Marcos Hernandez barely speaks Spanish. He grew up listening to Barry Manilow, the Temptations, Michael Jackson and U2. And on his debut album, “About Me,” he sings soulful R&B -- in English.
But Hernandez is of Hispanic heritage, a fact that he, and his label, TVT, have embraced and exploited when it comes to making and promoting his music.
“We were careful about me being Latin, R&B and pop,” Hernandez says. “About pulling the strings of my Latin heritage.”
Although “About Me,” released late last year, has Latin tinges on a couple of tracks, and even a Spanish-language remix, it is not a Latin album by any stretch of the imagination. But TVT has been marketing it to the pop mainstream and Latin markets alike, banking on a growing number of Americans who are like Hernandez: First-, second- and even third-generation Latinos who may not speak Spanish, but who still define themselves as Latin -- “a Mexican kid from the South” is how Hernandez describes himself in his album liner notes -- and share a common cultural identity.
This growing population of assimilated Latinos -- and the growing awareness of their buying power -- is changing the way Latin artists are signed, marketed and promoted.
Increasingly, mainstream labels are signing home-grown Latin acts, often with an eye toward the R&B/hip-hop market. Meanwhile, Latin labels are opening up to having their U.S.-born artists record in two languages from the get-go.
At Sony BMG Latin, for example, the philosophy of the label’s urban division -- founded last year -- is to treat its artists as mainstream acts who happen to be Latin.
Its marketing campaign for English-speaking act Frankie J’s “The One” targeted mainstream and Latin audiences alike. “The One” debuted at No. 3 on The Billboard 200 in April 2005 and has sold 842,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Young Latino artists who sing in English and listen to English-language music are nothing new. The late 1990s saw a slew of rap/metal bands, including Korn, Deftones and P.O.D., with Mexican-American members. But a Latin identity was never promoted with these groups nor was their music or lyrics Latin in any way (save for Rage Against the Machine’s Zach de la Rocha).
In the hip-hop world, there have also been Latin acts, including Cypress Hill, Big Pun and Fat Joe. But the “Latino” identity was never a major marketing factor for these acts, despite the fact that in urban markets with large Latino populations, rhythmic and rap radio have high listenership among Latinos.
Things noticeably began to shift last year, with the advent of reggaeton, the launch of bilingual rhythmic radio formats, the growth of bilingual media outlets and the growing awareness that Latinos -- of every generation -- have become a powerful presence in the marketplace.
What was needed to break out was recognition of a critical mass of fans, says Paul Burgess, executive VP for TVT Records, whose roster includes bilingual rapper Pitbull and Hernandez.
Burgess says the artists also must realize the potential of reaching beyond their core audience.
“Like any genre of music that forms in a niche, then reaches pop mainstream, Latin artists are recognizing, ’I can compete in the pop form, yet still retain my identity as a Latino,”’ Burgess says.
According to a 2005 study commissioned by marketing firm Hispanic USA, the number of Spanish-dominant and bilingual Latinos will increase 45% during the next two decades, adding 12.4 million Spanish speakers to today’s U.S. population.
But almost all (97%) U.S. Latinos who only speak Spanish were born abroad, according to a 2002 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation. Similarly, most who speak only English (93%) are U.S.-born. Bilingual speakers were evenly divided among those born in and outside of the United States. But proficiency in Spanish diminishes with each generation. The second generation of U.S. Latinos is made up of those who speak only English (21%) and those who are bilingual (74%), with the remainder speaking Spanish alone.
Those demographic characteristics have led to an increasing number of media outlets -- including TV networks mun2, LATV and SiTV and magazines like Latina -- that cater to English-speaking or bilingual Latinos. Add that to dozens of specialized Web sites, Internet radio, Spanish-language and mainstream media, and suddenly there are massive possibilities to promote Latin artists.
“We are treating Latins like part of the American mainstream,” says Lorenzo Braun, VP of marketing and A&R for Sony BMG’s Urbano division, created last year. Its roster includes Spanish-only acts like Calle 13 and Alexis & Fido, bilingual artists like Voltio and urban pop acts that sing predominantly in English, like newcomers Jzabehl and Jean.
“I think the audience is there,” says Katie Valdez, one half of the Dominican-born, U.S.-raised duo Jzabehl. “And I think music is starting to cross over, and genres are starting to cross over into other genres, and that door is open for us to step into.”