60 BILLBOARD • OCTOBER 12, 2019
LATIN POWER PLAYERS 2019
MOW Management and Universal Music Latin
Entertainment’s Global Talent Services to run Ale-
jandro Sanz’s worldwide tour. In July, Live Nation
acquired a controlling 51% stake in OCESA. “This
deal confirms confidence in the Mexican market-
place,” says Mizrahi. Pagani revitalized the career
of Los Ángeles Azules. The Mexican cumbia band
landed its first No. 1 in 19 years on the Regional
Mexican airplay chart with the single “Nunca es
Suficiente,” featuring Natalia Lafourcade, and sold
out Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre in April. “It was a lot
of work,” says Pagani, “and a labor of love.”
GREATEST LATIN MUSIC MILESTONE Mizrahi “Shakira’s
Oral Fixation in 2006-07. That tour proved that the
Latin singer can be global, singing in both Spanish
and English in all five continents.”
Michel Vega
CEO
MAGNUS MEDIA
At the management/booking agency Magnus Me-
dia, Vega’s flagship client Marc Anthony released his
first studio album in six years, Opus, in May, earning
the salsa-rooted star his 11th top 10 title on the Top
Latin Albums chart. With a roster that includes
Gente de Zona, iHeartRadio’s Enrique Santos,
Mau y Ricky and Fonseca, Magnus’ touring artists
had a 25% increase in gross revenue in the past year
across the board, according to Vega, 53. “Almost
3 million people have seen our artists perform live in
30 different countries on three continents,” he says.
DEFINING CROSSOVER “Latin music is now so inter-
twined in the fabric of global pop culture that a
discussion of ‘crossover’ is ridiculous.”
MULTISECTOR
Nelson Albareda
CEO
LOUD AND LIVE
Edgar Martínez
Senior vp entertainment
LOUD AND LIVE
Albareda, 43, oversaw what he describes as
record-breaking box-office success for his roster
this year — including Juan Luis Guerra, Roberto
Carlos, Marco Antonio Solís, Franco de Vita, Pedro
Capó and Daniel Habif. Martínez, 41, strategized
for veteran superstars Guerra and Carlos, intro-
ducing the artists to new markets and generating
exponential growth in performance revenue. Loud
and Live took Roberto Carlos to a $3.8 million
gross on his 2019 trek, says Martínez.
Henry Cárdenas
Founder/CEO
CÁRDENAS MARKETING NETWORK
See story, page 54.
Jorge Juarez
CEO
WESTWOOD ENTERTAINMENT
David West
Founder/CEO
WESTWOOD ENTERTAINMENT
Carlos Rivera’s Guerra tour has brought the best
of both worlds to Westwood. “When an artist like
Carlos has streaming volume and heavy ticket sales,
it’s terrific,” says West, 56, who sees the success of
tours by Rivera and fellow clients Camila and Sin
Bandera as further proof of Latin music’s expan-
sion to English-speaking audiences. “Latin music
is taking off globally, so now you see Anglo artists
wanting to jump on the bandwagon.” While Juarez,
42, brought such artists as Natalia Jiménez and
Llane (formerly of Piso 21) to Westwood, he also
oversaw Latin pop trio Reik’s transition to urban,
with a stronger online presence. “We worked to
make them one of the most successful Mexican
artists on digital platforms globally,” he says.
MOST PROMISING LATIN TREND Juarez “Urban R&B.
We’re trying to get our talent to do amazing lyrics
and urban sound with amazing voices. That’s what
we believe is going to be explosive.”
Gustavo López
CEO
SABAN MUSIC GROUP
After 21 years at Universal Music Latin Enter-
tainment — a tenure that included the launch of
urban label Machete Music — López, 46, started
his own label, Talento Uno, in 2017. “UMLE treat-
ed me very well,” he says. “[I left] to really learn
the business of building a company on my own
versus having an 800-pound gorilla behind me.”
This July, López was appointed head of Saban
Music Group, a Los Angeles-based boutique
music company with a global outlook and a
Latin-focused roster. It launched with a $500 mil-
lion infusion from billionaire philanthropist Haim
Saban. “Ultimately,” says López, “our challenge is
E. Martínez
Cárdenas
Albareda
West
López
Vega
Juarez
FRESH AIRES
Argentina’s unlikely trap scene is attracting international
attention — and finding fans in Ed Sheeran and Bad Bunny
B Y J U L Y S S A L OP E Z
F
reestyle battles are routine
events in Argentina’s capital
of Buenos Aires, where fans
regularly pour into the city’s
plazas to watch the best MCs square
off. In recent years, however, these
showcases have become hotbeds of the
country’s flourishing trap scene, which
has produced a number of breakout
artists vying for global attention. There’s
Paulo Londra, the crackly-voiced rapper
who is the most-streamed Argentine act
on Spotify and has collaborated with Ed
Sheeran; emo kid Cazzu, who has signed
to indie label Rimas Entertainment, home
to Puerto Rican sensation Bad Bunny;
and Nicki Nicole, the 18-year-old who in
August hit No. 3 on the Billboard Argen-
tina Hot 100 with her track “BZRP Music
Session, Vol. 13.”
“This is exploding at an international
level,” says Federico Lauría, head of
Argentine trap label Lauria Dale Play and
production company Dale Play. In 2016,
he watched as a freestyler named Duki
won a rap battle called El Quinto Escalón.
The song he performed, “No Vendo
Trap,” subsequently became the first in
the battle’s history to hit 1 million YouTube
views and has since attracted 24 million
views total.
The trap scene’s vibrancy is surprising,
and not just because Argentina is 5,000-
plus miles away from the Atlanta commu-
nities in which the genre was born. For
decades, the country’s main popular mu-
sic export was rock en español bands like
Los Enanitos Verdes and Soda Stereo.
While Argentina has embraced rap since
the ’90s, it’s still navigating a complex re-
lationship with the genre: Many of its trap
artists are from low-income neighbor-
hoods and say they identify with hip-hop
acts, but they are nearly all white. (Much
of Argentina’s population is of Spanish
and Italian descent.)
Still, Lauría says their connection to
trap is “genuine” and notes that their mu-
sic is already connecting on a grassroots
level. “Duki reached the [Spotify] global
charts without being on a main-
stream playlist or on U.S. radio,” he
says. “They go from the streets and
soar up.” Roberta Pate, Spotify’s
head of artist and label marketing, Latin
America, says the DIY mindset of these
musicians has been integral to their
success. “The artists started [out] 100%
indie, since they understood technology
and music distributors,” she says. “They
partnered directly with Spotify and used
Spotify for Artists to gather analytics,
knowing and understanding their audi-
ence better for digital promotion.”
Now, as they attract international
attention, these artists are figuring out
where to go next. Londra, who inked a
deal with Warner Music Latina in 2018,
has been exploring a more
pop-leaning sound and avoiding
trap’s tropes of drugs and vio-
lence in what appears to be a bid
for broader commercial success. Others,
like newcomer Lucho SSJ, are holding on
to trap’s trademark toughness. “Everyone
goes their own way — some are doing
underground stuff, some have a more
[traditional] hip-hop style,” says Cazzu.
“It’s really personal.”
One thing that won’t change? The
emphasis on wordplay and clever
writing that comes from honing their
craft in rap-battle circles. “These kids
are still young — 18 to 22 — and they’re
growing,” says Lauría, “but they’re not
compromising their artistic roots.”
Argentina’s rising
trap artists, from
left: Nicole, Duki,
Londra and Cazzu.
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