Latino music, Las Vegas Sun, June 16, 2000

Latino music stars are thriving in mainstream music scene Lisa Ferguson Friday, June 16, 2000 | 8:29 a.m. If, by now, you don't know what it means to be "Livin' La Vida Loca," well then, you must have spent last year holed up somewhere sans contact with the outside world. It was nearly impossible to miss the catchy pop tune, by Puerto Rican pretty boy Ricky Martin. The song, and its dance-heavy video, dominated radio and television airwaves for months, ignited a Latin music craze and made Martin (who performs at Mandalay Bay hotel-casino in July) an American household name. While Martin is largely credited for kicking the Latin trend in its proverbial "bon bon" he's certainly not the lone Latino (or Latina) currently on this country's music charts: Maybe you've heard of Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias and the old-timers of the bunch, Gloria Estefan and guitar legend Carlos Santana. While some of these performers may be considered relative newcomers to their Anglo fans, they are already music giants in Spanish-speaking countries, where their tunes have been radio staples for years. Marc Anthony included. His romantic single, "You Sang To Me," reached No. 7 on Billboard's mainstream-music Hot 100 chart this week, below Iglesias' No. 1 single, "Be With You." (The Spanish versions of both songs also charted this week on the Hot Latin Tracks chart.) "You Sang to Me" is Anthony's second charting single this year, preceded by the dance tune "I Need to Know." Anthony, who performs tonight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, wed in May in a secretive ceremony at the Desert Inn hotel-casino. He has more than a dozen Spanish albums to his credit, which have sold more than 35 million copies. But unless you caught this part-time actor's turn in last year's flick "Bringing Out the Dead," you may not have heard of him until recently. On Spanish-language music stations around the country and the world, however, he and other artists are regulars. Zuelma Bash is operations manager for local station KISF 103.5-FM, a "Mexican regional station" that plays music from Northern Mexico ("It's kind of like country music, but in Spanish," she explains.) On Saturdays, however, the station plays the Spanish-sung music of Anthony, Martin and Lopez during a program focused on "tropical music" of the Caribbean and South America. "Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony have lots of longevity. They've been around in the Hispanic market since they were children," Bash says, explaining that both men got their start with the Latin boy-band Menudo. "I hear the term 'Latin fusion' and 'the (Latin) explosion,' but (these artists have) actually been there for a long time and it's just now that they're getting recognized in the American and general market radio." Bash, who was born in the United States but whose parents are from Cuba, says, "I think it is a craze for the general market. ... To me (Latin music) has always been an everyday part of my life." New York-bred Lopez, who calls her music "Latin soul," agrees. She told MTV On-line, "As (for) the whole Latin pop (explosion) ... I just think people are becoming more exposed to (the music). It's always been there. There's always been Latin performers." Ramiro Burr, who covers Latin music for the San Antonio Express News and authored "The Billboard Guide to Tejano and Regional Mexican Music" (Billboard Books, 1999), explains that second- and third-generation Latinos -- whose parents and grandparents were born and raised outside the United States -- can be "completely assimilated." "They can go to a blues or a rock show and then they can go see a Latino rock or a Tejano or a salsa (music) show. ... They're already listening to a Top 40 (music) station. They're enjoying their Latino heroes on that (station) along with Dr. Dre and the Backstreet Boys and Christina Aguilera and Limp Bizkit," he says. Burr recently interviewed Son By Four, a boy band he describes as "kind of like a Latin Boyz II Men." Son By Four's single, "A Puro Dolor" ("Purest of Pain") has charted on both the Hot 100 and Hot Latin Tracks charts. "They grew up (listening to) Marvin Gaye, Al Green, the Temptations; even Boyz II Men are some of their mentors," he says, "so these guys are picking (their influences) up on both sides and feeling completely at ease and it comes through in their music." Another up-and-comer, 21-year-old Colombian-born Shakira, is considered the Latin equivalent of angry pop star Alanis Morrisette. Shakira's album, "Pies Descalzos," sold 4 million copies and her English album is set to debut soon. Chris Perez, widower of the late Tejano music mega-star Selena, also went mainstream with his self-titled band. The group won this year's best Latin rock/alternative performance Grammy for its bilingual offering, "Resurrection." "He did pretty good on his first time out," Burr says. "To go from what he was known as, as a guitar (player) in a Tejano band, to do his own, original Latino rock thing, he did very well." Blonde beauty Aguilera, who won the Grammy award this year for best new artist, had hits with the singles "Genie in a Bottle" and "What a Girl Wants." The former Mouseketeer is in the process of crossing over the other direction and will release a Spanish album soon. And the Backstreet Boys, Burr reminds, have also recorded a Spanish version of one of the group's hits. "That's nothing new," Burr says, explaining that several English artists have dabbled with Spanish lyrics, including Madonna. "That's been happening more frequently." He divides credit for the surge in Latin music's popularity to Martin's well-received performance on the 1999 Grammy awards telecast, as well as the growing Latin population in this country. "There's also the theory that the main pop market ran into kind of a dry spell" in recent years, he says. "By that we mean Michael Jackson was out, Madonna was out, George Michael was out (as well as) anybody else who had dominated (the pop charts) so much kind of fell out." He says that if the current boy-band craze (see N'Sync and 98 Degrees, among others) had happened last year "that would have affected the Latino thing. "In the last two or three years the trend had been a resurgence of the old rock giants like the Eagles, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones," he says. "As soon as we went through that phase there just really wasn't 'the next big thing.' ... All of those factors, I think, led to the emergence of what happened with the Latino (music) field that we're still seeing." At least some credit is also due to the genre's movers and shakers. Just as Motown had founder Berry Gordy to nurture the careers of many music legends, Latin music has producers Emilio Estefan (husband of Gloria Estefan), Sergio George and John "Jellybean" Benitez. "These three men are the most important, influential producers on the Latin scape today," Burr says. "These guys have produced everybody ... any numbers of bands that have made an impact, even the big names like (singer) Alejandro Fernandez and Shakira, they've either produced, co-produced, turned in songs, helped arrange. They've just got their fingers in a lot of what's happening today." Still Anthony is not a fan of the "Latin music" moniker. He told the Hartford Courant earlier this year that he sees no similarities between his music and that of Martin, Lopez and others, "other than the fact that we're all Latin. "You have to be Latin to know what it's like to be lumped in (because of ethnicity). We're all competing in a pop market. We're all competing with Lauryn Hill, Sting and Andrea Bocelli. When you're lumped in just because you're Latin, you're lumped in for the wrong reason."