The Mess is a new column from journalist Richard Villegas, who has been reporting on new, exciting sounds flourishing in the Latin American underground for nearly a decade. As the host of the Songmess Podcast, his travels have intersected with fresh sounds, scene legends, ancestral traditions, and the socio-political contexts that influence your favorite artists. The Mess is about new trends and problematic faves whilst asking hard questions and shaking the table.
We’re going there. We’re talking about it. Even if things get a little messy.
What a fantastic, unpredictable year in pop music we’re having. For example, are you worshipping at the altar of Six Sex yet? It seems the music industry has lit several candles to Argentina’s goddess of perreo-rave, who overnight went from producing raunchy viral hits to popping up on slay-tastic tracks from a plethora of aspiring main pop girlies. In a logical effort to conquer the Mexican market, the powers that be paired the moaning diva with kitty-chela queen Bellakath, resulting in the unremarkable perreo of “A Que Te Aruño,” as well as a one-sided feud where Six Sex emerged as the unbothered victor. Most recently, Argentina’s industry brass attempted to reinvigorate Emilia’s heavy-handed “for the gays” pandering with “Pasarella,” a Locomía-sampling stinker supercharged with gaudy EDM and nonsensical fashion mad-libs. Again, the doe-eyed alias of Francisca Cuello came out on top, delivering c*nty bars that rang true to her underground pedigree rather than some bizarre rehash of a RuPaul’s Drag Race verse.
Of course, whether a pop song is good or bad, fun or wack, is entirely subjective. But this is my column, and my judgment is that aura farming Six Sex will not work unless you meet her at an equal or higher level of gutsy ideas. Excellent crossovers with LSDXOXO, Dillom, Juana Rozas, EMJAY, nusar3000, and MARTTEIN not only proved the veracity of her memed LinkedIn tagline, “Con ganas de trabajar,” but also that her silly bars about fucking and partying are backed up by curious, challenging artistry. At a mainstream level, the only one to successfully harness Six Sex’s enlightened bimbo gravitas is Yeri Mua, who on “Ya Cogí Con Otro” arguably surpassed her guest’s cochina reputation with pearl-clutching lines about squirting and her ex’s salty baby juice. Honestly, I could go on and on about vampiric industry antics, but I rather channel the momentum of this name-dropping extravaganza into a proper mid-2025 pop roundup, where, regardless of hits and misses, we’ve all been thoroughly entertained.
Consider the long-term effects of last year’s endless Brat summer. Electronic club bedlam is now the law of the land, and even perreo all-stars like EMJAY and Isabella Lovestory evolved into sonic palettes of techno, drum and bass, and crunchy dubstep. Hell, even Danna recently made a hard left in that direction. I previously covered the rise of a new generation of pop vixens in Argentina, highlighting the decadent glamour of SIMONA and Juana Rozas. However, one of their compatriots that flew under my radar was roro, the waifish singer and producer whose tremendous hot hits EP dropped in the first week of January. Tapping into snarky internet vernacular and spastic beats designed for dance floor rapture, the teenage powerhouse already showed up in the credits for Kevin Abstract’s new album, Blush. Beware, a new club supreme is rising.
Perhaps the other defining trend of 2025 is how reggaeton’s biggest stars have gone native. Calling it now: Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS will top every major end-of-year list, and rightfully so. Creating a record that harnessed the vast rhythmic universe of Puerto Rico, never compromising his innate banger craft while also dialoging with his homeland’s precarious socio-economic present and future, was a Herculean feat.
That narrative intention is where Rauw Alejandro’s Cosa Nuestra and Karol G’s Tropicoqueta missed the mark — their respective records are more preoccupied with producing marketable aesthetics. The first evoked Fania’s 1970s gangster-crooner heyday but dwelled comfortably in his reggaeton wheelhouse with an occasional swerve into salsa, while the latter reimagined herself as a hybrid of Carmen Miranda and the gratuitous bikini babes that grace the covers of classic tropical albums. But visual nostalgia without context for why this music is woven into our Latin American DNA, or even why it remains relevant, is just historical revisionism primed for social media trends and fast-fashion partnerships.
In the specific case of Karol G, I believe there was genuine interest in studying and updating the legacy of tropical music institutions like Discos Fuentes, though sampling The Beatles on “A Su Boca La Amo (Interlude)” and singing in English on “Papasito” evidence her Anglo crossover ambitions. That desire is respectable, and visibility always matters, but cuchi-cuchi dancing on the Tonight Show during a time of historic Latine and immigrant persecution in the U.S. sends a message of genuflection rather than of pride and defiance.
Similarly, the misguided watering down of Tokisha’s bad girl brand on the Un Verano Sin Tí-sounding “Sol” and the Nathy Peluso-featuring “De Maravisha,” chased crossover but also a desire for more serious artistic consideration. Santo Domingo’s X-rated queen is most powerful as an agitator, and even if her hotly anticipated duet with Arca on “Chama” raised some eyebrows with eerie pregnancy imagery, the song was ultimately a perreo snore. Fun will always be a valid message!
In contrast, Cazzu’s grossly overlooked Latinaje succeeded in braiding genres on a zeitgeist upswing (salsa, mariachi, bolero) with traditional coplas and chacareras from her native Salta, in northern Argentina, as well as the hip-hop and trap codes that launched her to stardom. Despite the album’s universal pop lyricism, the record injects joyful cumbias villeras that she has clearly danced a million times and melodramatic regional mexicano, in which she has also been infamously entangled, enhancing her personal stake in the work presented.
Visual nostalgia without context for why this music is woven into our Latin American DNA, or even why it remains relevant, is just historical revisionism primed for social media trends and fast-fashion partnerships.
At an indie level, I would encourage you to also check out MULA’s latest LP, ETERNA, which brought merengue and bachata into an unapologetically queer darkwave space alongside the likes of Javiera Mena, Jessy Bulbo, and Letón Pé. And weed420’s Amor de Encava ran samples of reggaeton and Venezuelan salsa baúl through a sea of noisy synths and irreverent DJ tags, collaging a devastating portrait of a stifled generation buried under political and economic rubble. Sure, this last record veers out of pop and into experimental music, but it’s still one of the year’s most compelling listens.
My goodness, there is so much more to cover: The language barrier-breaking rise of Brazilian titans Luísa Sonza, Pabllo Vittar, Marina Sena, and LUDMILLA. The throbbing, Timbaland-indebted freshness of rusowsky’s debut album, DAISY. Miranda!’s resplendent career second wind. Bandalos Chinos transcending their signature ‘70s nostalgia with the darker, angrier tunes of Vándalos, while the shockingly repetitive vintage grooves of CLUBZ’s Radio Kono prioritized lucrative sync placements rather than nuanced artistic expression.
Though pop music is often maligned as dumb and cheap, even the most pretentious experimental artist will tell you how difficult it is to build a memorable verse-chorus combo. My biggest takeaway from the art form is that you can follow a hit-making formula, but you can’t manufacture the people’s love. That’s also why “doing it for the gays” means nothing when trendy beats and aesthetics lack a compelling diva in which to see ourselves reflected. Bad Gyal is dead behind the eyes, while Shakira moved away from her artistic instincts for glorified jingles— now neither are believable heroines. But Lali standing up to Argentina’s grotesquely homophobic president and Villano Antillano preaching the gospel of Puerto Rican liberation around the world bring conflict and emotional investment to their sexy, catchy music.
Specificity is golden, and the best artists are those who share fragments of their inner world. Then the gays follow… And then everyone else.
