Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2026: Reggaeton, Dembow, Latin Pop, Salsa,Bachata, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Merengue, Urbano and more Latinx

Once again defining the music broadly here but trying to emphasize Caribbean & the Americas rooted Reggaeton, dembow, Latin pop, Salsa, Bachata, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Merengue, Urbano (more than pop-rock but occasional mentions of that genre are ok too). Hybrid music with Latin trap and Mexican Regional traditional styles combined are ok too

2025 thread here -

Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2025: Reggaeton, Dembow, Latin Pop, Salsa,Bachata, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Merengue, Urbano and more Latinx

¡Feliz año!

Heh, just heard a song I performed at karaoke last year with your new DJ friend.

Also, there is a tribute to Andy Gonzalez at the Jazz church, St. Peter's, tonight.

Cool re the mystery karaoke song. Did you go to the Andy Gonzalez event? Sounds like it turned into a tribute to he and his brother Jerry. I miss them both

I see online that -- eleven-year-old Julia Girau Gonzalez, Jerry’s youngest daughter. Through music, she spoke volumes. Playing what appeared to be her father’s trumpet, Julia delivered a beautiful and emotionally resonant performance, joined in duet by Andy’s protege Luques Curtis.

I didn't go, just looked at the photos on social media. I assume it might be streaming on the St. Peter's YouTube account.

I imagine Luques is still feeling the pain of Eddie Palmieri's passing.

In fact, I might even know so, since I asked a good friend of his a little while back.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-latin-lists/best-latin-songs-2025-1235477925/

Rolling Stone top Latin Pop songs of 2025

Continuing from the other thread: if you like boleros half as much as I do, be sure to follow catalinaplazaa on Instagram. There seems to be a new live reel every other day.

A random new video from them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnCH2Uk1TsM

https://artsfuse.org/322913/the-20th-annual-francis-davis-jazz-poll-latin-jazz-albums/

Latin jazz 2025 Francis Davis Jazz poll results

Miguel Zenon won. I heard Zenon on a panel discussing Bad Bunny and he was smart and enthusiastic as he always is in interviews and social media. Unfortunately on his own albums he doesn’t always musically sound like to me someone who clearly knows and loves salsa and reggaeton and Bad Bunny. I am not by the way trying to be one of those white guys telling someone of another heritage to know their place and stay in their own lane. Zenon is good at what he is doing, it just doesn’t always wow my interests.

Will give 2025 live album another listen though

First 4 songs of Zenon’s Village Vanguard album swing like jazz but I don’t hear any traces of clave or reggaeton. Will listen to rest of it later.

Zenon doesn’t seem to want to do clave or reggaeton in a noticeable way even though he knows those rhythms well.

Excellent trio streaming from Terraza right now

Oh, I missed it.

Been listening to Weed 420 who made Chuck Eddy’s top albums of 2025 list. The vocalist at times has that cartoonish snarling voice that Dominican dembow vocalist El Alfa has ( which I enjoy).

Not too many Latin artists made the ILM tracks poll for 2025

There were 7 votes split between 2 different Bad bunny tracks, and also some votes for Rosalia. we shall see what shows up in album votes

https://remezcla.com/music/meet-los-sobrinos-bad-bunnys-tiny-desk-dtmf-band/

An article from last year on the band that backed Bad Bunny on his album from last year and on his Tiny Desk and now his Super Bowl appearance.

Article also mentions other reggaeton albums from over the years that incorporated Latin “folk” music— bombs, plena etc

https://remezcla.com/lists/music/21-new-songs-to-listen-to-this-week-from-mxka-to-la-gata/

new songs to check out

Listening to Dominican female Dominican dembow rapper Yailin La Mas Viral who's gonna be at a MD club near me in the DC area Friday night. Like El Alfa, Jey One, and Weed 420 she's got a cartoonish, sing-songy, high nasally voice at times and it works without being too annoying.

Get ready for an unforgettable night! YAILIN LA MAS VIRAL is coming to Mexico Lindo MXL Night Club in Bladensburg, Maryland, on Friday, February 20, 2026 at 9:00 PM. Come enjoy the explosive energy of reggaeton and dembow as the artist who has taken social media by storm immerses you in her musical world. Known for her iconic tracks like "Bing Bong," "CHAPA," and "Silla," Yailin la Mas Viral is ready to ignite the dance floor with her latest hit, "Shorty (Remix)"…

The translation from the Spanish on the tickeri website

She's having a bunch of djs open for her and my guess is that she won't be onstage till like 1 am

Cuban music is rich in transcendental moments, and I was present Thursday night for one of them, when perhaps 40-50,000 people -- it's a guess -- put their hands in the air and sang along with Alexander Abreu and Havana d’Primera at the Macroplaza del Malecón in Veracruz during Veracruz's Carnaval, the largest in Mexico.

Ned S re his fave recent Cuban music gig

Alexander Abreu and Havana d’Primera's funky timba and salsa sounded good in videos I checked out.

As for a very different genre-

Saw an article saying that Brooklyn-based mostly Peruvian band Tipa Tipo who meld cumbia w/ yacht rock are influenced by Vanessa Zamora. Listening to Mexican singer Zamora now and she has a more polished Julieta Venegas kind of sound, so it kinda makes sense that the even more lush Tipa Tipo would like her pop.

Switzerland-based Cuban violinist and singer Yilian Cañizares has a new album Vitamin Y out that she recorded in Paris with a Mozambique bassist who has played with Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and with a Cuban percussionist. Plus she has a Moroccan guest on another song and a Senegalese kora player on another, and Cuban jazz drummer Pedrito Martinez on 1 track. Sometimes she tries to do too much (the classical meets jazz violin runs are not my thing) but her less is more cuts where she just sings Afro-Cuban ballads and just adds a tad of violin work well. I also listened for the first time to her 2018 album with Omar Sosa. Again, the least flashy cuts work best.

She's doing a free show at the Library of Congress in DC in April and I think is doing shows in Paris this week.

Re-listening to 2025 Natalia Lafourcade album and liking it better than I did on first listen last year. She's got horns and strings and more backing her. She's doing more solo shows live this year and doing songs from that 2025 album solo with just her nylon stringed acoustic guitar.

Recently stumbled on Cuban tres player Renesito Avich while trying to see what sort of aguinaldos I could find on my streaming service. I listened to the whole album, very good, to my ear it's mostly straight acoustic son cubano with some nice touches here and there that make it feel alive and modern. Love his playing but also his voice is just great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKYtbky3cn8

Aguinaldo Puertorriqueño (feat. José Valentino)

https://aurorafloreshostos.substack.com/p/latin-fever-the-night-women-took

Need to check out that Cuban tres player Avich. Also now that I read that bittersweet Substack on Latin Fever’s 70s salsa , I have to go to YouTube and give it a listen also.

This guy seems to have the whole album up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvOFdjx9Cbc

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/10/uruguay-candombe-afro-music?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Uruguay candombe music - African rooted percussion with afro-folky vocal melodies

Very cool, thank you

Like the blues in the US, samba in Brazil, rumba in Cuba and plena in Puerto Rico, candombe, Uruguay’s African-descendent music, was once reviled, marginalised and even banned – but managed to endure.

I'm of two minds about this opening salvo, though I'm not sure I have the energy to fully articulate why. Overall I'd say it reflects positively on the trend in post-BLM anglosphere cultural writing to be more attentive to the centrality of African diaspora folks in so many of the artforms from which their contributions had so long been obscured or minimized, but on the other hand I can't help but feel that it simultaneously reinscribes certain tendencies of neocolonial thinking insofar as it smooshes these wildly disparate musics into a too-easy-to-digest narrative, with a faint echo of '90s world music rain stick consumerism as a panacea for righting historical wrongs. But I fully concede that part or all of that is baggage I'm bringing to it

I think that reaction is understandable. I did note the author of that piece is Brazilian, so I reckon he's just trying to hook the anglos

glad this got bumped. I read that the other day and have been meaning to pull out my El Kinto CD ever since, I haven't listened to this in ages

i'll post this here because why not. cool to seem him play

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkof6nmTOJQ
Arsenio Rodriguez - 11 seconds of live footage!

Wow!

Harry Belafonte narrating afaik

hmm good call. somebody in the comments got snippy about the "left wing" agenda of the narration, lol

I've been listening to this on repeat, it's just packed with astonishing music

https://www.discogs.com/release/7688399-Various-Cuban-Counterpoint-History-Of-The-Son-Montuno

Maybe there's a better thread for it, but it all started when I went on a Cuban tres kick after hearing the Renesito Avich track I shared above

Not sure where to post this but since I like both salsa and newer genres why not here- Jonathan Bogart has just been posting his fave 2025 tracks from various places around the world including Mexico - here's his faves that are mainly neo-perreo urbano

https://www.jonathanbogart.net/blog/2026/3/13/2025-favorites-mexico

Bogart's fave 2025 afro-Colombian tracks here

https://www.jonathanbogart.net/blog/2026/3/15/2025-favorites-afro-colombia

Deb Grant on BBC 6 Music played an impressive track, Ojunjo from the new Nuevos Rios album:

Nuevos Rios - Ojunjo
https://mastodonapp.uk/@BBC6MusicBot/116319814823866130

Bandcamp:

Nuevos Rios - Nuevos Rios
https://nuevosrios.bandcamp.com/album/nuevos-rios

Nuevos Ríos is the new project born from the meeting of Colombia’s iconic Canalón de Timbiquí, led by the unmistakable voice of Nidia Góngora (Quantic, Ondatrópica, The Bongo Hop), and the Toulouse-based trio Reco Reco, known for their explorations of trance-driven rhythms from South America and beyond.

Rooted on the banks of the Timbiquí River in Colombia’s Pacific region, the collaboration fuses ancestral Afro-Colombian traditions with electronic and amplified sounds. The result is a powerful and hypnotic journey where marimba, percussion, bass, and voices intertwine with keyboards, guitar, and drums. Between ritual intensity and dancefloor energy, the music bridges continents—echoing West Africa, the Caribbean, and the sweaty clubs of Europe—while always returning to the river as a vital source of life and inspiration.

Released on ZZK Records (home to Son Rompe Pera, Nicola Cruz, La Yegros, among others), this debut album is both a manifesto and a celebration: a living testimony of Colombia’s Afro-descendant heritage, reinvented through collective creativity. Nuevos Ríos is not just fusion—it is a new current, a sonic ritual where traditions flow into modernity.
credits

released March 27, 2026

interesting

I realized this weekend that Mas Flow 2, probably the most important compilation in reggaeton history, is not on streaming services.

a newsletter I read mentioned this cool Dominican track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXgvde31yLQ

Jezzy El Chef - LA MUJER QUE ME PARIO

Ala Jaza is the stage name of Dominican-born singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Enmanuel Jiménez. He's known for pioneering MamWali, a 21st century style of urban merengue that blends merengue and trap music.

DOn't know who this guy is but he has a sold out show in a small Maryland club Aug 22

https://open.substack.com/pub/aurorafloreshostos/p/from-willie-colon-to-marc-anthony?r=2ck8a&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

RIP Richie Bonilla

For more than six decades, Richie Bonilla helped shape, promote and protect the music we now call salsa. While others stood under the stage lights, Richie worked the phones, negotiated the contracts, found the venues, crossed the borders and made certain the bands arrived, were taken care of, paid and came back happy.

anybody listening to these salsa-ish acts -

Barrio Fino orchesta, Giovanni Kral, Ayrton Laura , La Tremendita

Lots of one year since Eddie Palmieri passed posting on Instagram the past few days I have seen

I followed Eddie Palmieri on Instagram and only just now saw there’s a newer IG page called the Eddie Palmieri Experience that has old interviews with him and such. Some of his bandmates follow that

https://www.instagram.com/eddiepalmieriexperience?igsh=OXIxZW5uZnUxZWN6

Cool. You mean like Luques.

Yep

And uh the Eddie Palmieri Experience is also apparently the name the remaining band members choose to call themselves if they do more gigs

Wonder who they will get to play piano for them?

Maybe some chops monster like Benito Gonzalez

Could be.

My next guess is Elio Villafranca.

A July 1 Instagram post by the EP Experience says the group was scheduled to perform July 8 at the street naming ceremony for Eddie Palmieri Way on July 8 in Harlem near 112ths t & Park Ave. It says Louis Fouche and Luques Curtis are the musical directors and tags a bunch of other people who have performed with Palmieri but doesn't spell out a piano/keyboard player

Could have been anyone then

Luques Curtis' brother seems to be the pianist I see here - Palmieri’s protégé on piano, 2025 Grammy winner Zaccai Curtis.

https://montereyjazz.org/artist/eddie-palmieri-experience/

Hah, how could I have overlooked him

Will Hermes recommends this podcast on the history of NY salsa

https://www.futuromediagroup.org/ourthingnewpodcast/

Cool

A friend tipped me off to RaiNao because she is playing here in October. I like the album Marcriá a lot so far, though it's a bit hard to describe. Started off sounding like Vespertine but now it's dreamy latin jazz with reggaeton-ish bass?? (and now it's something else, idk)

I see voodoo chilli mentioned it on the AOTY thread a while back, which is a very strong co-sign

So far no one track feels representative in any way, but this was a standout:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9T6IByBep0

"sofocón"

yea the album is really alluring and wonderful. keeps you guessing. i especially love her infusion of salsa and other afro-cuban elements, which elevates the vibe but doesn't draw attention to itself (which, as much as i love bad bunny, his incorporation of traditional genres is often as loud and proud as possible haha)

i'm really impressed with the rhythm in her melodies, which i think comes from her saxophone-playing background

highly recommend her tiny desk from a few weeks back (she fronts an 11-piece band!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OotD-iJO80

I like that track. Thanks . I see that she was on a Bad Bunny track and that the latest album per Wiki “appeared on midyear best-album lists from the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Rolling Stone en Español, and Variety.”

xp ah yeah same friend sent me the TD vid but I wanted to check the album first. Very curious if it's remotely possible she would roll up to Montreal with an 11-piece band, I would go almost on principle if that's the case

https://en.cibercuba.com/noticias/2026-08-22-u1-e208574-s27061-nid338476-percusionista-cubano-ganador-latin-grammy-detenido

ICE has detained Florida resident Cuban percussionist Degnis Bofill, and Cuban pianist Andy García.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DatxIkKx54W/

or even
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbKBwXaBhcy/

Too scatty for me , sorry

lol

It was already a hit before she added that part

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/arts/music/latin-grammy-nominees-karol-g-rosalia-ca7riel-paco-amoroso.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BlE.ueo_.iOLDa7mX7DuP&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Latin Grammys nominations are out. Award show takes place in November in Las Vegas

Catching up to Jorge Drexler’s Taraca now that got a bunch of nominations

Drexler's Taraca is pleasant pop on first listen but not impressing me as much as prior albums or when I saw him live

Karol G's 2025 album w/ Latin pop and cumbia and more regional touches is great and I think due to the weird calendar the Latin Grammys and Grammys use is now up for awards. Her new 2026 album has some nice Kali Uchis like retro 60s pop touches, some songs like her 2025 effort, and a Drake collaboration and a Bruno Mars collaboration

Karol G has the pop and the pop melody samples needed to help her fill stadiums but she also throws in regional styles as well into songs. It won't get her invited to Big Ears fest or get Amanda Petrusich to write about her in addition to her indie rock American fave This is Lorelei, but oh well, that's their loss

Drexler's Taraca is pleasant pop on first listen but not impressing me as much as prior albums or when I saw him live

Loving this much more on second and her third listens. Jorge Drexler beautifully blends Latin and Brazilian pop and its crafted in a way that should also impress fans of American and Brit pop rock from Elvis Costello to today's indie.

Eddie Palmieri Experience are out at Monterey Jazz Festival this weekend with Zaccai Curtis on piano , I see on IG

I am still behind on listening again to latest albums from Arcangel, Mon Laferte, Lido Pimienta. Heard em all once though, but got distracted by other things. I like those artists

Listened to and like Laferte and Pimienta artsy Latin pop and some of ArcAngel pop-reggaeton

This isn’t new however it recently went viral. i am a sucker for Dominican dembow with vocalists doing exaggerated squeaky voices . This is Don Miguelo doing “Y Que Fue”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16nZ6K7sim4

Also listening to Guachinangos, a Philadephia-formed and now NYC based son jarocho & champeta band who have 1 album out. Mostly Mexican genres but some Colombian ones as well

Yes, I am friends with Guachinangos. Juan Carlos is from Mexico and Elvira is from Colombia.

They just played in DC last night and I wrote a preview of the gig for the Washington City Paper. Alas, missed the show because I had a family conflict but hope to see them sometime.

Cool that you know them

I just saw a video Elvira posted last night from DC and wondered if you had gone.

more on Jorge Drexler's 2026 album

https://www.afropop.org/articles/jorge-drexler-goes-deep-with-candombe-on-new-album-tarac%C3%A1

Have you heard this guy yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjA8vq2-4Fc

Nope. Afro-Venezuelan NY pianist . Will watch that

So many different silos of Latin music- just saw a flyer on Instagram for JRS El Sonidero de Tik-Tok appearing with Mr Cumbia at a Maryland club near DC. Haven't looked up who they are yet or listened to them.

Yes, Latin music is a whole universe made up of many star systems

So I was talking to the Smithsonian curator of the Puro Ritmo exhibit that tells the story of salsa music today for an article I am writing. He said he would be in Lorraine, Ohio for a Latin Festival Sunday and coming back Monday. I got curious and discovered online that Eileen Torres, a person who used to promote salsa shows and appear on the radio doing a salsa show here in DC moved back to Lorraine, Ohio where she had grown up . She's now a councilmember there and put together a show paying tribute to 75 years of Latin music there. Apparently many Puerto Ricans moved there to get jobs in the auto assembly industry.

https://www.ideastream.org/arts-culture/2026-10-20/lorain-ready-to-celebrate-its-legacy-of-latin-music-on-sunday