another thing that has changed in the years since Ricky Martin’s Time Magazine cover.
Jesus: The way people listen to music now, they’re not just in one genre. They don’t just listen to one thing. Like they’ll listen to Peso Pluma, they’ll listen to Taylor Swift. You’re not in one space anymore. So I think that’s what is helping Latinos.
[Percussive music fades in]
Liz Narration: The fact is, we’re still exploring how the idea of Latinidad reflects in our music and in how we live our lives. Every moment is an opportunity for more of us to embrace our culture.
Maribel Narration: And as our music, our trends and food continue to show up in what some people still refer to as mainstream culture, the demand for knowledge and experience will hopefully have a positive effect on our community overall.
Liz Narration: Here’s Cris, again, talent booker from The Roof.
Cris: Grupo Frontera Cuando on like Jimmy Fallon you know what I’m saying? Pero they know, they know that they need that audience now you have all of Mexico watching Jimmy Fallon. So you know what I mean? Like their ratings, of course, are gonna skyrocket.
Maribel Narration: In the last three decades, Latin music has changed the beat of this country, from small pop chart gains to global music domination, our culture is everywhere. I can’t wait to see what the next 30 years will look like.
[Percussive music fades out]
[Theme music begins]
Liz Narration: This episode was hosted by Maribel Quezada Smith and me, Liz Rebecca Alarcón. It was produced by Maribel Quezada Smith and edited by Mark Pagán and Charlie Garcia. Audio editing, scoring, and mixing by Charlie Garcia. Additional audio editing from Julian Blackmore.
You can subscribe to In Confianza wherever you get your podcasts, and if you like what you heard please leave us a review on apple podcasts and tell a friend to give us a listen.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for joining me, Pulso Fam. We’ll be back next week, In Confianza.
[Theme music fades out]
