Enrique Iglesias and Billboard support the invasion of this music, maybe you too

Last night, Madrid was invaded by a Latin American army . People fled their homes, but far from seeking refuge, they wanted to get closer to the invaders and their weapons: the guitars, pianos, and drums used by the invading musical troops to conquer Spain. Nicky Jam attacked with two concerts on the same night : one to crush the eastern flank at the popular festivals in Torrejón de Ardoz, and another to dominate the heart of the city at a nightclub in Plaza de España, where the lines stretched for hundreds of meters. Luis Silva, a Venezuelan llanera singer, led the offensive on the southern front with a show in Fuenlabrada. This newspaper covered the hostilities on the northwestern front, where the Latin Americans attacked most heavily with their music.

Thousands of people were left reeling at the Noches del Botánico festival . Two dangerous urban duos landed there: Cali y el Dandee (Colombians with nearly seven million monthly Spotify listeners) and Gente de Zona (Cubans with 14.6 million monthly listeners on the same platform). War forecasts led us to suspect that the latter were the most dangerous for two fundamental reasons: they sing "Bailando," one of the most listened-to songs in history , and now they're testing a new weapon that could be lethal to the Spanish. We're talking about "reparto," an urban musical genre that is gaining ground in the international market by blending typical Puerto Rican reggaeton with the more traditional foundation of Cuban music (the kind played by Buena Vista Social Club, for example).

The prestigious Billboard magazine published a lengthy article a few days ago recommending “getting to know” 31 repartero artists . Enrique Iglesias and El Alfa have just released their repartero remix of “La Botella” alongside Descemer Bueno (the mastermind behind “Bailando”) and three other Cuban artists of the genre. Sergio George, the legendary producer of Marc Anthony, immortalized with the cry “Ataca Sergio!”, recently recorded with Bebeshito , the greatest exponent of repartero music and responsible for a dozen recent concerts in major arenas in the US . The Recording Academy of that country, which awards the Grammy Awards, made Wampi, another repartero who has led the craze unleashed by the genre in countries like Peru and Uruguay, a voting member .

Gente de Zona is currently touring Europe , but is focusing its reparto attack on Spain with nine of the 12 dates scheduled for its "Reparto by GDZ - Europe Tour." This is also the name of their latest album , composed of a dozen tracks in which they collaborate with 20 artists of the genre.

When Cali y el Dandee finished playing at 9:35 p.m., a large crowd rushed out. They seemed to have paid 45 euros for a double concert and only wanted to enjoy half of it, but that wasn't the case. In reality, they left the dance floor and the stands to take a break (it was 35 degrees Celsius) and come back stronger. Gente de Zona gathered a larger crowd, mostly young people and presumably university students due to the location of the concert , who wanted to properly enjoy Sundays and shout a lot, even before the show started.

When the technicians began removing the Colombian duo's instruments and introducing the Cuban ones, the crowd erupted at the sight of so many more of them. They sensed that the event would be bigger , or at least different from the typical urban concert sustained by a dull backing track or background . Cuban reggaeton artists have the added value of playing their music with real instruments , in addition to producing it primarily with electronic means. Charly and Johayron, another duo making a strong entrance in the lineup, recounted in an interview how "special" they felt to be the only urban artists wearing costumes at Vibra Urbana 2024, one of the most important festivals in the US.

The concert began with a medley of their biggest hits: “Bailando,” “Traidora,” “La Gozadera.” Only “El mundo se está ingreso a la fiesta de los Latinos” (The World Is Joining the Latino Party) was played from the latter, but it was enough to elicit the first screams from the audience in a concert that was just beginning to generate excitement . The first song they played in full was their legendary hit with Enrique Iglesias and Descemer Bueno, a song that helped me see just how diverse the crowd was, screaming in unison. Many of them, who looked like classic young Spaniards—with very light skin and eyes, for example— ended up showcasing their respective Latin accents with the first few hums .

Minutes later, when the singers listed the audience by nationality, the loudest were those from Spain, Cuba, Venezuela, Peru, and Colombia , in that order. These are the countries from which the most people have come to Madrid in recent years, setting a record in the capital of more than one million inhabitants born in Latin America . This population is rapidly changing the cultural offerings of this and other major cities in the country, as we recently reported . The cast has also maneuvered to include itself in this new offering , closing smaller venues due to capacity.

On that scale, in more affordable venues, there are plenty of people vying to conquer Europe . In fact, one of the people most responsible for the success of the distribution is Italian producer Roberto Ferrante , who took artists like Prince Royce, Aventura, Nicky Jam, Pitbull, and Chimbala to the top with his record label Planets Records, and has now set up shop in Cuba to attract top talent there. Ferrante's goal is to make the distribution profitable worldwide, but especially in the European and US markets , the most coveted in the music industry. The overwhelming success of other indigenous urban rhythms from the Caribbean, such as the Dominican dembow, heard at many Spanish parties , for example, sets the tone for the distribution.

Spain is the source of a large portion of the listeners who have earned dozens of gold and platinum records for Ferrante's reparteros. Even local urban artists, like the Catalan Bad Gyal, have collaborated with Cuban reparteros . Who knows if Enrique Iglesias's recent release will become the next "Bailando" and further boost demand for this music, which, like dembow in the Dominican Republic, originated in the poorest Cuban neighborhoods and became one of the few ways for marginalized, usually Black, youth to get ahead .

“ The Spanish are to blame for this movement ,” joked Alexander Delgado, lead singer of Gente de Zona, at the concert. “This music is made by blacks and mulattos who come from the mixture that occurred with white Spaniards.” Delgado has somehow tried to pour or reflect that genetic and cultural mix into his music, and now he's touring Spain with the best lineup ever produced. In a recent interview, he said he invested around $500,000 in the production of the aforementioned album , something that is evident when listening to the live pailas and trombones harmoniously blended with the drums . Since going to a concert and enjoying it generally depends on knowing the artist's songs, and Gente de Zona has many that we've all heard in some way, he may be the best ambassador the lineup could have right now.

This genre has a relatively simple musical starting point : mixing electronically produced sounds with the Cuban clave (a rhythmic pattern that has influenced thousands of American artists). This low complexity doesn't make it very attractive to the most erudite and demanding ears, but one of the great merits of Gente de Zona's album is its incorporation of a musical production as solid as it is diverse, which greatly enriches the subsequent staging . An example of this is the song "Almohada" , an impressive cast song with violins. If we add the refined lyrics (the cast usually favored very colloquial and sometimes incomprehensible texts), we arrive at a sound product that justifies its enormous success and is positioned as the best phonogram of the genre released to date.