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