‘THE MUSICAL BRIDGE’
MADRID CONNECTS ARTISTS IN EUROPE AND LATIN AMERICA
As the Spanish music market grows stronger, with live-music attendance at a record high and more interest than ever in Spanish-language artists, the Community of Madrid — the region that includes the nation’s capital city — has launched several initiatives to expand its musical footprint.
Initiatives range from Sesión
Vermú — a concert series that in 2023 featured 90 shows by 46 bands in 24 municipalities — to the massive concerts by Latin headliners Camilo and Carlos Vives at the iconic Puerta de Alcalá, in the center of the city.
“Madrid is the musical bridge between Latin America and Europe,” says Community of Madrid president Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “The Community of Madrid is dedicated to supporting new talent and young creation and offering fans the best emerging music from Spain. Likewise, it is committed to the world circuit with great musical events and festivals.”
These include the First Forum of Music in Spanish, presented by Billboard and scheduled for March 19, which will feature industry and artist panels and a showcase by Argentine rapper-singer Nicki Nicole.
“I’m very excited about this as a Spaniard,” says Sony Music U.S. Latin vp of business development Rafael Madroñal, who is based in Miami.
Madroñal helped secure partnerships between Sony and the Community of Madrid to revive the city after the coronavirus pandemic with massive, free concerts as part of Hispanidad, a weeklong festival held annually in Madrid to celebrate music, dance, theater, cuisine and Ibero American folklore.
The first festival concert, by Colombian singer Camilo, drew around 80,000 people in October 2022. The second, by fellow Colombian Vives, attracted over 100,000 the following year and featured both local and international guest artists such as Ana Mena, Ryan Castro, Prince Royce and Juanes.
“Hispanidad 2024 will be even more ambitious both in terms of the number of activities, as well as the artists and countries invited,” Díaz Ayuso says.
“La Puerta de Alcalá, for us and for me, meant many things,” Vives says. “It was not only celebrating — in Spain, in an iconic city — our 30 years of career and [my album] La Provincia, but also celebrating 30 years of singing for that wonderful and diverse land. If I can summarize what my concert at Puerta de Alcalá represented: the cry of reaffirming my pride in being Hispanic American.”
The day after the event, Camilo called the show “the biggest concert of my life” on Instagram.
And the benefits of such bookings go beyond the magic of the moment, Madroñal says, recalling that shortly after their respective shows, Camilo and Vives returned to Spain on tour.
This year, Madrid will reopen the renovated and expanded Santiago Bernaéu Stadium to provide another great musical stage, with superstars like Luis Miguel, Taylor Swift and Karol G already confirmed to perform concerts.
“Here, quality and excellence prevail,” Díaz Ayuso says, “and the best from here and there come together to create real magic.”
for example, topped Promusicae’s year-end top 100 Songs list, which included only one English-language track in the top 20 slots. The remainder were Latin and Spanish songs and collaborations between artists of both continents, including Quevedo and Myke Towers on “Playa del Inglés” and Rauw Alejandro and Rosalía on “BESO.”
“The Spanish market still has a very relevant local market; there has always been an appetite for local pop en español,” Argudo says. “But clearly, strong immigration from our sister countries is fostering an unprecedented cultural opening and a unique opportunity for music in Spanish at a global scale.”
The Spanish music scene is vibrant “thanks to the impact of Latin music,” Warner Spain president Guillermo González Arévalo says. “The fusion with Spanish culture has led to a development of new talent with a more international sound.” The global success of artists like Quevedo, he adds, “has opened a very important door for Spanish urban music.”
Thanks to its language ties to most of Latin America, Spain long functioned as the incubator and exporter of big Spanish-language stars — much like the United States for the rest of the world — but also as a major market for big mainstream English-speaking stars. That changed in the last 20 years with the rise of international Latin global stars like Shakira, Marc Anthony and Enrique Iglesias and, later, genres like Puerto Rican reggaetón, Colombian urban music and now regional Mexican.
Today, due to a surge in immigration from Latin America, the Spanish market is not only increasingly embracing “Latin” music but also developing a new crop of international acts of its own, including Rosalía, Quevedo, Rels B and Aitana, who are all selling out arenas outside of Spain.
The fascination with Spanish music “is something I hadn’t seen in my 30 years in the industry,” Sony’s Barbat says.
That interest, combined with growth in the market and live music, has produced a healthier ecosystem — and has even deeper implications.
Spain has particularly strong artist and performer rights, with a model based on equitable distribution of streaming revenue where even session musicians get paid, AIE general director José Luis Sevillano says. “Basically, streaming platforms pay an additional amount to AIE, which we distribute to artists and musicians and which doesn’t interfere with any contractual agreement between artist and labels or labels and streaming services.”
And there’s also the potential of Spanish music abroad. According to IFPI’s market study of Spain, sales of Spanish music abroad brought in 34 million euros ($36.6 million) of industry revenue in 2022, a 35.1% growth compared with 2021.
What’s happening in Spain now “is just the beginning,” says Cristina Perpiñá-Robert, general director of Spain’s Society of Authors and Editors. “Spain is the natural bridge between Europe and Latin America. Globally, more than 500 million of us speak Spanish, which is already the second most-spoken language in the U.S. We have to continue promoting the necessary tools to help Ibero American culture find its true place.”