cousin.world is an update on global music as told through four playlists:

• run ⇡ — club tracks from euro & UK dancefloors

• cherry soda ⚭ — k-pop, c-pop, idol and city pop

• the grid ✚ — sounds of urbano, reggaeton, funk

• magnitude △ — afrobeat, dancehall and amapiano rising

For the grid ✚ #005, I’ve got an all-star Argentine link-up, some funk from São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, and new ones from Karol G, Ozuna, Maluma and Xavi.

Next Week, magnitude △ #005 will wrap up the month. Stay tuned and have a nice weekend 🙂 

the grid ✚

1. Mesita, Nicki Nicole, Emilia, Tiago PZK — ‘UNA FOTO REMIX’ (Argentina)

Four of Argentina’s biggest rising artists collide on this remix of Mesita’s six-month-old track ‘UNA FOTO’. This is currently the biggest track in the market on YouTube and Apple Music, and peaked at #1 on Spotify and Deezer last month. The track just spent its sixth week at #1 on Billboard’s Argentina Hot 100.

The trend of bringing together all-star artist rosters for remixes is hardly new — as you know, one of the earliest signals that Latin music would go global was Justin Bieber’s appearance on Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi’s ‘Despacito’ remix, which spent 16 weeks at #1 in the US. Trends now seem to be favouring intranational collaborations like this one. Combining each of these artists’ audiences nets approaching 80M monthly listeners on Spotify — Nicki Nicole (26M), Emilia (19.1M), Tiago PZK (21.3M) and Mesita (12.4M).

Each of the artists on this track has also tapped international collaborators for their own audience expansion exercises. Recent releases from Nicki Nicole include ‘Enamórate’ with Catalan artist Bad Gyal and a collab with Californian Jere Klein on ‘X ESO BB’. One of Emilia’s biggest hits was ‘No_Se_Ve .mp3’ with Brazilian artist Ludmilla.

2. TR, Mc Menor RV — ‘Baby Eu Tava na Rua da Água’ (Brazil)

The number 1 track on Spotify in Brazil right now is ‘Baby Eu Tava na Rua da Água’ by TR and Mc Menor RV.

The track is a funk reimagining of Bebe Rexha and David Guetta’s ‘I’m Good’, which itself reimagines Eiffel 65’s 1998 classic ‘Blue’. The video, hosted by Funk de BH — a music video production company working with artists from Belo Horizonte — stands at 5.7M views since being shared last month.

Chartmetric have a great piece on the history of funk in Brazil but if you want to get into sub-genres of funk, including examples of funk from Minas Gerais — the state TR and MC Menor RV hail from — check out this piece on Volume Morto.

3. KAROL G, Tiësto — ‘CONTIGO’ (Colombia, Netherlands)

The latest hit from Colombian superstar Karol G and the king of euro house bangers Tiësto is ‘CONTIGO’, a remixpretation of Leona Lewis’ 14-year-old anthem ‘Bleeding Love’.

Karol G is currently #41 in Spotify’s global artist ranking and ‘CONTIGO’ is the second track in the Top 50 Global alongside her Peso Pluma collab ‘QLONA’. She will be honoured at the Billboard Women in Music Awards next month as Woman of the Year, not long after winning her first Grammy for her Mañana Será Bonito album.

She is also about to make her first foray into acting in Netflix’s Griselda.

4. Darell, Ozuna, Maluma — ‘Lollipop - Remix’ (Puerto Rico, Colombia)

Another remix with some heavyweight collabs is this track ‘Lollipop’, first released by Puerto Rican artist Darell back in July 2023. Its latest iteration was released just last week and includes guest verses from Ozuna and Maluma.

Darell is most famous for his track ‘Te Boté’ which featured fellow Puerto Rican rappers Nio García and Casper Mágico. That track also got the blockbuster remix treatment when Bad Bunny, Nicky Jam, Nio Garcia and Ozuna jumped on, creating one of the region’s hits of summer 2018.

Darell releases on White Lion Records, one of Sony Music Latin’s key sub-labels whose CEO Elias de León is credited with discovering some of reggaeton’s biggest stars like Daddy Yankee.

5. Xavi — ‘La Diabla’ (US)

No global genre seems to be moving as quickly as Regional Mexican, both in terms of chart penetration and the rapid development of unknown artists into global superstars. Following the route carved by artists like Peso Pluma and Fuerza Regida is today’s hottest RM artist: Xavi.

‘La Diabla’ has been the only Latin track in Spotify’s Global Top 10 for a minute, standing at #6 today. Unlike the majority of his contemporaries in the genre, Xavi was born in Phoenix, Arizona and signed to Interscope Records as a teenager.

Going to link again to this great piece on Regional Mexican music on Pitchfork for anyone who wants a primer.

+ Five More…

6. MC Davi, MC Hariel, MC Don Juan, MC Ryan SP & MC Kanhoto — ‘ENQUADRO’ (Brazil)

One of the most popular recent releases from my favourite label in Brazil, GR6. Join their 40M+ followers over on YouTube and see how they have perfected their release formula.

7. Bad Gyal — ‘Perdió Este Culo’ (Spain)

Bad Gyal’s long-awaited debut album La Joia came out last month and this is the lead single. Earlier this month she spoke about the record to Rachel Grace Almeida for Dazed.

8. Chris Jedi, Gaby Music, Dei V, Anuel, Ozuna — ‘BAD BOY’ (Puerto Rico)

This all-star link-up from Puerto Rico’s finest came out two weeks ago and currently tops one of Spotify’s biggest reggaeton playlists Baila Reggaeton (10.7M).

9. Justin Quiles, Anitta, Lenny Tavárez — ‘Faldas y Gistros’ (US, Brazil, Puerto Rico)

This inter-regional collab came out in late January via Warner Music Latina. For Anitta, this is her third release of 2024 following the Bad Gyal collab ‘Bota Niña’ and a remix of ‘Mil Vezes’ with fellow Brazilian singer Melody.

10. Bulin 47, Myke Towers — ‘LA TRANZA’ (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico)

‘LA TRANZA’ is the latest release from Myke Towers in collaboration with one of DR’s biggest dembow artists Bulin 47. It’s out via Vulcano Music Entertainment and Young Kings.