Patrick O’Neill, Managing Partner of Sherlock Communications and winner of the PR Week Global Award for Global Professional: Agency 2024.
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When discussing music in marketing, it feels fitting that Bad Bunny’s historic Super Bowl LX performance took place in Levi’s Stadium in California. In the 1990s, the American clothing company Levi’s used music so effectively in its advertising that it successfully released a compilation album entitled The Original (Songs From Levi’s Commercials).
Far removed stylistically from The Clash and BB King—who both appeared on the aforementioned album—his headline show was the first by a Latino solo artist. His decision to deliver it almost entirely in Spanish was pitch-perfect in a country that is home to 65 million Hispanics. Yet it was also very much on trend.
The Fastest-Growing Music Genre In The World
According to new data from music streaming giant Spotify, English-language music last year lost its stranglehold on the charts. Among the platform’s Global Top 50 for 2025 were songs in 16 different languages, including Spanish, Portuguese and Korean. The research found that Brazilian Funk is the fastest-growing genre in the world, up 36% year-on-year, and Trap Latino up 29%. For context, K-pop—fresh from winning its first Academy Award with “Golden”—saw a 31% increase in 2025.
For marketers, such diversity creates both opportunity and risk. Spanish-language artists, enjoying growing global reach through various Latin American genres, are demonstrating the scale of cultural influence, but also the importance of not reducing it to a generic idea of “Latino culture.” Brand campaigns that align with the energy, language and visual identity of Brazilian funk, for example, can feel immediate and relevant. Yet, crucially, funk is not culturally neutral and carries class, race and regional connotations. So when a global brand uses it, the brand may unintentionally signal alignment with stereotypes, alienate some consumers or cause embarrassment given the often explicit lyrics.
A brand activation that mirrors the cadence of local creators tends to travel further than one built around a generic interpretation of “Brazilian music.” Latin America is littered with cautionary tales of international marketers who have tried to cross cultural divides only to end up dancing confidently in the wrong direction after failing to grasp everyday language. In fact, a report by my own agency found that 77% of surveyed Latin American consumers have refrained from purchasing from international companies because of messaging mistakes.
This is why it’s important to lean on native communications experts who not only translate but also interpret and understand cultural nuances.
From Slxughter To Mexican Storytelling
While Bad Bunny was the most-streamed artist in the world last year, by February 2026, the musician with the largest audience across YouTube platforms was neither the Puerto Rican, American sweetheart Taylor Swift, nor even Brazil’s most famous pop-funk export Anitta. Instead, it was a producer known only as Slxughter, who topped the charts through a sub genre known as “Brazilian phonk.”
Barely even a genre, “phonk” is a mix of electro, hip-hop, trap and funk and is omnipresent on the likes of Instagram Reels and TikTok. It has quickly become the high-energy soundtrack to everything from sports highlights to dance clips.
The rise of Slxughter points to a world where influence travels in less predictable directions. For communications teams, it creates a moving target: Yesterday’s niche can be tomorrow’s mainstream. To have your finger on the pulse means looking beyond headline acts and into the communities where new sounds and behaviors are taking shape.
It also requires a degree of humility. Latin America does not operate as a single cultural block, and attempts to treat it as such tend to flatten the very nuances that drive engagement. A campaign that resonates in Rio may land differently in Bogotá.
Mexico, for example, presents a different rhythm entirely. Beyond the likes of Bad Bunny and KAROL G, the most-streamed songs in the country tend to be regional Mexican genres that lean toward folk traditions: Corridos, regional ballads and narrative-driven songs. Filled with stories, lineage and place, they create emotional connections through familiarity.
For brands, this diversity allows for stronger storytelling that feels not only more grounded, but also more culturally aware. The old model of identifying a single cultural signal and amplifying it across markets fails.
