Why is Featherweight leading the trends?

(CNN Spanish) – Surely you’ve heard or read about featherweight in recent weeks. It is undeniable that Mexican music, a genre that now includes recumbent passages, occupies important places in the hit lists of various platforms.

On Spotify, for example, Featherweight appears on three of the top five globally streamed songs of The week of June 8, 2023.

La Doble P also has two videos in the top 5 that are a trend in YouTube in the United States.

Mexican songs, as well as collaborations by Grupo Frontera and Bad Bunny, are aggregating copies on these two platforms and their audios are spreading on social networks such as TikTok.

Music and the Mexican Generation Z

What happened for these artists to dominate the world musically? It’s all about a specific generation, says AJ Ramos, director of relations with Latin artists in the US, as well as Latin America, for YouTube.

“This new generation, Generation Z, especially those who have Crossing [cultural] They’re 200% – 100% American, 100% Mexican – get off. It is more noticeable than ever in Graphs. In the United States, the largest diaspora in our Latino community is Mexicans, and how nice it is to see everything that’s going on right now.”

Artists like DannyLux, Conexión Divina, Becky G, Fuerza Regida, and Grupo Frontera, among others, are American, but they have Mexican roots and a clear example of the phenomenon Ramos describes.

Although Becky G had her beginnings in urban pop music, at Coachella the singer invited many artists representing Mexican music to the stage. She is also about to release a regional Mexican album.

Ramos explains that this phenomenon is not a coincidence and is not new.

“Mexico has always been here. For an artist to become a global artist, they have to stay in Mexico and the Mexican community has to love them. Now come platforms like YouTube, giving the opportunity to connect music with new audiences, new communities and a global platform that continues to push music forward,” he says. AJ Ramos tells CNN en Español.

Hip-hop culture for reference

References to hip-hop in Mexican music may seem like an exaggeration, but there is an aspect of this American cultural movement that is being replicated by artists such as Nathaniel Cano and Peso Bluma.

Although they interpret the corredo and their music has Mexican rhythms and lyrics, the style of these singers is much different from what, for example, traditional local Mexican artists wear: hats and shoes. Cowboys.

Artists who occupy the world stage sport diamond chains, as well as clothes and shoes from luxury brands. This is a hip-hop aesthetic.

“They’re original, they are. If they wear a hat it’s okay, but they’ve got Gucci, they’re top notch. They wear a beanie, they wear their Yeezys, they wear their Jordans. But the lyrics and the lyrics, as well as the fusion and the musical elements they use, connect with this generation.” The new one, which even includes reggaeton artists. [queriendo] making music in the Mexican world,” Ramos explains.

And it’s not just reggae artists like Bad Bunny who are under the influence of Mexican music. Snoop Dogg is one of the American artists, icons of hip-hop culture, who also approached the Mexican world. In 2020, he surprised collaborations with Banda MS and Natanael Cano. Also a Posted videos listening To the band’s singer, Jenny Rivera. This cultural affinity between hip-hop and credos seems to be bearing fruit.

Félix García, vice president of marketing for Monitor Latino, a company that monitors radio stations in Latin America, agrees with Ramos’ theory that Featherweight’s new, somewhat urban image has brought him closer to youth from other parts of the world.

“Bring look More pop and lyrics that are obviously more in tune with Generation Z,” Garcia says.

Mexican Music in Latin America and the World

Mexicans are the largest number of immigrants among Latinos in the United States, according to 2020 census data, cited by United States Department of Health and Human Services. This is why Mexican music has more space in the United States. The situation is somewhat different in Latin America.

Although the featherweight-driven phenomenon is relatively new (its explosion has been documented in the past three months), the rise of Mexican music in South America can be measured in the past five years, says García.

Although rancheras have always had regular audiences in countries like Venezuela and Colombia, the appetite for Mexican music has grown in recent years, he explains.

“About five years ago, when Los Plebes del Rancho and Karen Leone and that kind of artist started popping up a lot in Colombia, but it didn’t get past that,” García explains.

García says he achieved it with Featherweight look More pop to penetrate markets previously unattainable by regional Mexican artists at least in the top positions of the Graphs.

“He managed to enter other parts of Latin America, such as Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and even Spain,” García explains.

A Mexican regional innovation

Appearance isn’t everything, García explains. Like all genres, the Mexican region went through a process in which it was necessary to innovate in sound.

“A lot has been invented in the way it is sung, there is even a piece where you can hear the rap. Traditionally, regional Mexican music was not sung or composed as it is composed today,” García explains.

One of the pioneers of this whole movement, García says, is Nathaniel Cano, who is credited with being the father of recumbent arcades.

“It was Natanel who inaugurated this new wave, this new kind of regional Mexican music,” says García.

Precisely in the year 2022, Nathaniel Cano told Zona Pop CNN that the rebirth of the reclining credo was inevitable.

“I think it came from within, it was inevitable. I had to spend the halls lying down. We did it from the heart, we did it organically, we did it in the neighborhood. People were able to pick up on it so well, I probably forgot that gist because it happened so long ago,” he said. Kano.

For García, innovation in this genre will be the key to continuing to occupy spaces on global radio stations and platforms.

“I think what ultimately happened with urban music in order for this to have a better future and to be compatible, and now, with the whole world, including to be more compatible with Latino cultures, I think it has to continue to innovate. Adds García The music of this kind that will hit the most, or that will break the most boundaries, will be the most commercial.”