July 2019 | Rolling Stone | 49
LET’S SAY YOU WANT TO make a viral pop hit. Who better to help than Ozuna, the world’s most watched artist on YouTube?
The Puerto Rican-Dominican singer’s collaborative spirit is a big part of why he’s so omnipresent right now. When the 27-year-old talks
about being a family man, he doesn’t just mean his wife and two children: “I’m building a family in music too,” he says. SUZY EXPOSITOHot Secret Sauce Ozuna
Whitney is
a podcast
host and
sexuality
doula.
ILEEN KELLY LOVES two things in par-
ticular: posting selfies and giving you
advice about your sex life. Growing up in
a conservative Catholic family in Seattle,
she didn’t have access to solid sex education. “I had
friends who got pregnant and had to get abortions
and couldn’t tell their parents,” she says. Starting in
high school, Kelly amassed a following on Tumblr
trying to educate other teens, answering questions
about losing your virginity and putting on a condom.
Meanwhile, her predilection for acrobatic poses,
moody filters and (tastefully censored) nude selfies
made her a natural for Instagram stardom. Over
time, she has merged her two passions, dispensingsex advice on her Insta (411,000 followers and
counting) and website, Killer and a Sweet Thang.
Instagram isn’t a particularly sex-positive space,
but it’s wildly popular with young people, making
it the de facto platform for aspiring sex educators
like Kelly and others, including Ev’Yan Whitney, a
sexuality doula and host of the podcast The Sexually
Liberated Woman. On the app, they promote messag-
es of self-love, self-acceptance and, yes, self-pleasure.
Kelly, who has a degree from the Institute for Ad-
vanced Study of Human Sexuality, says good looks,
though helpful, aren’t the point: “I know people who
have a million followers, and all they do is post bikini
shots. I want to stand for something.” E.J. DICKSONHOT SEX EDUCATORSInstagram Influencers
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TENOCHESELENA GOMEZ
Gomez is proudly Mexican
American — down to her
first name — but she’s not
known for singing in Spanish.
Still, the reclusive pop star
gave it a whirl alongside
Ozuna and Cardi B for DJ
Snake’s monster reggaeton
hit “Taki Taki.”BAD BUNNY
Ozuna and his wily rabbit
friend both built their careers
on SoundCloud and YouTube,
then slid right on to ruling
American Top 40 radio. When
they jumped on a remix of
2017’s “Te Boté,” it became a
fluke megahit — and one of
the most memorable songs
of their careers.DADDY YANKEE
Though Ozuna’s a power
player in his own right, he
recently got a big boost
from reggaeton titans Daddy
Yankee and J Balvin, when
they teamed up for a remix of
“Baila Baila Baila” that rocked
the charts. “It’s important for
a star to help uplift younger
artists,” says Ozuna. “That’s
what Daddy Yankee does.”CARDI B
“She’s like a sister to me,”
Ozuna says. Cardi unveiled
her inner Spanish-language
songbird for his 2017
dancehall track “La Modelo”
— and brought back her
saucy wordplay in “Taki Taki.”
Next up: a new song they
recorded together for his
upcoming album, Nibiru.NATTI NATASHA
Ozuna’s counterpart
in the global YouTube
gold rush is Natasha, the
platform’s most watched
woman. Their noirish 2017
single, “Criminal,” has
nearly 2 billion views.MALUMA
The Colombian pop
darling’s 11:11 features
duets with Ricky Martin,
Madonna and more. The
highlight: “Dispuesto,”
where Ozuna’s tenor
plays nimbly off Maluma’s
dusky come-ons.