Within the first week of 2025, Puerto Rican superstarBad Bunny dropped the most exhaustively researched and lovingly crafted record of his career, already setting a high bar for the year’s music landscape. But Latin America always rises to the occasion, especially in the underground, where legions of artsy weirdos and meticulous sound scientists are constantly developing the next wave poised to take over popular music.
Following merengue smashes like Karol G’s “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” and Rosalía’s Despechá,” as well as DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, some have foretold a new era of tropical music is upon us. However, down in Colombia, Meridian Brothers, La Pambelé, and Felipe Orjuela, as well as visionary diaspora artists like Ëda Díaz and Julián Mayorga, have been extrapolating on the vast, beloved canons of salsa, cumbia, and vallenato for ages. Roots music is also a powerful tool of protest, and just last year, Chile’s Phuyu y la Fantasma harnessed cueca in ferocious indictments of institutional corruption on A| Tetralogía de Bichos y Setas. Back in the Caribbean, Inka’sVilla Mella LP stands as one of the most powerful recent celebrations of Afro-Dominican drums and spirituality that also addressed cultural whitewashing and police brutality.
The influence of the underground can be noted everywhere. Following the pandemic, South America experienced a phenomenal rock revival where young artists literally banded together to stave off the harrowing loneliness. In Argentina, punk and post-punk got a boost through Buenos Vampiros, Dum Chica, and Winona Riders, catalyzing noisy, guitar-driven records fromDillom, WOS, and Lali. Meanwhile, in Chile, the unresolved rage from years of civilian unrest fueled a resurgence of emo (Estoy Bien), grunge (Déjenme Dormir), and hardcore (Asia Menor), reviving the country’s thirst for moshing and even enamoring the president.
For every slice of Brat hedonism, Six Sex drops a thumping poppers anthem. Seconds after a new SoundCloud wave stirs blog buzz, Sa!koro, Stiffy & AgustFortnie2008, NMNL, and weed420 deliver their own iconoclastic epics loaded with shitpost humor.
On and on, these dances between the underground and the mainstream are nothing new, so to give you insight into where 2025 is headed, we’ve put together a list of rising artists engaging with exciting trends and sounds that promise to take over the world.
Chuwi
Until recently, Puerto Rican polymaths Chuwi were one of the island’s best-kept musical secrets. Known for their freeform mixes of salsa, bomba, merengue, and even reggaeton, the Isabela band taps into the politically charged zeitgeist of land protection and anti-gentrification sentiment, growing into the dissident voice of a new generation. Chuwi brought activism to the dance floor on the excellent 2024 EP, Tierra, lamenting the island’s growing migration rates over lush Afro-Antillean percussion. They surfed that momentum onto “Escúchame,” the emotional apex from PJ Sin Suela’sToda Época Tiene Su Encanto, most recently popping up on Bad Bunny’s Boricua elegy, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, with “WELTiTA.” Like Buscabulla before them, Chuwi are no longer reserved for the island cognoscenti, but newly minted ambassadors of Caribbean music for curious global audiences.
Marttein
One of the most exciting trends bubbling in Argentina is the creative allegiance between indie and experimental scenes and the country’s visionary theater community. Together, and regardless of budgets, these artistic teams are producing riveting, immersive live shows, and few exploit the new narrative opportunities like Marttein. The bleach-blonde dandy’s jagged fourth album dropped back in October, taking the Porteño underground by storm with a throbbing industrial palette rooted in Argentine traditions of tango and cumbia villera. Co-signed by the likes of Dillom and Juana Rozas, his audiovisual ouvre melds cutting-edge fashions, stark lighting, spoken word, gender fluidity, and unsettling physical performances that Marttein translates seamlessly to the stage.
Javiera Electra
Chile’s vast traditional songbook gets an exciting refresh every few years. Artists like Gepe and Yorka have become new torchbearers of the folk legacy of Violeta Parra and Victor Jara, while rapper Martín Acertijo and the corte chilenero scene are injecting cueca with drill and reggaeton. Down in the city of Concepción, singer-songwriter Javiera Electra has emerged as a theatrical new player, melding solemn cueca and tonada with prog rock and bursts of experimental noise. The charismatic trans performer cut her teeth for years busking on piers and buses, pouring her jagged confessional poetry into 2023’s REPRÍS EP. While remixes and collaborations also plunged her into electronic territory, the recent double single “Espadámbar” is a spacey, avant-garde cueca, sounding like Chilean Radiohead and paving the way for Electra’s hotly anticipated debut album out later this year.
Jonás
The Dominican Republic’s Cibao region is breeding some of the island’s most intriguing rising talent — from merengue típico dynamo El Rubio Acordeón in rural San Francisco de Macorís to electronic prodigy Yendruy Aquinx in the coastal idyll of Las Terrenas. Out of La Vega, singer-producer Jonás Mercedes has the goods to swell into a smooth-crooning superstar. Thumping collaborations with producers Funsize and Martox propelled him through reggaeton, R&B, and drum&bass, while his prolific creative relationship with Diego Raposo yielded last year’s sensual BUENA VIDA, MALA FAMA EP. In December, Jonás dropped three searing perreo romántico singles, with a new synthpop project slated for early Spring that will further showcase his musical versatility. A B-side of his project with Raposo is also dropping in the coming months, which will keep Jonás ringing in our ears throughout 2025.
Luiza Brina
Responding to our increasingly detached digital world, an emerging movement of artists is banking on lush, acoustic set pieces in hopes of reconnecting with the discipline of creating music with our bare hands. In Brazil, singer, songwriter, and composer Luiza Brina made a splash last year with her album Prece, enlisting an orchestra of 19 women to bring her delicate arrangements to life, weaving strings, drums, and flourishes of electronic production. The album boasts collaborations from folk mavens Silvana Estrada and Iara Rennó, and was celebrated as one of 2024’s most gorgeous records by NPR and Helado Negro. As for the year ahead, Brina has teased new music, live performances, and production work for other artists, forecasting her growing influence in Brazilian indie.
Heartgaze
After years of masterminding glitchy bops behind the scenes, Heartgaze is finally ready to step into the spotlight. The Argentina-born singer and producer relocated to Chile as a teenager, falling in league with a growing trap and reggaeton scene and injecting saturated hyperpop into hits from Princesa Alba, Young Cister, and Gianluca. A few years later, he headed to Chicago to attend university, remixing and sharing stages with buzzy locals Divino Niño and Victor Internet, eventually heading back to Chile to co-helm Akriila’s acclaimed 2024 debut, Epistolares. With a grungy-electronic solo album already under his belt — 2023’s CASI ANGELES — Heartgaze will continue pushing the sonic envelope this year, teasing production credits on indie singer-songwriter Idea Blanco’s next project as well as his own prismatic sophomore LP.
Ino Guridi
Uruguayan singer and producer Ino Guridi has been a staple of South American indie pop for the better part of a decade. She made a name for herself by collaborating with local indie heroes like Eté & Los Problems and Julen y la Gente Sola, eventually shipping off to Chile and infiltrating the electronic scene with her club-tastic alias, Isla Panorama. Following El Estallido Social and the pandemic, she returned to Montevideo and began dropping new music under her civilian name. 2023’s Pasará LP was released through Little Butterfly Records (Juana Molina, Luciano Superveille), which came loaded with dense synth atmospheres and nods to neoperreo and tango. Guridi’s next album is slated for later this year, expanding her sonic palette with jazz and candombe and dovetailing into a growing trend of artists exploring Rioplatense songwriting traditions led by Julieta Rada, Paul Higgs, and Broke Carrey.
Blue Rojo
Since bursting onto the Mexico City queer underground with the 2021 LP Solitario, weepy crooner Blue Rojo has been diligently building up his resume. The following year, he performed at Festival Ceremonia and steadily stacked credits on blockbuster tracks for rapper Alemán, as well as on the Wakanda Forever soundtrack. But his own brand of melodramatic pop has also grown and evolved. He sampled Belanova on perreo thumper “La Foto X El Whatsapp,” starred in a racy soccer romance in the video for “NO TE KIERO OLVIDAR,” and teamed up with glitch aliens Meth Math for the jet set fantasy of “Aviones.” Blue Rojo’s forthcoming LP will also delve into trip-hop and ballroom, getting sacrilegious on the sensual “Satanás” and channeling his inner mean girl on the uproarious “Chisme.”
Adiós Cometa
Rock has always been a connective thread throughout Central America, manifesting in tight, potent scenes like El Salvador’s renowned heavy metal movement and Costa Rica’s artsy garage golden age of the 2010s. Darker textures from shoegaze and post-punk have also creeped in, with fuzzy Costa Rican quartet Adiós Cometa exploring the intersection between noisy pedal boards and delicate ambient textures on their 2024 LP, Nuestras Manos Son Incendios. Guest spots from Mexico’s No Somos Marineros and Guatemala’s Asimov helped flesh out this moody sonic universe, and upcoming tours and live sessions promise to keep connecting with melancholy fans around the world.
Mariscos
Colombia’s folk movement is evergreen, and the label In-Correcto has grown into the launchpad for scene-defining stars La Muchacha, Briela Ojeda, Ana María Vahos, and San Pedro Bonfim. One of the newest talents on their roster is Mariscos, the mysterious alias of Mariana Velazco, whose quirky “micro-canciones” and sorrowful vocals evoke the textured wisdom of bossa nova and even post-punk. Though her earnest debut Televentas y Tu dropped in 2023, the recent release of dreamy single “Garotinha” came with news of a forthcoming sophomore LP, instantly making it one of the year’s most anticipated singer-songwriter records.
