Women in Latin music making waves in male-dominated industry

Colombian singer Karol G is a rare force in Latin urban music. While the 27-year-old is as sleek and glossy as a beauty queen, she wields an unapologetic toughness that comes out when she's sparring against reggaeton's most ruthless male artists.

Ten years ago, Karol G was Carolina Giraldo, a newcomer earnestly peddling reggaeton and R&B mix tapes to radio stations in her native Medellin. The reactions she received were a depressing combination of confusion, disdain and lewd propositions.

“There were no opportunities,” she said. “Zero. The door was closed. They wouldn't even listen to my music because they would say the genre I was doing was for men.”

But Karol G didn't give up and now, after years of hearing no, the Spanish-speaking music industry is catching up to her. Last year, her debut album, “Unstoppable,” made it to No. 2 on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart, and “Ahora Me Llama,” her collaboration with trap wunderkind Bad Bunny, cracked Spotify's Global 200. In January, she inched toward a worldwide smash when Major Lazer tapped her for a remix of “En La Cara.” She plays Chicago's Tunnel lounge on Sunday, March 25.

Karol G is one of many women making ripples in the Latin industry, particularly in the urban space. Dominican artist Natti Natasha reached No. 6 on the Hot Latin charts with “Criminal,” her duo with reggaeton star Ozuna; Mexican-American singer Becky G peaked at No. 3 with her Bad Bunny-assisted hit “Mayores”; and Brazilian superstar Anitta nabbed a No. 14 spot thanks to “Downtown” with J Balvin.

A handful of well-performing singles may seem unremarkable, especially when so many have been collaborations with men. But it's notable considering how rarely Latina artists have affected the charts in recent years.

In 2015, a staggering 22 weeks passed without a single female artist appearing on the Hot Latin Songs charts, and a Billboard review showed that only two women reached the No. 1 spot between 2012 and 2016. During the same period, just seven women (compared with 33 men) reached the top of the Top Latin Albums chart. The women who did thrive tended to be legacy acts such as Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.

And when it comes to Latin music awards, the numbers are just as bad.

The Latin music industry - which usually refers to Spanish-language music made and sold in the United States and Latin America - is a notoriously patriarchal machine, exacerbated by widespread machismo entrenched in many Latin cultures. And although some of the most important Latin music icons have been women, the industry has been unfriendly for emerging female artists.

Latin music's gender gap became painfully conspicuous last year, when Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's “Despacito” overtook the global music landscape. Male artists such as J Balvin, Maluma and Bad Bunny were touted as the torchbearers who would throttle Latin music forward. Women were hardly considered in the conversation.

But 2018 could mark a change. The end of 2017 showed that despite its male-dominated roots, Latin urban music is rife with women eager to add their voices to trap, rap and reggaeton. A breakthrough year for women in Latin music would be well timed, as the calls for more female representation are amplified throughout the music industry.

Conversations around gender inclusivity in Latin music have been unspooling for years, but now there's buy-in from major music services. Rocío Guerrero, Spotify's head of global cultures and content, has unofficially heralded 2018 as the year of Latinas, and her team plans to highlight female artists by adding more voices to their playlists, which include “Mujeronas” and “Latin Divas,” and inviting female acts on their recently launched podcast, “¡Viva Latino!”

Additionally, domestic chart-toppers such as singer Camila Cabello (an American who was born in Cuba) and Cardi B, the “Bodak Yellow” rapper who is of Dominican and Trinidadian heritage, have made massive splashes in the U.S. market. Although they are signed to major American labels, both have experimented with songs en español, and their breakthroughs bode well for Spanish-speaking artists.

Diana Rodriguez is an industry veteran who made history when she became the first woman to head a U.S. Latin label as the vice president of Capitol Latin in 2010. Today, she runs her own firm and manages several artists who offer a fresh take on Latina musicians. There's the brassy tattooed guitarist Mon Laferte and Marisol “La Marisoul” Hernandez, the commanding lead singer of the band La Santa Cecilia. Rodriguez has observed that young fans starved for new role models in music connect to these women intimately, especially on social media.

“The girls standing out don't represent your standard mold,” Rodriguez said. “People are relating to the girl with the tattoos who got her heart broken and the girl who is not afraid to wear a tutu and talk about immigration.”

Still, more diversity continues to be a demand all around. Latino identity is pluralistic and complex, encompassing nearly 33 countries, multiple races and cultural conditions. More women are defying the stereotypes around Latina artists, but the physical image portrayed in the Spanish-speaking entertainment industry remains woefully homogenous. Latinas on TV or on magazine covers tend to be light-skinned celebrities who adhere to limited standards of beauty.

Dana Danelys De Los Santos, an Afro-Dominican singer who goes by Amara La Negra, raised this issue when she appeared on VH1's “Love & Hip Hop Miami.” After a producer insinuated that Santos's Afro hairstyle wasn't “elegant,” her retort was both ferocious and heartbreaking: “Not all Latinas look like J. Lo or Sofia Vergara or Shakira, so where are the women that look like myself?”

“Celia Cruz was one of the few artists that made it worldwide as an Afro-Latina. After that, I'll sit and wait for you to tell me what other Afro-Latinas have made it worldwide,” she said.

Santos has become a fierce advocate and symbol for the Afro-Latino community, initiating a conversation that could inspire generations of underrepresented girls to enter the scene. Leila Cobo, Billboard's executive director of content and programming for Latin music, says this is the unmistakable power of having women in the spotlight.
“When it starts to work for one person, you have other people who come and say, 'This could work for me, too,'” Cobo said.

In other genres, artists say they have seen attitudes shifting among their male counterparts. Becky G, whose real name is Rebbeca Gomez, started as a YouTube sensation when she was barely 14 years old.

After a few years of releasing pop in English, she turned to the Spanish-speaking urban market, a space that has long been mired in misogyny. But after years of backlash, reggaeton rappers have cleaned up their act to appeal to radio listeners, which has, at least marginally, created a cultural consciousness around the treatment of women in urban music. When Gomez started working with male rappers, she says she found a surprisingly welcoming group.

Another tactic artists have used: joining forces with other women. Karol G says that a stronger sisterhood is a sign of changing times.

“The music is evolving, the mentalities are evolving,” she said. “Machistas are out of style.”