In a blink of an eye, November has come to an end, and the Billboard Latin editorial team has compiled a list of the best Latin collaborations that dropped last month — but which is your favorite?
Including eight tracks that were either on the weekly First Stream Latin roundup or featured by Billboard, this month’s fan poll includes Grupo Firme and Joss Favela’s cumbia sonidera “La Bailadora,” Pablo Alborán and María Becerra’s heartfelt pop flamenco “Amigos,” Paulo Londra and Feid’s much-needed joint “A Veces,” and even the 2022 World Cup anthem “Tukoh Taka” by Nicki Minaj, Maluma and Myriam Fares, to name a few.
In October, Juan Gabriel and Anahí’s “Dejame Vivir” won the fan poll with a whopping 94 percent of the votes. The reimagined version of the 1984 track, which originally featured Rocío Dúrcal, comes six years after Juanga’s passing.
Kany Garcia and Christian Nodal’s “La Siguiente” took the crown in September, while in August, Cuban newcomer R3ymon and Puerto Rican rapper Anonimus won the coveted fan poll with their track “Santa Diabla,” receiving more than 34 percent of the votes. Sebastian Yatra and Pablo Alboran’s “Contigo” was picked best Latin collaboration of July, with more than 50 percent of the votes, followed by CNCO and Kenia OS’ “Plutón” with more than 37 percent of the votes.
In the summer, Billboard unveiled the “Best Latin Collaborations of 2022 (So Far),” including Christina Aguilera & Ozuna’s “Santo” (January), Becky G & Karol G’s “Mamiii” (February), Sebastian Yatra & John Legend’s “Tacones Rojos (Remix)” (March), Bizarrap & Paulo Londra’s “BZRP Music Sessions #23” (April), Morat & Duki’s “Paris” (May), and Blessd & Rels B’s “Energia” (June).
Who should win the best Latin collaboration of November? Vote below!
With so much time between the tours of 2019 to early 2020 and late 2021-22, new arena stars were minted in the in-between, ready to play the biggest stages of their career despite a possibly limited tour history. Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa transferred the goodwill of chart-topping hits into juiced-up arena tours, now suddenly reliable for sell-outs due to the ghost of success during the pandemic.
Also transforming from a club-level up-and-comer to a global touring powerhouse is Rosalía. The Spanish singer-songwriter’s Motomami World Tour — named after her album released in March of this year — earned $28.1 million and sold 343,000 tickets across three continents, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. With more dates to come, she lands at No. 7 on the year-end Top Latin Tours chart.
Before Rosalía became an arena-conquering superstar, she was playing scattered headline shows in clubs in North America. Her April 2019 shows at New York’s Webster Hall, San Francisco’s Regency Center Grand Ballroom and L.A.’s The Mayan all sold less than 1,500 tickets while she built her base via festival sets around the world. She finished that year with theater shows in London and Paris, and a few arena shows in Barcelona and Madrid.
A sludge of one-off singles, award show performances, and ultimately, the release of 2022’s Motomami helped fill the gap between tours. Since then, she and her team scaled her live business.
Rosalía’s 2019 concerts in Barcelona and Madrid transformed into a 12-date tour in her native Spain. Those shows grossed $13.4 million and sold 154,000 tickets.
Performances at the ‘19 Argentina and Chile installments of Lollapalooza became 11 shows on the Motomami World Tour, adding $7.5 million and 114,000 tickets.
And her North American club shows ballooned into 13 shows in large theaters, earning $7.3 million from 75,000 tickets.
The Motomami World Tour has played 36 shows so far, already a fuller run than 2019’s El Mal Querer Tour. And with increased venue capacity and ticket prices, Rosalía’s pace is that of a completely different artist than her pre-pandemic touring. Her North American shows in ’19 averaged $52,000 and 1,369 tickets. Fast forward to her recent domestic leg, and she’s earning $558,445 and 5,781 tickets – more than 10 times her last tour.
The Motomami World Tour has a string of nine European arena dates left before the end of the year. Even without those grosses or attendance totals reported yet, the venues and routing is already outsized compared to the pair of major-market shows in Europe in 2019.
Rosalía joins the aforementioned club of acts that include Bad Bunny, Eilish, Lipa and more, who have leveled up to arenas between tours separated by the pandemic. But unlike those acts’ top 10 albums (on the Billboard 200) and songs (on the Billboard Hot 100), Rosalía’s crossover success remains relatively limited. She has spent one week in the top 40 of the Billboard 200 and has yet to crack the region on the Hot 100.
Elsewhere, Rosalía has received widespread critical acclaim for Motomami (as with her previous albums), engaged on TikTok, and built a name as one of the most exciting new live acts of the last decade. As the monogenre continues to fracture, it only makes sense that this pop-Latin-electro Spanish-singing hybrid artist is one of the most vital touring acts of the year.
Kanye West has fired off another round of antisemitic comments, this time saying in an interview with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes that Jewish people need to “forgive Hitler.”
In a 45-minute interview titled “Saving Ye” posted to the alt-right website Censored.TV, McInnes and the artist now known as Ye debated the latter’s recent bout of hate speech aimed at the Jewish community. But the Yeezy founder simply doubled down on his stance even harder.
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“Jewish people can’t tell me who I can love and who I can’t love,” he said in the discussion, moderated by far-right personality and West’s recent companion Nick Fuentes, who is a Holocaust denier and has been labeled as a white supremacist by the Anti-Defamation League. “You can’t force your pain on everyone else,” he continued, according to Rolling Stone.
“Jewish people — forgive Hitler today,” he added. “Let it go. Let it go. Stop trying to force it on other people.”
McInnes, who in 2016 established the right-wing extremist group Proud Boys after leaving VICE Media Company, which he co-founded, says at the beginning of the video that he set up the interview to try to “prevent Ye West from becoming an antisemite or a Nazi.” The interview comes just days after the “Donda” musician praised Hitler and said he loves Nazis on Alex Jones’ far-right show InfoWars in a moment so disturbing, even President Joe Biden issued a statement condemning antisemitism and Holocaust denialism.
“I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides,” the president tweeted on Dec. 2. “Silence is complicity.’
Three years ago, Rosa Linn was writing songs in her free time and dreaming of a career in music. But she never expected a performance at a local village festival in her native Armenia would be her ticket to stardom.
Her standout delivery of an original rock song, backed by her band of friends, floored talent scouts in the crowd from record label Nvak Collective. Soon after, the team invited her to attend the company’s upcoming songwriting camp for women. “We really recognize the fact that talent is equally distributed — but opportunity isn’t,” says Tamar Kaprelian, Nvak Collective co-founder and Rosa Linn’s manager since last July, when the rising singer-songwriter also signed to the label.
Kaprelian says that while Rosa Linn was more introverted than the other songwriters at the camp, her personality beamed through the lyrics she wrote independently after songwriting lessons. When Rosa Linn returned to class one day, she presented the first verse of a folksy pop song about hopelessly ruminating over a romantic interest. That early draft became “Snap,” the global crossover hit that has catapulted her career and led to her first Billboard No. 1.
Inspired by her “first real love” in 2017 during her time as an exchange student in the United States, Rosa Linn returned home to Armenia feeling hung up. “I wrote about my readjustment process and mental state,” the 22-year-old says. “It was a very hard period for me. It’s just about life, and I think that’s why people relate to it.” Adds Kaprelian: “She came in with those deep lyrics, and I was like, ‘There’s something special here.’ ”
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Over the next two-and-a-half years Rosa Linn fleshed out the rest of the song ahead of its official release this March. She says that the final product is “very close” to the original demo, and includes vocals she cut in a hotel room, as well as her own guitar playing, “even though I’m not the greatest guitar player. That’s why the song has a vulnerable feeling. It’s honest and not perfect.”
Kaprelian sent the track to local radio stations, but was determined to get the song noticed on a larger level, eventually submitting it as an applicant to represent Armenia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022. Rosa Linn was ultimately chosen for the televised music competition this May (besting a finalist entry submitted by one of her friends), where she performed “Snap” to 161 million people across Europe. She placed 20th.
“We really saw it as a steppingstone,” Kaprelian reflects. “When she didn’t rank well, we could have been like, ‘We tried. Let’s move on to another song.’ Instead, we decided to double down on ‘Snap’ and I know that it might not have seemed smart, but we really went hard in the TikTok strategy.”
Rosa Linn (left) and Tamar Kaprelian photographed on November 11, 2022 in Malibu, Calif.
Turns out it was the smartest thing they could have done. Rosa Linn began “experimenting” with different videos on the platform, including acoustic performances, remixes and POV-style clips showing the behind-the-scenes action at Eurovision. And after a fan-made, sped-up version of the track was uploaded to TikTok, “Snap” began to go viral.
More than one million videos were uploaded to the platform using the quicker, pitched-up version of “Snap,” with users showing everything from favorite recipes to sweet moments with their pets, as well as participating in a wholesome trend in which people highlighted the “color palette” of their hair, skin and eyes. Its popularity on TikTok pushed “Snap” up the Billboard charts, leading to its Billboard Hot 100 debut at No. 97 on the Sept. 3-dated chart. It has since reached a No. 82 high and spent seven weeks at No. 1 on Adult Alternative Airplay. “After [seeing the song do well], that’s when I knew it was real,” Rosa Linn says. “‘Snap’ gave me the best and most productive year of my life.”
It also led to a major-label deal with Columbia Records, which Rosa Linn signed in August. The label has already set the artist up with top songwriters and producers, including a recent session in Los Angeles with Diane Warren and Dan Wilson. In late October, she released her follow-up single “WDIA (Would Do It Again)” with fellow Eurovision star Duncan Laurence — and then capped the month with her late-night television debut on The Late Late Show with James Corden. Rosa Linn is now in the process of curating her sound to represent her artistry, with hopes of releasing a debut studio album. “I’m very picky,” she says, noting she has no timeline in mind for her full-length. “I wrote a lot of songs in the past three years, but none of them got released because [then] I would write another and it was better. This period is me growing as a songwriter and trying to improve.”
“I’m always going to stay personal and honest,” she continues. “My music is a representation of what I’ve gone through. Coming from Armenia and now living my dream is unbelievable.”
Rosa Linn photographed on November 11, 2022 in Malibu, Calif.
Taylor Swift logs a record-extending 56th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated Dec. 10), continuing her run as the top musical act in the United States.
Her reign can largely be attributed to the continued success of her album Midnights, which logs a fifth week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 151,000 equivalent album units earned in the Nov. 25-Dec. 1 tracking week, according to Luminate. The set debuted atop the Nov. 5 chart with 1.578 million units, the largest one-week total since the opening frame of Adele’s 25 in December 2015 (3.482 million).
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Swift scores nine albums on the latest Billboard 200, the most among all acts. After Midnights, she appears with Folklore (No. 15), Red (Taylor’s Version) (No. 22), Lover (No. 29), Evermore (No. 36), 1989 (No. 51), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (No. 68), Reputation (No. 88), and Speak Now (No. 175).
Swift also lands nine songs from Midnights on the Billboard Hot 100, led by “Anti-Hero,” which tallies a sixth week at No. 1.
Here’s a recap of Swift’s songs on the latest, Dec. 10-dated Hot 100. After “Anti-Hero,” she charts with new radio single “Lavender Haze,” which pushes 36-26 on the Adult Pop Airplay chart and 31-28 on Pop Airplay. “Anti-Hero” leads the former tally for a second week and rises to No. 2 on the latter.
Rank, Title:
No. 1, “Anti-Hero”
No. 52, “Lavender Haze”
No. 70, “Bejeweled”
No. 71, “Midnight Rain”
No. 73, “Maroon”
No. 78, “Karma”
No. 80, “You’re On Your Own, Kid”
No. 83, “Snow on the Beach,” feat. Lana Del Rey
No. 97, “Vigilante Shit”
Swift has now spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Artist 100 in 2022, tying The Weeknd for the second-most after Bad Bunny (eight).
Elsewhere on the Artist 100, Michael Bublé bounds 14-7 largely powered by his 2011 album Christmas. The set jumps 10-4 on the Billboard 200 (47,000 units; up 55%), while its track “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” his version of Meredith Willson’s 1951 classic, re-enters the Hot 100 at No. 29.
Plus, Fleetwood Mac vaults 41-8 on the Artist 100, having made gains following the death of member Christine McVie on Nov. 30. The group’s seminal 1977 album Rumours climbs 32-20 on the Billboard 200 (23,000 units; up 25%), while the group’s Greatest Hits – with half its 16 songs written by McVie – re-enters at No. 98. The band’s classics “Everywhere” (from 1987’s Tango in the Night) and “Songbird” (from Rumours) — both written and sung by McVie — also rank on the Digital Song Sales chart at Nos. 14 (up from No. 38) and 26 (debut), respectively. The former had been surging thanks to its synch in a Chevrolet commercial.
The Artist 100 measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.
Back on the road after a three-year break following his record-breaking The Divide Tour, Ed Sheeran tops the year-end Top Ticket Sales chart after playing to more than 3 million fans in Europe in 2022.
This is not the first time that Ed Sheeran has won a year-end Boxscore trophy. The Divide Tour made him the first artist to repeat atop Billboard’s annual Top Tours ranking, winning the gold in 2018 and 2019. The first of those two victories was the biggest year-end total in Boxscore history, with $429.5 million. Further, that tour ended in 2019 with the highest gross and biggest attendance of any tour ever, at $776.4 million and 8.88 million tickets.
Now back with The Mathematics Tour, Sheeran winds up at No. 3 on the 2022 Top Tours chart with $246.3 million. But separated from gross revenue, his current tour is No. 1 on the Top Ticket Sales chart, ranking the top tours by total cumulative attendance. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Sheeran moved 3,047,696 tickets in the 2022 tracking period.
Sheeran played 63 shows between Dec. 13, 2021, and Sept. 25, 2022, averaging out to 48,376 tickets per night. But that is a misleading number, as the first 11 of those shows were “rehearsal” dates, setting the British singer-songwriter in small clubs and theaters in London and Dublin. Those shows ranged from 357 tickets at Dublin’s Whelans on April 19 to 5,230 tickets at London’s Royal Albert Hall on March 27. All 11 shows combined to 16,810; even at the top of that range, he was still selling less than 15% of the year’s average.
Removing those rehearsal shows from the equation, the picture of The Mathematics Tour comes into focus. Sheeran’s 52 “proper” tour dates in 2022 paced 58,287 tickets.
Almost every market – each one except for Helsinki, Finland – required multiple shows. Sheeran mostly played double-header weekends, moving from city to city and maximizing audiences with Friday and Saturday shows. He topped off with a five-show run at London’s Wembley Stadium, moving 420,269 tickets.
And while there is no attendance-based chart for Boxscores, the Wembley streak does have the highest attendance total of any engagement this year, beating Coldplay’s four shows at Paris’ Stade de France by more than 100,000 tickets.
Elsewhere, Sheeran broke the 200,000 threshold with four shows at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium and Munich’s Olympiastadion.
These numbers are huge, but even compared to his record-setting predecessor, The Mathematics Tour is ahead of schedule. The Divide Tour included three European legs in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Those runs averaged 14,321 tickets (the 2017 leg was in arenas), 54,485 and 51,898, respectively. Sheeran’s ’22 stadium pace is 7% in front of Divide’s strongest year, setting him up quite well as he prepares to leave his home base.
The Mathematics Tour is scheduled for 12 shows in Australia in February and March, followed by 24 shows in North America throughout the summer. Whether or not Sheeran can match (or even approach) The Divide Tour’s three-year total may be entirely up to him. Fans showed up in droves to his European shows, but the expanse of his pre-pandemic tour was so huge. And not only did the tour last, it went wide, including shows in Asia, South America and South Africa. If Mathematics routing remains modest, it will be difficult to triple the tour’s current totals.
Based on his scheduled 36 shows in 2023, The Mathematics Tour should pick up another 1.5 million to 1.75 million tickets as it approaches the 5 million mark. Should more dates be added, the sky’s the limit.
The 54th NAACP Image Awards will broadcast live on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023, at 8 p.m. (live ET/PT on delay) on BET from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, Calif. Nominees will be announced on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. Online voting opens on that date and extends through Friday, Feb. 10, 2023.
This will mark the first in-person Image Awards since the show was hosted in February 2020, also at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
The host has not been announced. Black-ish star Anthony Anderson hosted the last nine NAACP Image Awards, but several previous hosts or co-hosts came from the world of music, including Whitney Houston, Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams, Mariah Carey, Diana Ross and LL Cool J.
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Jennifer Hudson was named entertainer of the year at last year’s show. Jazmine Sullivan and Anthony Hamilton won outstanding female and male artist, respectively. Sullivan’s Heaux Tales took outstanding album. Saweetie took outstanding new artist.
The 54th NAACP Image Awards will include three new categories within the motion picture, television + streaming categories — outstanding hairstyling, outstanding make-up and outstanding costume design.
“Throughout the past year, we’ve witnessed Black artists showcasing our history and uplifting values of progressive change, while redefining genres and bringing our stories to the forefront of entertainment in so many innovative ways,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement. “Black voices are necessary to continually inspire audiences around the world. We’re proud to once again provide a platform that both elevates and celebrates these voices through the 54th NAACP Image Awards.”
“BET is extremely proud to continue our long-standing partnership with the NAACP and magnify their endeavors to honor the incredible contributions made by the Black community,” added BET president and CEO Scott Mills. “We’re looking forward to celebrating Black excellence at next year’s Image Awards on all of our platforms, honoring those who help tell our diverse stories in powerful ways.”
The Beyhive has listened to “Break My Soul” enough for it to officially reach Platinum status, and now Beyoncé is returning the love. To celebrate the milestone of Renaissance‘s splash-making lead single, the 41-year-old superstar dropped a “Hive Certified” music video Tuesday (Dec. 6) featuring clips of fans strutting their stuff to the track.
The new video opens with a hilarious clip of one fan tricking his mom and sister by saying he doesn’t like “Beyonce’s new song.” “Get out of here before I break your soul,” the fan’s mom angrily replies, while his sister stares in disbelief.
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Then, videos of Beyhive members of all ages and all corners of the internet dancing solo, in pairs and in groups to “Break My Soul” cut in and out. Some boogie in kitchens, some on top of beds, some outdoors on rooftops and some at their work desks.
“BREAK MY SOUL is Certified Platinum,” reads the video’s description. “Thank you so much for all the love and for releasing the wiggle.”
According to the RIAA, the single reached the one million units milestone mark on Nov. 30.
“Break My Soul” was first released back in June, heralding the impending arrival of Bey’s highly, highly anticipated Renaissance album, which dropped the following month. It peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100 and maintained its reign there for two weeks, marking the Houston native’s eighth career No. 1.
The house-inspired track receive almost instant critical acclaim upon its release, and in November, it snagged 2023 Grammy nominations for record of the year, song of the year and best dance/electronic recording.
Watch Beyoncé’s Hive Certified “Break My Soul” video below:
