9 ideas to break Spanish-language music in Brazil
It may come as a surprise to many people that Latin American/Spanish-language music is not as popular in Brazil as it is in the rest of Latin America.
Aside from some punctual cases (Shakira and Ricky Martin in the 1990s, RBD in the 2000s, Shakira again in the 2000s — well, Shakira always), Latin artists do not have the easiest time entering the Brazilian music market, which is massively dominated by local artists although it makes space for English-language music acts.
There are a lot of reasons that may explain this barrier, and one of them is another fact that people outside Latin America may not be aware of: Brazilians speak Portuguese, and although Portuguese and Spanish might sound similar, Brazilians are not really much familiar with Spanish.
Music sung in English is way more welcomed by Brazilian audiences than music sung in Spanish. Even Korean music finds bigger audiences in Brazil than Latin music, despite the geographical proximity of Brazil with Spanish-speaking Latin countries, and even some cultural resemblances.
It’s also true that Latin America does not show the same love for Brazilian artists either. Cases like Anitta’s are exceptions, but in general, when it comes to music, Brazil is very isolated in Latin America (actually, in the world, really).
However, given that Latin music is taking such a prominent role in the global music industry, it is intriguing that Brazil is resisting it. With Brazil being the 9th biggest music market in the world in 2023 (according to the IFPI), it’s only right that Latin American music artists and executives have an eye on the country. But right now, it feels like there’s a mutual obstacle that the Portuguese-speaking country and the Spanish-speaking countries can’t seem to find a solution to overcome.
So what’s missing?
Rather than focusing only on the things that separate Brazil from the rest of Latin America, I’d like to think about what can be done to change it based on what these countries have in common.
For this post, I will speculate on potential opportunities for Latin American artists who sing in Spanish to find a space in the Brazilian music market.
Here are 9 ideas:
More Spanish-speaking artists featured in Brazilian songs (not the opposite!)
Collaborations among Brazilian and Spanish-speaking artists are an overly simplistic solution if the latter is the star of the song. If the idea here is to target Brazil, then the Brazilian artist should take the lead in the song.
We can’t just hold on to the similarities between Portuguese and Spanish and hope that they are enough to make the music sound accessible to Brazilian ears. Instead, inserting smaller portions of Spanish in between Portuguese lyrics of Brazilian artists might be more effective. Luísa Sonza did this with the track “Anaconda”, which features a Spanish verse performed by Mariah Angeliq.
In a way, this is kind of the formula that made “Despacito” break in countries that do not speak Spanish, by adding Justin Bieber singing in English right in the intro of the song. Bieber’s vocals and English lyrics play the role of “warming up” the listener so he can easily welcome the Spanish lyrics and the unfamiliar beat that comes next. Of course, in this case, Luis Fonsi was still the song’s lead, but he took the risk of sharing the spotlight of Bieber in the most important parts of the song (intro and chorus) instead of just treating him like a feature. That’s what made the difference and contributed to the boom of “Despacito”.
Exploring reggaetón’s connection with trap
Reggaetón is a very danceable genre, and to some, it does not sound as much more than that. This maybe explains why the closest to an equivalent of reggaetón in Brazilian music is baile funk.
Nevertheless, reggaetón is also widely influenced by trap — no wonder the biggest reggaetón artist in the world is also a trapper (Bad Bunny), and no wonder Brazilian trap artists such as WIU explore reggaetón in their music.
I don’t think the reggaetón & trap connection is explored enough.
Whenever people discuss how Bad Bunny could find bigger audiences in Brazil, he’s often understood from the reggaetón perspective. However, Bad Bunny has great potential to dialogue with trap music audiences, and Brazil has a very strong and rich trap scene. Breaking artists like him through trap rather than through reggaetón might be a possibility worth exploring.
Exploring reggaetón & Latin genres’ connection with Brazilian Northern & Northeastern music
The argument that Brazil does not listen to much music sung in Spanish is legitimate and relevant, but it’s also one that underlooks a big part of Brazilian culture.
While the biggest part of Brazil’s population lies in the Southeast region (where São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are), there are a wide array of local cultures proliferating in other regions.
The Northern side of Brazil is often neglected by the corporate media and Brazilians themselves, to the point that they may not even know that this is probably the region that most consumes Spanish-language music from South and Central America.
Pará and other Northern States of Brazil have a rich musical scene influenced by Latin genres such as cumbia and merengue.
Pará is the land where lambada was created, and it’s also where singer Pabllo Vittar grew up — she explicitly references Pará-born genres such as brega calypso and tecnobrega in her music. The average Brazilian might not know who Rossy War is, but the Peruvian cumbia singer is a star in Pará.
In the Northeastern side of Brazil, forró, arrocha, and brega funk are not that far either from the sound of Latin genres such as bachata and reggaetón.
The genres cooked in Northern/Northeastern Brazil are inherently connected to many of the sounds that inform music made by Latin American artists right now. Just check how this unofficial remix of Rosalía’s “Despechá” sounds a lot like Beto Barbosa’s lambada hits, or how the cumbia that’s hot in Argentina right now resembles the cumbia that is made in Pará.
Some Brazilian artists like Luisa e os Alquimistas are already exploring the connections between local genres such as brega funk and Latin genres such as reggaetón.
So rather than just trying to create new bridges between Brazil and the rest of Latin America, we could very much use the space that already exists.
Exploring Latin pop artists too
Brazilians might need a little more time and exposure to reggaetón, cumbia or Mexican regional music to like them. But Brazilians love English-sung pop.
Global pop references like Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Rihanna are easy to assimilate for Brazilian audiences. Which is why Latin artists who are closer to these standards might be easier to break in Brazil.
One of these artists is TINI. While the Argentinian singer explores cumbia, reggaetón and even tango in her music, she’s mostly a pop act who just happens to sing in Spanish. Performance-wise, TINI puts on a show that is easy for Brazilian pop fans to enjoy and relate with.
I do believe that out of all Spanish-language artists, TINI might be the one with the biggest potential to become a star in Brazil. The Argentinian powerhouse is the one that best dialogues with the pop star template that Brazilians are already used to consume from English-speaking pop divas.
Connecting with sertanejo
Sometimes the obstacle lies not in the genre. Sometimes it’s just about the language, or just the people that are singing the music.
Bachata or Dominican bachata singers might not be popular in Brazil, but the sound of bachata is, thanks to sertanejo singer Gusttavo Lima.
Lima started making bachata around 2019. He didn’t quite deviate from his sertanejo roots — he kept his singing style, his lyrics’ theme, and language, making bachata insert naturally into the sertanejo scene to the point that other sertanejo singers followed the trend.
Fast forward to 2023 and a new sertanejo powerhouse is including a different Latin genre in her music, Ana Castela, while still sticking to her sertanejo roots and her personal brand.
Castela’s reggaetón-based song “Nosso Quadro” took Brazil by storm and seems to have encouraged her to go even harder into incorporating reggaetón in her music, such as she did with “Me Gusta”.
With the cases of Gusttavo Lima and Ana Castela, we can learn that Brazilians are open to new genres if they are presented with at least some degree of familiarity — be it with the artist or the main genre they sing in.
But Lima and Castela also show the versatility of the sertanejo genre, which is suggestive of its potential to merge and/or present Latin genres to Brazilian audiences.
After all, even inside Brazil, the sertanejo music industry is strategically flexible to embrace different genres such as funk, pagode, and pop, which keeps sertanejo in a position of dominance within the Brazilian music market.
“Safaera”-like songs meshing reggaetón and Brazilian funk
The ideas I commented thus far are an attempt to go beyond the obvious route of breaking reggaetón and other Latin genres in Brazil through funk, but I don’t think this is an alternative that should be at all wasted.
Both reggaetón and funk are very captivating by themselves. Songs where both genres have their time to shine instead of making concessions beat-wise might be a nice way to get people to dance to both and see how both are similar and equally fun. Anitta kinda did that in her song “Gata”.
Gone are the days when a song has to follow one unique path when it comes to genre and beats. Beat switches and rhapsodic song structures are more than normal.
In addition to being a good trick to keep a listener engaged, “megamixes”-type of songs such as Bad Bunny’s “Safaera” can be used as a window to expose the listener to different genres too.
Brazilian funk would fit this proposition perfectly. Just like reggaetón, funk is also drum-driven, and aesthetically raw enough to mesh organically with it.
More novelas and shows with Latin stars
It might not be a coincidence that the biggest part of the (rare) cases of Latin artists that find success in Brazil come from novelas and entertainment shows, such as Thalia (the star of novelas like Maria del Barrio, Marimar, and Rosalinda) and RBD (from the novela Rebelde).
There is space for Spanish-language music when Brazilians already know and like the people singing it. Betting on the music alone might not be enough; Brazilians need to create a connection with the artist first.
As streaming platforms like Netflix and even the all-Brazilian Globoplay are investing on Latin novelas too, the moment is more favorable than ever to introduce Latin artists to Brazilian audiences, even if their music comes in second place.
More “portuñol”
It is estimated that less than 500k Brazilians are fluent in Spanish (which makes 0,2% of the country’s population). But as far as informal communication is concerned, any Brazilian jokingly thinks they can speak Spanish just by using some hacks while keeping most of the words in Portuguese (it’s what we call “portuñol”). Most of the time it just results in Brazilians sounding funny, but I don’t think it’s a stretch that these fun similarities can build a bridge, and that such a bridge can be explored through music.
While the little encouragement for Spanish learning in Brazilian school and work environments is a discussion that does not belong to this article, I do think that a little “portuñol” in music (such as in Thiaguinho’s “Hola Chica” and Tati Zaqui’s “Água na Boca”) might not hurt.
To a lot of people, this is the most exposure to Spanish they can ever have, so why not accustom our ears to the language and even some slang through a little music?
Collaborations with foreign artists who successfully crossed over to other markets and are popular in Brazil
It may sound like a wild idea to access a totally different market through a language that is neither the one you nor they speak. But if such language is welcomed there, maybe it can work.
That’s what Anitta did when she wanted to crossover to the U.S.: instead of singing in English or her native Portuguese, she started singing in Spanish because she was aware of how Spanish-language music was growing there.
In Brazil, Spanish-language music enjoys less popularity than others such as Italian used to, English has always done, and Korean is doing.
It’s a sign of the times that artists that sing in these languages can even be a door to genres that were created in Spanish-speaking countries.
BTS’ j-hope collaborated with Mexican artist Becky G on a song that features lyrics in Korean, English, and Spanish — and it was a hit among Brazilian fans. K-pop group K.A.R.D. started their career with reggaetón-inspired songs, and the Latinidad vibes led them to build an unmatched connection with Brazilian fans.
So it might not be that much weird to think of Latin artists finding success in Brazil by collaborating with other artists that are popular in Brazil and do not sing in Spanish or Portuguese.
These were just ideas that I had based on connections and patterns I’ve observed, born out of a great desire for these markets to be closer than they are.
I’m Brazilian and a huge enthusiast of Brazilian music who dreams to see it expanding towards the rest of the world — I try to do that through my work as an attorney, consultant, and writer. (Below you can find some links to my writing for specialized music magazines and my blogs).
But I also love Latin/Spanish-language music and would really love to see Latin America thriving in more ways.
If you’re interested in the parallels and connections between Brazilian music and the rest of Latin America, or just my analysis of the Latin American music market, you may also want to check these articles and blog posts I’ve written:
- From Funk to Bachata: 5 Music Genres Reimagined in Brazil (Remezcla)
- 2023 Music Trends: 8 Best Industries for Song Placement Opportunities (SPARWK)
- Why Argentina can be the next Latin music powerhouse (self-published here in my Medium blog)
- Spotify charts May 28-June 02 2023 (Brazil & Global): signs of a new world order in music? (self-published here in my Medium blog)
- O papel da música e Propriedade Intelectual na descentralização cultural // The Role of Music and Intellectual Property in cultural decentralization (3Três Blog)
I’m an independent music writer, critic, and cool hunter with articles and reviews published in PopMatters, Rolling Stone Korea, The Line of Best Fit, Remezcla, Sounds and Colours, Tenho Mais Discos Que Amigos, Consequence of Sound, and more. I’m also a consultant for 3Três Creative & Consultancy, and the IP & Content Manager at SPARWK.
This blog is not monetized, though.
The reviews and articles posted in this blog are original and have not been published on any of the websites I write for.
