The PULSE department has made recording Latin music for our library a top priority for the coming year–a lofty goal considering the level diversity within the genre. I had the privilege of attending the Billboard Latin Music Conference and Awards in Miami, Florida on behalf of our team this past April. This was an opportunity to get a firsthand look at what’s happening in the industry. I was happy to connect with the community and to discuss our education outreach efforts.
This song is called Todo Cambio by the band Camila. It is a blend of the Rock En Espanol and Pop Latino genres.

The conference was jam-packed with panel discussions. There were roundtables about the song writing process, Q&As with top executives concerning the state of the industry past and present, social networking pieces, and, of course, performances. It was amazing to meet and talk with the Latin Billboard staff, and to see how much work they put into supporting the Latin music community in this country and abroad. The conference lasted a full week and culminated with the Billboard Latin Music Awards show. Ah, awards shows. They are always exciting, and fun to attend, and this one was no exception.

The thing that had the greatest impact on me was the fact that I got a better understanding of what kinds of Latin music we need to add to our catalog in order to effectively represent cultures within Latin America without exclusion. It was remarkable to see people from all over Latin America support the musical efforts of artists from completely different regions, not just their own. This made it very clear to me that it isn’t about which genre of Latin music we should focus on; it’s more about representing a wide variety of music from different areas in our collection. We are looking forward to using this information to drive our Latin music initiative. Stay tuned for an update on new additions to our music library! -Jason Stokes, PULSE Audio Production/ Music Notation Developer