Maykol Sánchez, a 36-year-old Venezuelan living in Miami, leads the music strategy at music platform Spotify for Latin America—a strategy he describes as an ecosystem in which the algorithm and music publishers join hands to promote to artists in different and creative ways. “The two worlds coexist in a very positive way,” he says in an interview with EL PAÍS at the BIME festival that brought together this week, in Bogotá, the heavyweights of the Latin American music industry. Sánchez also manages the company’s relationships with artists and record labels, seeing which musical releases become immediate successes and which move at a slower pace. Mexican music has a renaissance, he says, but salsa and cumbia are also on the right track.
Ask. What strength does Spotify have to explain the increase in Latin music consumption in the world?
Answer. That question is difficult for me, because I work at Spotify, but the data and the market say it: Spotify partly explains what is happening. I think there are different factors. From the artist’s point of view, many have taken the risk of being authentic, different; They understand how they can grow not only in Latin America but in other countries. But I think that would not have happened without the great growth it has had [Spotify] in Latin America in the last 10 years—this year we celebrate 11 years in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, 10 in Brazil. With more than 120 million users joining Spotify every month in Latin America, the region represents 22% of our monthly users and also 22% of our subscribers. In the last 10 years, Latin music consumption has grown by 1,000% on the platform, a phenomenon largely led by reggaeton.
Q. Is reggaeton still king in Latin music? What is consumed the most?
R. Reggaeton was the spokesperson for the export of Latin music and Latin culture, in general. The artists from Puerto Rico, from Colombia, from Argentina, from all of Latin America were a large part of that movement. But in the last two years Mexican music has also had an incredible moment, exponential growth. In the last four or five years, its consumption has grown almost 500% on the platform. In the last six years, we have been working very hard on Mexican music, making investments, creating spaces, trying to help export it. This is opening space for a diversification of genres that are also being heard elsewhere. For example, in Argentina the number one artist was always an urban artist, Bad Bunny or a local one like Duki or Bizzarrap; Last year, however, it was Ke Personajes, which is cumbia. In Brazil, a super interesting mix of genres is starting to happen that didn’t happen before: funk artists are working with sertanejo artists, and we released a playlist called Funknejo which basically shows that synergy. Within Mexico, there is even diversification: now electro-corridos are coming out, corridos with more electronic sounds, and there is also norteño-sax [que incorpora el saxofón]. Although corridos continue to lead the conversation, spaces are opening up for different listening, and all of this is being exported very quickly, inside and outside of Latin America, through the platform.
Q. In this Mexican boom, who are the pioneers in Spotify?
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R. There are many classic names—Banda MS, La Arrolladora, Los Tigres del Norte—that paved the way. But today, if I have to say three names, they are Peso Pluma, Natanael Cano and Junior H. They have led this new narrative of Mexican music. Last year we had, for the first time in the history of the platform, a Mexican artist in the top five of the most listened to globally. It was Featherweight. Behind them come other names, such as Gabito Ballesteros or Xavi, who had a song at global number one this year [en enero, con La Diabla, que lleva casi 600 millones de reproducciones].
Q. And what is the consumption of the different Latin American cumbias on Spotify?
R. We work on cumbia at the local and regional level. We create spaces at the local level so that there is greater consumption of cumbia in Colombia, Argentina or Mexico. But we also create regional spaces where we make known all the artists, cumbias from all over. Cumbia is having exponential growth in Argentina, especially among young people. It’s interesting that artists are working on genres that traditionally had older audiences and now everything is changing. They are even diversifying even more into tropical genres: there are more and more artists making salsa. Almost all urban artists, Hip-Hop for example, are writing at least one salsa song for their albums. Right now here in Colombia Ryan Castro, for example, released an album, and the first single is a salsa that pays tribute to Héctor Lavoe [con la canción El Cantante del Ghetto]. I have also noticed more artists doing bachata or other subgenres from the tropical world, which is very nice.
Q. Are the borders between musical genres becoming less clear every day?
R. Yes Yes of course. Young audiences have a much more refined ear, they want something authentic, different, that represents them in some way. And although there will always be those fairly specific genre boundaries, artists have realized that there is more room to try more genres and find an avenue that represents them well, so that they feel comfortable with their art.
Q. And on the opposite side, how is consumption still different?
R. I think the differences are decreasing a lot. We, from the moment we discover an artist, work on exporting him. We have an ecosystem that offers a service locally in Colombia or Argentina, but that is connected to the Latin American ecosystem. For example, there is our program development of artists to discover, Radar, which we just announced. I would say that Brazil is where there is still quite local consumption, but more and more we see that the Brazilian funk beat is being used, for example, in Argentina, or in what Bad Bunny or Travis Scott do.
Q. Have you seen interesting differences in musical consumption according to gender? Do women, for example, consume more women?
R. In general, no. Some artists have more women who listen to them, others more men, but there is no common denominator by gender. We make an effort to create more equity for female artists in the music industry. We have a program called Equal, for example, that chooses artists throughout the region, and we give them support on and off the platform. We have done the Equal Festival, only with women, in Colombia and Argentina, and it has gone very well. And in Argentina we just held the Equal Football Cup, a cup for artists, influencers, many creators, where there were conversations and an educational talk to give more spaces for women.
Q. How much does artificial intelligence define what we listen to on Spotify?
R. We take artificial intelligence with the consumer and the creator in mind. A perfect example is what is called AI DJ, which is artificial intelligence functioning as your listening partner. Based on many parameters of how you listen, what you listen to, it takes you on a journey within Spotify, which becomes your ally in discovery. This is not always listening to the same things, the ones you like, but also seeing new genres and artists.
Q. Do we live in the dictatorship of what the algorithm defines us?
R. At Spotify it has an ecosystem that mixes personalization, worked by an editorial team, and the algorithm. We are not 100% guided by the algorithm, we understand the value of human work. The two worlds coexist in a very positive way and create the perfect ecosystem.
Q. What are they doing so that the industry streaming be fairer to artists?
R. We just released our global report, Loud & Clear, in which we talk about where royalties come from for artists and how money works at Spotify. Almost 50% of the royalties that are being generated on Spotify [durante el 2023 sumaron más de 9.000 millones de dólares] They come from independent artists, which was not the case in previous years. So, we are increasingly opening more spaces for independent artists, who are starting their career. And we are creating a space for it to be quite equitable. Next week we will release a more specific report in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina on how money moves. .
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