Who is Karol G? Why Brazil still resists music in Spanish | Culture

Colombian artist Karol G (winner of the Latin Grammy Award for Album of the Year) has been filling stadiums across Latin America and the United States for much of 2023, and she’s now gearing up to repeat the feat in Europe. For example, in Madrid, tickets for her concert were sold out in seven minutes.

On the other hand, in Brazil – a country that borders her native country – the vast majority of people don’t know her. But that’s nothing new: Brazil doesn’t follow the rest of Latin America in many ways, including music. Portuguese is the most obvious barrier, but not the only one. As the entire world—both Spanish-speaking and non-Spanish-speaking—succumbs to reggaeton, Brazil’s indifference to what’s happening in its neighbors is all the more puzzling.

Of Spotify Brazil’s 150 most popular artists of 2023, no one sings in Spanish. The absolute queen is Ana Castela, a very young singer from Setanejo.The genre – a Brazilian country music filled with lyrics about romantic disappointments and drinking nights liquor Drinking to drown one’s sorrows has spread like wildfire in recent years and has become almost a monoculture. Setanejo dominates the annual list of the 10 most popular artists in Brazil. The only foreigner in the group is Taylor Swift, ranked ninth.

Analía Chernavsky, a professor at the Federal University for the Integration of Latin America (UNILA) in Foz do Fozzu, said that Spanish-language music has long been difficult to listen to in Brazil. She explains that although the phenomenon is well known, it has been rarely studied in academia. “Beyond the language barrier, there is a shared historical narrative between Latin American Spanish-speaking countries, but Brazil is not part of it. In schools[in the region]Brazil is always taught as a side story, which ultimately A (unique) music culture was formed,” she told The Nation over the phone.

There is another key factor here. With over 210 million inhabitants and vast cultural diversity, Brazil has such rich musical wealth and a music industry so strong that the country is self-sufficient. Sertanejo is the king of kings right now, but there’s a genre for every taste…and it’s all made in Brazil. These include samba, tago and bossa nova, as well as picero, axe, frevo, forro, tecnobrega, arocha or Brazilian pop (MPB)’s Big Umbrella Dance. Brazil even has a large number of drag queens, including Pablo Vittar or Gloria Groove, who are real stars that attract the masses.

Fink deserves an entirely separate chapter. This loud sound was born in the favelas and surrounding areas of Rio de Janeiro. In fact, the power of funk – whose names have brought it into the mainstream for all audiences, such as Anita or Ludmila – is one of the main containment dams that prevents reggaeton from entering Brazil. “The Brazilian market is produced and consumed here and is self-sufficient. Brazilian funk is related to reggaeton in the Latin American context. It’s the same niche,” Chernavsky points out.

this twerking The genre is going through a golden age. The number of global reggae listeners increased by 95% between 2019 and 2023. According to Spotify, Colombia has exploded: up 333%. But Brazil has not succumbed to this boom. Maluma or J Balvin achieved relative success in the country a few years ago, but only after collaborating with the great country star Anitta and venturing out with a Portuguese version of the song.

In fact, Anita is a good representation of two worlds that don’t understand each other. The Brazilian is determined to teach the world about the fears she grew up in in her neighborhood in northern Rio. It wasn’t easy for her. Her biggest international hit to date – participate — is a reggaeton song sung in Spanish.

Spanish speakers have a hard time listening to funk music, and Brazilians have a hard time listening to reggaeton. Anita seems to have found a clear strategy in her Pan-American evangelical mission that meets the needs of every audience.She has just released two singles simultaneously: a reggaeton song aimed at the Spanish market Bellagio, with Mexican singer Peso Pluma.She unveils funk songs for Brazilians Fight for the moon, Collaboration with Brazilian artists Dennis and Pedro Sampaio.

“I think the last Spanish-language song to be successful in Brazil was slowly“, says Isabel Amorim, executive director of Brazilian rights management entity ECAD. Luis Fonsi’s hit song dates back to 2017. In Brazil, thanks to an English remix with the participation of Justin Bieber , it became even more popular. Even so, it barely managed to become the 29th most played song on Brazilian radio that year.

Latin artists who sing in both languages ​​also tend to prefer English over Spanish. Shakira’s case is strange.Brazilians sing waka waka Its English version. Even though her lines were popular”Women stop crying, women make money(Women stop crying, women make money), Brazil did not pay much attention to the Colombian artist’s attack on Gerard Pique.Shakira’s songs still thrill people at parties in Brazil I’m hereHe is about to celebrate his 29th birthday.

Like much of the post-pandemic world, concerts and festivals have grown exponentially in Brazil over the past year. ECAD issued licenses for 34,156 concerts, an increase of 50.3% compared to 2022. It is often said that Brazil is far away from the international music circuit and that it is not profitable for foreign artists to visit this continent-sized country. However, in recent months, the likes of Coldplay, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, Roger Waters and Paul McCartney have all arrived in Brazil.

But Spanish-speaking Latin American artists were once again the biggest absentee. Last year, Bad Bunny went on his world tour, hitting 15 stadiums in Latin America but bypassing Brazil. It simply didn’t make sense to him because there wasn’t enough demand. Karol G – Latin music’s latest hit – will perform a concert in Sao Paulo, Brazil, this May in a venue that can only accommodate 8,000 people. Meanwhile, one of Brazil’s most popular singers, the incombustible Ivete Sangalo, just packed Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã stadium with tens of thousands of fans to celebrate her 30-year career.

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