In 2022, Bad Bunny and More Latin Pop Artists Thrived on Innovation. Again. – The New York Times

In the era of streaming and the internet, Latin music has reconfigured the meaning of regional styles. A particular beat or a standard instrumental lineup — a cumbia by a mariachi band, or a bachata with electric guitar and bongos — still points clearly to a singular place of origin, to Mexico or the Dominican Republic. But musicians aren’t confining themselves to homeland styles or shunning outsiders. With everything available for listening or sampling or layering, far more boundary-hopping now takes place; Bad Bunny’s album, for instance, focuses on reggaeton but also dips into bachata, cumbia and merengue. In the best new Latin pop, genre-hopping and genre-splicing are clearly a matter of musical curiosity and shared intentions, not crossover calculation.

The Spanish songwriter Rosalía made it her game plan to jump-cut among styles on her profoundly and playfully self-conscious 2022 album, “Motomami.” The songs constantly, willfully mutate, using the flamenco Rosalía studied in Spain along with reggaeton, bachata, piano ballads, jazz, hip-hop and salsa. On “Motomami” she sings about her determination to transform, her sudden global fame and how fleeting it could be; she also throws in some Japanese references, in case anyone thought she was limited to Europe and the Americas. Each allusion has clearly recognizable roots, but Rosalía insists that their contrasts add up to something more: a common humanity, even if it’s digitally mediated.

The Puerto Rican singer, songwriter and producer Rauw Alejandro steered his pop-reggaeton toward electronic realms on his 2022 album, “Saturno.” He nodded toward reggaeton predecessors — one of the album’s hits, “Punto 40,” radically updated a 1998 song in collaboration with its originator, Baby Rasta — but he also deployed synthesizers to go hopscotching through styles like electro- and hyperpop, sometimes dissolving the beat to trade typical reggaeton braggadocio for lost-in-space heartache.