It’s been an enormous year for Latine music. We’ve witnessed Latine artists such as Bad Bunny and Anitta go from being their city’s emerging pop stars to global domination. While we assumed that Latine music numbers increased, we now have the official Year-End 2021 RIAA U.S. Latin Music Revenue Report to back up our observations.
“Latin music continues to rise – powering the overall music market and reporting its highest revenue figure in history last year at $886 million,” Michèle Ballantyne, the COO of RIAA says about the increment. “With growth of 35% – far surpassing the overall growth rate for recorded music revenues – Latin music is connecting with fans in a historic way.”
According to the RIAA’s latest data, U.S. Latine music earnings in 2021 continued the same 6-year trend of double-digit growth. In this impressive increment, 2021 saw that Latine’s share of U.S. music revenues grew to 5.9 percent, up from 5.4 percent in 2020. Overall, the revenue is at an all-time high of $886 million, which is only 15 percent below the value of Latine’s most profitable year back in 2005. Notable elevations include streaming formats revenues which grew by 36 percent and showed an all-time high of $857 million in 2021. This statistic made up 97 percent of Latine music revenues, according to the year-end report.
This also resulted in paid music subscriptions continuing to have the biggest impact on Latine music revenue growth. In fact, revenues from paid subscriptions grew 35 percent to $593 million.
“In a year when Bad Bunny was the most streamed artist in the world, stars like Becky G and Anitta pumped out chart-topping hit after chart-topping hit, and audiences joyfully flocked to Latin-powered stadium and arena shows as live performance ramped back up, Latin label teams and artists continue soaring to new heights,” Ballantyne commented on the new report’s findings.
As mainstream media continues to amplify our Latine artists, we can only expect more increments in 2022. Is it possible to surpass 2005’s record revenue in 2022?