Image credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Latin American music is getting more popular with the fastest revenue growth in the world.

Latin music’s recorded music revenues have grown a huge 37% first in the first six months of 2021 for the U.S.. This is according the RIAA’s (Recording Industry Association of America) mid-year Latin revenue report which reveals that Latin music generated $407 million in the U.S. market in the first half of the year.

This means that Latin music was the fastest growing sector in the entire U.S. music market, growing faster than the overall recorded revenues. The overall music market in the U.S. grew by 27% in the first half of the year, compared to the results in the first six months of 2020.

Overall, Latin music makes up 5.8% of the total U.S. music market. RIAA reveal that 96% of the overall $407 million music revenues for the U.S. were made from music streaming.

Latin music has been surging in popularity in recent years with artists like Daddy Yankee, Camila Cabello, Luis Fonsi, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin hitting the charts regularly. The genre – which largely refers to music spoken in Spanish and originating from Latin America – grew from $250 million in the first half of 2019, to $298 million in the first half of 2020, to an incredible $407 million in the first half of this year.

RIAA COO, Michele Ballantyne said: “It’s incredible to see continued double-digit growth in Latin music — outpacing the already strong performance we’ve seen across other music segments and categories and powering new opportunities and greater diversity across our business. This sustained and accelerating expansion speaks to a rising openness to new artists, music and ways of listening — with younger fans now spending 20% of their time listening in languages other than English.”