Native name Música latina | Derivative forms Latin pop
Latin ballad | |
Stylistic origins Latin American music
Spanish music
Portuguese music Cultural origins Mid-1900s in the United States | ||
Latin music (Música latina in Spanish and Portuguese) is a musical category that encompasses music from Spanish-speaking areas of the world (namely Latin America and Spain). Most definitions of Latin music also include Portuguese-language music from Brazil and sometimes Portugal as well. US trade industry groups such as Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Billboard magazine define "Latin music" as any type of release with most of its lyrics in Spanish, regardless of genre or the artist's nationality.
The term "Latin music" originated from the United States (US) due to the growing influence of Hispanic and Latino Americans in the American music market, with notable pioneers including Xavier Cugat (1940s), Tito Puente (1950s), Antônio Carlos Jobim and Carlos Santana (1960s), and accelerating especially since the 1980s. As one author explained the rising popularity from the 1940s: "Latin America, the one part of the world not engulfed in World War II, became a favorite topic for songs and films for Americans who wanted momentarily to forget about the conflagration."
Major record labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music often have two divisions dedicated to the Latin market: one which focuses on Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, and the other for the Hispanic market in the United States. Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States are the largest Latin music markets in the world.
Contemporary usage
In the late 1990s, the rising population of "Latinos" in the US(term popularized since the 1960s due to the wrong and confusing use of "Spanish" term and the more proper but unpopular term "Hispanic") A great part of the English-speaking media started to refer any kind of music featuring Spanish vocals as "Latin music". Around the same time, artists from Italy such as Eros Ramazzotti, Laura Pausini, and Tiziano Ferro successfully crossed over to the Latin music field by recording Spanish-language versions of their songs. In 2000, the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (LARAS) established the Latin Grammy Awards to recognize musicians who perform in Spanish or Portuguese. LARAS mainly focuses on music in both languages from Latin America, Spain, Portugal, and the United States. Similarly, the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 2012 to recognize songwriters from Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking regions around the world. In 2013, Spanish singer Julio Iglesias was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the best-selling male Latin artist of all time.