From Spanish to English to Spanish: How Shakira’s VMA Performance Showcases the New Moment in Latin Music “Crossover”
***This post is co-written by Petra Rivera-Rideau and Vanessa Díaz
On the night of September 12, Colombian pop star Shakira made history as the first predominantly Spanish-language artist to be honored as MTV’s Video Vanguard at the Video Music Awards (VMAs). The award recognizes artists who have had a major and innovative impact on music videos and popular music. Shakira played a 10-minute medley of Spanish and English hits from her three-decades long career. Her performance demonstrated her breadth as an artist as she shifted from pop to rock to reggaetón.
Not only did she demonstrate her impressive musical range, but of her 69 singles, Shakira selected those that represent two significant crossover moments for Latin music. She sang hits like “Wherever, Whenever,” “Hips Don’t Lie,” and “She Wolf” from her English-language crossover in the early 2000s as part of the so-called “Latin Boom.” She sang 2001’s “Objection (Tango)” with the same samba/rock music arrangement she used at her very first VMA performance in 2002.
During this “Latin Boom” of the late 1990s and early 2000s, Shakira and other established Latin stars who had previously performed in Spanish, such as Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, and the late Selena Quintanilla, dominated the charts with English-language albums. Despite their successful global careers in the Latin market—and the long history and influence of Latinx musicians in U.S. pop music–U.S. media consistently portrayed these artists as exotic newcomers to the scene, praised more for being “Latin lovers” than established musicians. The Latin boom stars were valued as spicy foreigners there to expose Americans to new, exotic Latin sounds – conga beats, flamenco-style guitar riffs, and festive horns – even as many of these songs draw from familiar rock/pop references. Draco Rosa, one Ricky Martin’s co-writers, remembers “channeling [Jim] Morrison” and “elements of big band … a little bit of surf guitar” in the 1999 smash “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”
Despite the Latin Boom’s English-language crossovers, the images and sounds associated with the moment underscored the artists’ foreignness, something that continues today. This year’s Grammys’ botched treatment of superstar Bad Bunny’s performance and acceptance speech, in which, in lieu of translations, the subtitles merely declared that his words were “non-English.” Spanish has long been used to signify Latinxs’ alleged foreignness and inability to assimilate into US life and culture despite the fact that Latinx communities have been part of the fabric of the US for centuries. In the context of increased anti-immigrant sentiment, the popularity of Spanish-speaking artists like Bad Bunny and Shakira takes on even greater significance.
Following the Grammy’s disastrous handling of Bad Bunny’s performance and speech, backlash ensued. A plethora of popular memes and even t-shirts proudly claiming non-English popped up almost overnight. New York Times’ critic and Princeton professor Yarimar Bonilla proclaimed that “Bad Bunny is [Winning in Non-English].” Celebrities from comedian Cristela Alonzo to rapper 50 Cent admonished CBS. Even California Congressman Robert Garcia sent a letter directly to the CBS president and CEO George Cheeks, writing that the incident “display[ed] a lack of sensitivity and foresight. For too many Spanish-speaking Americans, it felt disrespectful of our place in our shared society, and of our contributions to our shared culture.” CBS eventually released a tepid statement saying that their vendor was not adequately equipped to manage Benito’s Spanish-language speech and performance, and Cheeks took “full responsibility” for the incident. Overall, the Grammys snafu reflects the ways in which the American mainstream still is incapable of embracing the status of Latin artists as equal players in the US and global music markets, in any language.
Compared to this year’s Grammys, however, MTV’s VMAs offered a much more inclusive approach, with a historic perspective that demonstrated exactly how we were able to arrive at this new moment in Latin music. When Puerto Rican and Cuban American rapper Fat Joe and Mexican pop star Thalia presented the award for Best Latin video, Thalia reminded the audience that “in the 2000s’ first Latin explosion, we had a song together, and now we’re here celebrating again this new Latin explosion.” This new Latin explosion refers to the numerous Spanish-language artists like Shakira, Bad Bunny, Karol G, and Peso Pluma who have recently broken out in the US mainstream.
But, unlike the previous Latin Boom, these artists have maintained their Spanish and their musical style. Bad Bunny’s Grammy performance included plena, reggaeton, and merengue rather than the kitschy styles of his Latin Boom predecessors. In addition to selling out stadiums around the country, Karol G drew 15,000 fans, the largest crowd in the Today Show’s history, for her reggaetón performance as part of the program’s Summer Concert Series in Rockefeller Center. Just this past September, Eslabon Armado became the first Mexican regional music group to ever perform on Good Morning America with their chart-topping hit “Ella Baila Sola” (the first Mexican regional song to ever hit number one on Billboard’s Global 200 chart). Whether it is the percussive dembow beat of reggaetón or the syncopated horns of corridos tumbados, all of these musicians have maintained the sounds of their respective genres, foregoing the stereotypical “Latin” sonic signifiers historically associated with Latin music.
Shakira herself reflected this moment in her Video Vanguard performance. She performed her new Spanish-language songs as 2022’s “Te Felicito,” and 2023’s “TQG” and “Bzrp Music Sessions: Volume 53” (the latter having broken four Guinness world records, including the most streamed Latin track in 24 hours). All of these songs have been part of this new Latin music movement. In fact, her “TQG” collaborator Karol G also performed her Spanish hits at the show. Mexican regional phenom Peso Pluma sang “Lady Gaga” on a small stage, surrounded only by his band, and called out “¡arriba México!” at the end. Brazilian artist Anitta performed a multilingual medley from her Funk Generation: A Favela Love Story. In addition, Shakira and Karol G won the award for best collaboration for “TQG.” Not only did the women give their acceptance speech in Spanish, shouting out their home country of Colombia, but they also won in a category otherwise populated by mainstream English-language artists like Doja Cat with Post Malone, and Metro Boomin with The Weeknd, 21 Savage, and Diddy. The interchangeable, tropical Latinidad of the earlier Latin boom was replaced with shout outs to specific countries and regions, and the crowd proudly waved Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Colombian flags. At the VMAs, Latin musicians were not isolated in Latin awards categories or depicted as exotic novelties. They were central to the show – nominated for major awards, and celebrated for some of the night’s most memorable performances.
Much like this year’s Coachella, which featured Bad Bunny and K-Pop sensation Black Pink as headliners, this year’s VMAs reflects a more global approach to pop music. Tuesday night’s award show also featured two performances by K-Pop groups, and MTV offered its first ever award in Best Afrobeats. In this context, it makes sense that Latin music would have a significant presence in the program. But the dominance of Latin music right now makes it so that no part of the music industry can leave Latin music out anymore. Not the VMAs, not the Grammys, not Coachella. As Thalia proudly declared on stage, “this last year for the first time in the US Latin music made a billion dollars in streaming.” Bad Bunny has been the most streamed artist on Spotify for three years in a row, has the longest-running Spanish-language album at the top of the Billboard chart, and in 2022 became the only artist in history to stage two separate $100 million-grossing tours in less than 12 months. Karol G became the first woman to have a Spanish-language debut at number one, and came to the VMAs after a string of historic performances at her Mañana Será Bonito stadium tour. Latin music’s global appeal is undeniable and the industry has to respond accordingly.
This is among the most important times in history for Latin music, and honoring artists like Shakira center stage at the VMAs helps underscore the musical evolution we are lucky enough to witness. Twenty years ago, Shakira had to crossover into the US market in English; now she performs in her native Spanish and is more relevant than ever. The global success of stars like Peso Pluma, Karol G, and Bad Bunny means we need to completely reevaluate the concept of the crossover. Latin artists today did not crossover, the market crossed over into them. They are not compromising their language, their identity, or their culture. They do not have to kowtow to industry expectations that they perform the exotic, sexy Latin other. So while the VMA Vanguard Award winner Shakira may have had to crossover into English to make it during the ‘90s Latin boom, she can proudly return to her roots and, this time, the market will follow her.
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Featured Image: Screen shot by SO! from Shakira’s MTV 2023 Video Vanguard acceptance speech
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Petra Rivera-Rideau is Associate Professor of American Studies at Wellesley College, and the author of Remixing Reggaetón: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico and the forthcoming book Fun, Fitness, Fiesta: Selling Latinx Culture in Zumba Fitness. Vanessa Díaz is Associate Professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University, and the author of Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood. Díaz and Rivera-Rideau are the co-creators of the Bad Bunny Syllabus.
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REWIND!…If you liked this post, you may also dig:
Ronca Realness: Voices that Sound the Sucia Body—Cloe Gentile Reyes
Contra La Pared: Reggaetón and Dissonance in Naarm, Melbourne—Lucreccia Quintanilla
Unapologetic Paisa Chingona-ness: Listening to Fans’ Sonic Identities–Yessica Garcia Hernandez
SO! Podcast #74: Bonus Track for Spanish Rap & Sound Studies Forum
Listening (Loudly) to Spanish-Language Radio– D. Inés Casillas
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Echoes in Transit: Loudly Waiting at the Paso del Norte Border Region
This series listens to the political, gendered, queer(ed), racial engagements and class entanglements involved in proclaiming out loud: La-TIN-x. ChI-ca-NA. La-TI-ne. ChI-ca-n-@. Xi-can-x. Funded by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of the Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative, the Latinx Sound Cultures Studies Working Group critically considers the role of sound and listening in our formation as political subjects. Through both a comparative and cross-regional lens, we invite Latinx Sound Scholars to join us as we dialogue about our place within the larger fields of Chicanx/Latinx Studies and Sound Studies. We are delighted to publish our initial musings with Sounding Out!, a forum that has long prioritized sound from a queered, racial, working-class and “always-from-below” epistemological standpoint. —Ed. Dolores Inés Casillas
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This post is co-authored by José Manuel Flores & Dolores Inés Casillas
A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition.
Gloria Anzaldúa (1999)
Ciudad Juárez es número uno/
y la frontera más fabulosa y bella del mundo
Juan Gabriel (lyric to “Juárez es el #1” – 1984)
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Geographically, the Paso del Norte (PdN) region includes the city of El Paso, Texas, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, as well as neighboring cities in the state of New Mexico (see map). U.S. citizens live and play in Juárez, and those in Juárez (Juarenses), live and work in El Paso with families extended on both sides; continually moving back and forth. Yet, this broader region has long been plagued with sensationalizing headlines, both in the U.S. and in Mexico, that cast violent and limiting portrayals of these borderland communities. Recognized as sister cities, El Paso and Ciudad Juárez are seen less as close-knit siblings and more like distant cousins with Juárez routinely referred to undesirably as the little sister or ugly sister in comparison to El Paso. Indeed these hierarchical north/south (first world/not-quite-first-world) distinctions are products of histories of colonialism, unequal trade policies, and racial capitalist systems galvanized by immigrant detention camps (a tenant of the Immigration Industrial Complex). Within larger conversations about border cities, both Tijuana (San Diego) and Reynosa (McAllen) are recognized as the “primary” border cities due to their larger population size, transnational capital, and industrious reputations.
Two decades ago, Josh Kun’s concept of the “aural border” invited scholars to consider the US/Mexico border as a “field of sound, a terrain of musicality and music-making, of melodic convergence and dissonant clashing” (2000). Kun’s writings over the years have roused generations of sound scholars to listen to borders, border crossings, border communities and how they reverberate their economic, social, and migrant conditions. This essay intentionally moves away from Kun’s (beloved) border city of Tijuana and towards a less-referenced US/Mexico border city: Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Here, 1,201 kilometers east of Tijuana, we offer an opportunity to listen to Juárez’s everyday bustling of migratory life through the digital sound repository, the Border Soundscapes Project.
Sound structures our social, cultural, and political relations, and as Tom Western reminds us succinctly: “sounds have politics” (2020). Indeed, Juárez’s soundscapes are microcosms of economic, immigration and border enforcement policies as the city’s migratory composition changes depending on the latest economic crisis in the global south. “Whether intentional or unintentional,” Sarah Barns insists “urban soundscapes are by-products of both active design strategies as well as infrastructure and socio-economic organization” (2014). In essence, listening to migrants within Juárez, along with those planning to traverse Ciudad Juárez (to el norte), shapes our multiethnic and multiracial understandings of Latinidad.
Field audio recordings of public life including nuanced linguistic expressions, comprise a rich sonic site that best demonstrates Juárez’s daily sounds of transit. This Project benefits tremendously from José Manuel Flores’s attentive ear, raised as a borderlander himself, and a seasoned crosser of the bridges linking Juárez and El Paso. Flores created this Project in 2018, the same year, Ciudad Juárez became a prominent make-shift, temporary “home” for groups of migrants – currently a majority of Venezuelan-nationals with previous waves of Cubanos and Salvadoreños. Within Juárez, these migrant caravans initially settled on the primary Paso del Norte bridge and later to nearby main border bridges. Migrants have felt comfortable settling in this arid city of approximately 1.5 million people, while others consider Juárez more of a “waiting room” before setting their sights on securing political asylum in the United States. Either way, Juárez becomes part of both their journey and resettlement.
Below are five instances where we listen to migrants in Juárez.
Track 1: Migrants in Ciudad Juarez: “Te traigo un manguito”
Near the Paso del Nte. International Bridge, in Juárez, on Avenida Juárez, a downtown street where people begin to line up to cross the border. Cars are heard passing. A Venezuelan man wants to rest on this hot day yet his friend cajoles him to get ready to work. He promises his resting friend un mangito o agua (a mango or water) as soon as he’s up and ready to tackle some work.
Track #2: Migrants in Ciudad Juarez: “Cualquier bendición que le sale a tu corazón es buena”
Near Juárez’s Migration’s national institute and Presidencia Municipal de Ciudad Juárez, an older woman cleans car windshields during traffic stops. As she cleans, she is heard laughing while conversing and doling out bendiciones (blessings) to those who gave her work. She’s assumed to be Venezuelan yet her use of the word “carnal” –a Mexican phrase to say brother – indicates that she’s been in Juárez for sometime.
Track #3: Migrants in Ciudad Juarez: “El Escandalo”
Local news highlights the influx of migrant caravans in promising tones. In an interview for local and national media in Mexico, Mr. José Luis Cruzalta, Cuban migrant, comments that: “no hay que ir para el lado de allá (EE.UU.), aquí se vive igual o mejor que del lado de allá, menos sacrificio, sin meterte en problemas, aquí no hay problemas de ningún tipo.”
“you don’t have to go there (USA), here you live the same or better than on that side, less sacrifice, without getting into trouble, there are no problems of any kind here, they can stay here.”
He later sends assurances that there is enough work for everyone and that only a willingness and desire to work is required, that nothing else.
Track #4: Migrants in Ciudad Juarez: “Rincon Cubano”
A group of Cuban migrants started a small Creole street food business offering “frituras de maíz” and Cuban “tamales.” The sound space of the downtown of Ciudad Juárez is nourished by the voices of a group of Cubans proclaiming Cuban Corn, “Maíz Cubano”. These contemporary Cuban criers conjure the city’s sonic memories of previous food vendors. Flores remembers fondly as a child the shouting of “Caldo de Oso” (Bear Broth) for sale and the fear that he’d find a grizzly bear in his soup.
Track #5: Migrants In Ciudad Juarez: Haitians Talking in La Taquería
The small restaurant,”La Taqueria,” in downtown Juárez has undergone ethnic transformations. A few years ago it used to be a place known for traditional Cuban food –el rincón cubano–, nowadays it is a place recognized for its tasty, Venezuelan food. Caribbean music attracts some Haitian migrants to this place, inside the restaurant there are some families eating and having a restful moment. Outside the place, there are some Haitian families moving through the city carrying their luggage.
Bonus Track and Outro
The Border Soundscapes Project offers an acoustic ecology of this region through a site that acts as part-archive, part-map, and perhaps even, part-love-song, à la the late singer Juan Gabriel, a globally famous Juaranese who dedicated six songs to his beloved home city.
The Border Soundscapes Project invites listeners to hear for yourself why Juan Gabriel characterized Juárez as the most beautiful borderland in the world. His lyrics fiercely defended Juárez, and decades later, the Border Soundscapes Projects demonstrates how Juarez, the “little sister,” dignifies their migrant communities, in the critical context of Gloría Anzaldúa’s conceptions of borders as vague, “unnatural boundaries” crafted by the “emotional residue” of two other siblings: colonialism and capitalism.
Inspired by the written musings of Valeria Luiselli (2019), the Border Soundscapes Project also functions as an “inventory of echoes,” where sounds are not simply recovered or used within a larger catalog project. Instead, sounds are considered “present in the time of recording and that, when we listen to them, remind us of the ones that are lost” (p. 141), and we would add, in transit. Most importantly, echoes cannot be placed on static, visual representations of standard “maps.” In offering audio snippets of Juárez’s public life, sound becomes a different migrant-led “scale of analysis” (DeLeon 2016); a type of audio counter-mapping of the U.S./Mexico border that lends itself uniquely to sound.
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Featured Image by Flickr User Simon Foot, “Ciudad Juárez, from El Paso, Texas” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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José Manuel Flores is a Ph.D. student in the Rhetoric and Composition Program at The University of Texas at El Paso. He holds an MA in Studies and Creative Processes in Art and Design. He considers that the sounds that arise between the Juarez and El Paso border are relevant because they contribute to the historical heritage of the region. That is why his interest as a researcher focuses on Sound Studies, specifically in the intersection between Soundscapes and philosophy from a disciplinary posture of rhetoric.
Dolores Inés Casillas is Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Director of the Chicano Studies Institute (CSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is author of Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-language Radio and Public Advocacy (2014), which received two book prizes, and co-editor of the Companion to Latina/o Media Studies (2016) and Feeling It: Language, Race and Affect in Latinx Youth Learning (2018).
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REWIND!…If you liked this post, you may also dig:
Xicanacimiento, Life-giving Sonics of Critical Consciousness—Esther Díaz Martín and Kristian E. Vasquez
Ronca Realness: Voices that Sound the Sucia Body—Cloe Gentile Reyes
SO! READS: Melissa Mora Hidalgo’s Mozlandia: Morrissey Fans in the Borderlands–Nabeel Zuberi
Your Voice is (Not) Your Passport–Michelle Pfeiffer
Óyeme Voz: U.S. Latin@ & Immigrant Communities Re-Sound Citizenship and Belonging-Nancy Morales
“Don’t Be Self-Conchas”: Listening to Mexican Styled Phonetics in Popular Culture*–Sara Hinijos and Inés Casillas
“Listening to the Border: ‘”2487″: Giving Voice in Diaspora’ and the Sound Art of Luz María Sánchez”-D. Ines Casillas
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