From Bad Bunny’s Emmy to Spotify: Latin Music’s Global Momentum Is a Brand Opportunity

Earlier this year, I wrote about Bad Bunny’s Grammy success and what it said about who gets to define “mainstream” culture. This weekend gave us another answer.

Bad Bunny won his first Emmy for the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show, which took Outstanding Variety Special (Live). The production swept all seven categories in which it was nominated, making it the most awarded Super Bowl halftime show in Emmy history.

That distinction matters beyond another trophy for Benito.

His February performance averaged 128.2 million viewers in the U.S., according to Nielsen, while unapologetically centering Puerto Rican and Latin culture on one of American television’s largest stages. Now, the television industry is recognizing that same cultural expression as award-winning entertainment.

And Bad Bunny is hardly alone. Just days ago, Karol G and Shakira simultaneously occupied the #1 and #2 positions on Spotify’s Global Top 50, with “BbY WOW” and “Dai Dai,” respectively. Two Colombian women. Two different generations. The two most streamed songs in the world at the same time.

These are not isolated cultural moments. Latin America was the fastest-growing recorded music region in the world in 2025, up 17.1%, marking its 16th consecutive year of growth. In the U.S., Latin music revenue surpassed $1 billion and reached a record 8.8% of recorded music revenue.

I’ve argued before that Latin artists are no longer simply “crossing over” into mainstream culture.

They are helping define it.

For brands, that creates real opportunity. The smartest plays are not simply sponsorships or celebrity endorsements. Brands can build deeper partnerships around music, live experiences, creator collaborations, culturally relevant content and bilingual storytelling, while also investing in the communities and creative ecosystems driving this growth.

There is also an opportunity to rethink audience strategy. Latin culture should not live exclusively inside a multicultural marketing plan. It increasingly belongs in general-market strategy, media investment, entertainment partnerships and product innovation.

Bad Bunny’s Emmy is another marker along that road. The audiences shaping mainstream culture have already changed. The opportunity for brands is to stop treating that influence as a trend and start building for it.