Is the sun finally setting on Anglo music’s global hegemony? The question has been timely for the last few years, but 2023 felt like a more permanent breakthrough for Spanish-language pop. Consider, for one, that música mexicana artists stormed the Billboard Hot 100 chart this year; at one point, Peso Pluma held 14 concurrent spots on the list. Or note that Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti was Spotify’s most-streamed album of 2023. From pop-reggaeton to corridos tumbados to alt-flamenco, the most innovative purveyors are putting forth ideas faster than the charts can keep up with. Still, the U.S. media’s hyperfocus on commercial success veils a sinister neglect for independent artists across the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world. Whether it’s Dominican pop-conceptualists or Mexican indie rockers, the underground continues to thrive, right alongside industry heavy hitters. Here are the year’s best songs and albums from Latine and Spanish artists, listed alphabetically.
Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.
Check out all of Pitchfork’s 2023 wrap-up coverage here.
(All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our retail links, however, Pitchfork may earn an affiliate commission.)
Bad Bunny: “WHERE SHE GOES”
For months after its release in May, Benito stans filled Reddit threads arguing over the creative merits of “WHERE SHE GOES,” and whether it went anywhere worthwhile at all. But the moody, New Jersey club-fueled banger offers just enough starts, stops, and beat drops to mirror his musings about infidelity. (A star-studded video featuring Lil Uzi Vert, Frank Ocean, and Ronaldinho simply adds to the fun foray into Bad Bunny’s relationship fuckery.) The song’s sprawling synths, brawny bass, and huge, soaring chorus meant “WHERE SHE GOES” only gained momentum through the year, becoming a ubiquitous song of the summer. –Erin Macleod
Listen: Bad Bunny, “WHERE SHE GOES”
Bad Gyal / Tokischa / Young Miko: “Chulo pt.2”
Who among us hasn’t caught someone stealing glances across the club and been tempted to bump uglies? “Chulo pt.2” chronicles a dancefloor flirtation—or more precisely, the daydreaming that happens right before it’s consummated. Tokischa, Bad Gyal, and Young Miko sing of the thirst in their admirer’s eyes, their Baccarat-infused scent, and executing all their sexual fantasies. Crepuscular synth pads plink over gritty drum kicks, and by the time the blaring alarm sounds, you’ll be fully entangled with a new lover. It’s the kind of track that asserts women as the masters of their own desire, queer or otherwise. Consider this a public plea for more simp-fueled reggaeton sagas. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen: Bad Gyal / Tokischa / Young Miko, “Chulo pt.2”
Diego Raposo: YO NO ERA ASÍ PERO DE AHORA EN ADELANTE, SÍ
After establishing himself as a mixtape futurist who melds the spasmic sensibilities of the internet with dembow and reggaeton, the young Dominican producer Diego Raposo approached his debut album with a bolder, brighter palette of curated chaos. He presents trap vocal takes on Caribbean hardstyle; drum’n’bass excursions upended by metallic guitar riffs, and his melancholy club tracks devolve (or evolve?) into static. He has more melodious aspirations, too: “QUÉDATE,” with Ecuadorian singer Kablito, sounds like finally ascending to the heavens of the cyberverse. The designation “hyperpop” feels too limiting to encompass Raposo’s universe, which is expansive but also rooted in a strong sense of place, down to the Google Maps coordinates named in album opener “19.322239, -68.540659” (a location off the eastern coast of the Dominican Republic). He’s a consummate digital-art cutup, in search of boundaries to leap over, laugh at, and tweak beyond imagination. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Dinamarca: soñao
Dinamarca’s soñao radiates an iridescent beauty: Everything here is bright and luminous, like rainbow flecks of light reflecting off an opal necklace. “favorita” is dembow painted in pastel hues; Spanish vocalist AMORE sings honeyed verses to a potential boo whose moon is in Aries. “hypna” is the sonic equivalent of a candy raver, a sugary-sweet hyperpop tune layered with gauzy strings. This is a collection of textural reggaeton tracks softened for the comedown, but it’s just as easily enjoyed on late-night car rides across the Brooklyn Bridge, where you can daydream out the window and watch the city lights glitter. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
DJ K: PANICO NO SUBMUNDO
Somewhere in Europe, a haughty audiophile still thinks minimal techno is the future of electronic music. Enter DJ K, the international ambassador of a new strain of Brazilian funk called bruxaria. The São Paulo producer’s album PANICO NO SUBMUNDO is a bloodcurdling collection of eldritch horrors, blending maniacal laughter, metallic kicks, and blaring horns into some of the most thrilling experimental music anywhere on the planet. DJ K made his name in the fluxos (or funk parties) of the Heliópolis favela and has said that PANICO NO SUBMUNDO’s nightmarish mood reflects the dismal realities of slum life. But there’s joy here too: The man is a maximalist composer who knows how to fry your brain and urge you into movement. “Erva Venenos” shreds up a Lil Uzi Vert sample, dial-up noises, and crackly vocals; “Isso Não é um Teste” begins with what seems like a broadcast from an emergency alert system, only to morph into a speaker-detonating blast of harsh bass and ringing phones. The tag that appears across the album says it all: “DJ K isn’t producing anymore; he’s doing witchcraft.” –Isabelia Herrera
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Eslabón Armado / Peso Pluma: “Ella Baila Sola”
In less romantic hands, this narrative of men gossiping about a sexy lady with a body-ody-ody might be classic fodder for street creeps. With the sincere rasp of haircut influencer Peso Pluma and the silken vibrato of Eslabón Armado’s Pedro Tovar, however, the moment is dreamy and longing, even when Doble P’s dropping googly-eyed bars about a particular woman’s physique. It’s a novela-worthy fantasy construction; just watch the movie scene of a video to truly capture the mood. The megahit status of “Ella Baila Sola” is also proof of an ancient Mexican proverb: Everything sounds better with charchetas. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen: Eslabón Armado / Peso Pluma, “Ella Baila Sola”
Estevie: “la cumbia del cucuy”
Estevie may be a cheeky zoomer and aspiring vaquera with the voice of an angel, but on this cumbia sonidera, the LA-based artist turns to the dark side, slinking into the depths of the Mexican psyche for a gothic dance jam. This is a spooky warning about the freakiest figure in Mexican folklore—El Cucuy, who whisks away malcriado kids at night and eats them alive with his sharklike chompers. Estevie flips the legend your parents would use to get you to act right into a devilish little number that suggests she might know him personally. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen: Estevie, “La Cumbia del Cucuy”
Foudeqush / Jesse Baez: “cumbia aesthetic”
Mexico City singers Jesse Baez and Foudeqush put a spaced-out synth sound to feeling damaged and resistant, but falling in love anyway. Their star-crossed collab is quiet, tentative, and tinged with the loping syncopation and basslines of cumbia. The perfectly attuned lilts weave between vulnerability and hope: “No sé qué hacer/No lo puedo evitar,” Baez croons so sweetly (“I don’t know what to do/I can’t avoid it”). You can just picture them tumbling into their halcyon futures, an embodiment of their ginger hearts. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen: Foudeqush / Jesse BaezJesse Baez / , “cumbia aesthetic”
Fuerza Regida: Pa las Baby’s Y Belikeada
Pa las Baby’s Y Belikeada is a 30-song sierreño epic detailing a seedy millennial underworld of parties inside compounds with armed guards, high-stakes gamblers, and babes with big asses. Propelled by the sweet rasp of Jesús Ortiz Paz and a fire rhythm section comprised of tololoche (Moisés López) and sousaphone (José García), the approach here includes more traditional banda and cumbia influences (“ZONA DE COMFORT”), corporate club corrido tumbado (“HARLEY QUINN,” with Marshmello), and, of course, reggaeton (“FREAKY FREAKY,” with Calle 24 and Armenta). Despite the California group’s ambition, they shine brightest on the loping “Desgraciada,” a fealty banda song about getting blitzed to pull through a breakup. “Y de San Valentín,” Ortiz Paz drawls, “Ten un ‘Chinga a tu madre.’” Happy Valentine’s Day; fuck ya mama! Who can’t relate? –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Grupo Frontera / Bad Bunny: “un x100to”
Even if Bad Bunny didn’t drop an album of banda music this year like some of us wanted, this collab with Texan sextet Grupo Frontera was a satiating surprise nonetheless. The wavy production on El Conejo’s slack-jawed vocals contrasted effortlessly with the more traditional crooning of Frontera singer Adelaido “Payo” Solís III. “un x100to” is a tale of two lovelorn bad boys filled with regret over their mistreatment of an ex who’s moved on. (If the lyric “Drunk on your Insta” doesn’t strike you with terror, I don’t know what would!) In a huge year for what the corporate entities call “regional Mexican,” Bad Bunny’s long-established interest in all kinds of Latin American styles helped elevate cumbia norteño to an ever-broadening audience. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen: Grupo Frontera / Bad Bunny, “un x100to”
Kali Uchis: “Muñekita” [ft. El Alfa and JT]
“Muñekita” is the kind of old-school reggaeton heater that will leave you with lower back and knee pain. It contains all the best features of a filthy night at the club: harsh kicks, bouncing snares, orgasmic moans. Samples and interpolations of classics like Andy Boy and DJ Blass’ “Dem Bow” and Lorna’s “Papi Chulo” appear alongside Kali Uchis’ flirtatious purrs and JT’s life-ending blows (“Sana, sana, colita de rana, bitch” will go down as one of the best barbs in recent reggaeton memory). At the one-minute mark, El Alfa brings the saoco, chittering characteristically onomatopoeic bars in slow motion; he’ll have you grinding on the nearest surface available and/or wheezing from laughter. “Muñekita” is perfect for acting up, but make sure you keep that Icy Hot patch on hand for post-perreo pain relief. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen: Kali Uchis, “Muñekita” [ft. El Alfa and JT]
KAROL G: “OKI DOKI”
This year, Colombian superstar KAROL G became the first woman to top the Billboard charts with an album entirely in Spanish. With MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO (BICHOTA SEASON), she plumbed her most sensual and sensitive impulses, contouring the wide spectrum of confusing emotions that follow breaking up with a trash man. The songs that stretched her chops stood out: “OKI DOKI” is a dream of a double-dutch reggaeton track, featuring harpsichord synths and a wavy Japanese outro. Here, she brushes off her ex’s fuckery with a side of not giving a shit, shrugging through a chronicle of his infractions, even the worst of them: “No me digas ‘puta,’ el error fue tuyo y la vida es mía.” (“Don’t call me a ‘whore,’ the mistake was yours and this life is mine.”) Through it all, she reminds the cheating dude in question that she will always be richer and more famous—and that he needs to give back the cars and Patek Philippe watches she gifted him. It’s the final shiv in his poorly tattooed belly. Get his ass. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen: KAROL G, “OKI DOKI”
Kiko el Crazy: “Pa Que Baile”
Saturated in Willy Wonka theatrics and slippery wordplay, Kiko el Crazy’s album Pila’e Teteo saved 2023 from a dembow drought. Opener “Pa Que Baile” hits with the force of a defibrillator to the eardrums, with an irresistible dancehall vocal loop that sucks you into the Dominican Republic’s neon underbelly like molly-water through a silly straw. In Kiko’s street utopia, ass-shaking is the highest currency, gangsters empty their clips toward the skies, and familiar pop references are reimagined as bachata remixes. He also bites back on Rosalía’s Dominican phase—when she pickpocketed his signature phrase “la pampara,” tried bachata, and befriended Tokischa—by recycling her own flamenco hand claps and “Linda” melody for a playful Caribbean repossession. He even channels his inner “Rich Girl” in the chorus, subverting yet another famed pop culture vulture. But here, everyone has all the money in the world. –Tatiana Lee Rodriguez
Listen: Kiko el Crazy, “Pa Que Baile”
María José Llergo: ULTRABELLEZA
ULTRABELLEZA, María José Llergo’s debut full-length, is a stunning document of her emergence, gilded with muted palmas, fluttering flamenco melismas, and the soft clacking of castanets. Contrary to dominant assumptions about flamenco in U.S. media, the folk genre bloomed from struggle; the stories the Andalusian artist tells in her songs speak to the hardships that Romani women have historically faced in Spain. On “LUCHA,” she sings of patriarchal oppression; on “SUPERPODER,” it’s childhood poverty. She is an heir to ancestral pain, but never bound to it: The centerpiece “VISIÓN Y REFLEJO” is an avowal of power, an acknowledgement that she contains the history of all the women who “survived wars they never chose to fight.” This is music for transformation, for moments of becoming. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
MJ Nebreda: Arepa Mixtape
Arepa is a mixtape, but its tales of nocturnal trysts and endless money-grabbing are vivid enough to carry a feature-length crime drama. In MJ Nebreda’s universe, every night should be filled with mischief, sex, and bad behavior. On the rave-reggaeton thriller “Belmont y el Gloss,” a dembow riddim twitches over breakbeats and punching synth stabs; Nebreda and La Venek assume their roles as troublemaking nightcrawlers with asses that need shaking. There’s a whole cast of alt-reggaeton queens invited to the party too, like neoperreo matriarch Ms Nina and Miami rabble-rouser La Goony Chonga. In a cis male-dominated reggaeton industry, Arepa provides a vision of the genre that’s unabashedly queer and femme, rooted in pleasure and playful recklessness. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Mon Laferte: Autopoiética
Autopoiética, the ninth album from Chilean pop chameleon Mon Laferte, is an audacious self-portrait that believes in infinite fluidity. The Portishead-indebted “40 y MM” raises a middle finger to music industry gatekeepers, haters, ex-flames—basically anyone who has tried to confine Laferte to a bounded sense of identity, sexuality, or style. One minute on the album, she’ll be relishing the way that her partner sucks on her “like caramel,” and the next she’ll be ruminating on the grief of diasporic displacement. Autopoiética is acutely feminist, but never relies on unimaginative literalism or sanitized empowerment lingo. If you’re a woman who’s ever felt invincible, ineffable, and bruised all at once, the album is required listening. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Natanael Cano: Nata Montana
At 22, the corrido tumbado pioneer’s eighth album is a subdued reflection on the seasoned elder he’s become, a genre breakout star who passed the torch to his slightly older peers (Peso Pluma, 24, appears here twice). On Nata Montana, Cano takes a more traditional approach to his own lane while reflecting on his rise to fame and its spoils—the melancholy of the hustle, the tragic beauty of love and random tour encounters, the underbelly of Sonoran life—while honoring his own influence on the movement he helped create. “No van a poder tumbarme aunque quisieran,” he sings on the exceptional “Pacas de Billetes” (“You’re not going to be able to knock me down, even if you wanted to”). The reedy warble of his voice is a reminder of why he’s been an icon since teenhood. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen/Buy: Rough Trade | Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
NOIA: “eclipse de amor” [ft. Buscabulla]
“eclipse de amor” is fundamentally a bolero, and the Spanish electronic pop artist NOIA and Raquel Berrios of Buscabulla devastate as they grieve a love. Their vocals reflect this doomed affair’s impermanence; both singers navigate precise melodic lines, ending in trills that fray the melody thin. NOIA’s production makes the song modern, as horror-trailer SFX, sci-fi-console error pings, and a dembow riddim that bangs like a failing hard drive heighten the emotional wreckage. –Katherine St. Asaph
Listen: NOIA, “eclipse de amor” [ft. Buscabulla]
Peso Pluma: GÉNESIS
In a year when the Anglo world realized that Mexican music exists and that brass instruments are brolic, Peso Pluma was far and away the most fêted of its delegates. The young ragamuffin helped turn corrido tumbado into a global chart-topper (and moneymaker) and proved that Latin American artists don’t have to compromise to reach that level of acclaim. That’s due as much to Doble P’s voice, which sounds like your dirtbag high school best friend after taking a huge bong rip, as it is to his cheeky song structure. On his third studio album, GÉNESIS, he narrates elaborate drug tales, ponders the vagaries of fame, fixes up confidently to steal your girl, and compares himself to a national hero while using his own exhales as rhythmic punctuation. His bluster isn’t always welcome; in September, he canceled a concert in Tijuana after banners that threatened his life appeared around the city, allegedly hung by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. But it also added to his legend, elevating a star of the genre anointed by the industry and the TikTok masses alike. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Rosalía / Rauw Alejandro: “VAMPIROS”
Darker than Depeche Mode, weirder than Wednesday Addams, Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro’s “Vampiros” is 2023’s most tenderly terrifying work of gothic storytelling. Over a grotesque bass lurch, a warped choral effect, and a gravelly dembow beat that hits like clumped earth on a coffin lid, the (one-time) lovers trace a bedeviled fairy tale of late-night misadventure. The song’s wildly addictive chorus and air of doomed romance cements the duo’s place as the Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin of the Rue Morgue. –Ben Cardew
Listen: Rosalía / Rauw Alejandro, “VAMPIROS”
Saso: “Palo Santo” [ft. Enerolisa Nuñez y Grupo Salve Mata Los Indios and Dos Flakos]
You might associate palo santo with Instagram witches and new-age quacks, but on this track, the holy burning wood is a talisman of ancestral energy. Bronx artists Saso and Dos Flakos recruit Enerolisa Núñez y Grupo Salve Mata Los Indios, a beloved folk group who have become custodians of the Afro-Dominican genre of salve. Saso delivers his verses like a rapped prayer to his forebears, exalting his Black identity and Indigenous roots while shuffling drums and exultant vocals ground every word. The video is a stunning visual ode to Black Dominican culture that includes footage of syncretic religious customs, hair braiding sessions, and cleansing ceremonies. “Palo Santo” summons spirits lost to enslavement and colonialism, channeling an inherited light that can only be felt through sacred percussion and movement. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen: Saso, “Palo Santo” [ft. Enerolisa Nuñez y Grupo Salve Mata Los Indios and Dos Flakos]
Sofia Kourtesis: Madres
A song called “How Music Makes You Feel Better” could go wrong in so many ways, but on Sofia Kourtesis’ life-giving debut album, it’s clear that the Peruvian artist innately understands the healing properties of vibrating waveforms. Like all her work to date, Madres is built around house music’s celebratory thump, but the dancefloor is just the starting point for an expansive set of collages that fold in field recordings of Afro-Peruvian drumming, protests from across Latin America, and snippets of conversation with friends and family gathered on her travels around the world. If there’s a mournful undercurrent, it’s surely related to caring for her mother, who was being treated for cancer—and eventually recovered—while Kourtesis was recording the album. But that openness to pain is what makes Madres feel so emotionally cleansing: It’s a bittersweet dose of our deepest fears, a homeopathic remedy administered via sound. –Philip Sherburne
Listen/Buy: Rough Trade | Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
SoFTT: “Kiero K Me Kieras”
In 2023, the Y2K nostalgia was acute in the world of club music. SoFFT, composed of Miami vocalist Kablito and producer Trevor McFedries, channels the sweeping sentimentality of that era’s Eurodance and trance megahits. “Kiero K Me Kieras” sparkles like a glittering Blingee graphic or clear lip gloss; it’s all sky-high melodies and bubbling arpeggios. At the center of the track is Kablito’s lupine howl, an anguished mating call for a lover you know isn’t good for you. It’s an irresistible sugar rush for those of us who still wear tattoo chokers and butterfly hair clips to the rave. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen: SoFTT, “Kiero K Me Kieras”
Solo Fernández: “SIN MIRAR” [ft. CLUBZ]
“SIN MIRAR” is perfect fuel for main character syndrome, meant to be played in your headphones while strolling down some tree-lined block, too-expensive matcha latte in hand, as rays of sunlight caress your face. A bouncy synth-pop bassline shapeshifts into a wistful string arrangement, only to morph into a sparkling disco groove. Solo Fernández’s success this year has helped the Dominican trio become a beacon of hope for the island’s burgeoning indie pop landscape, and a feature from Mexican indie stalwarts CLUBZ is a catalyst for even more triumphs. Together, they’ve made a track worthy of gold lamé jumpsuits, roller skates, and endless neon lights. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen: Solo Fernández, “SIN MIRAR” [ft. CLUBZ]
TAICHU: “PAYDAY” [ft. rusowsky]
Call me hyperbolic, but “PAYDAY” might trounce Johnny Kemp’s “Just Got Paid” as the best song about the euphoria of wage-labor compensation. The showpiece of TAICHU’s 2023 debut RAWR is a perreo anthem of the highest order: There are multiple beat switch-ups and plenty of quotables about stealing money from record labels while drinking Johnnie Walker Black. Featured guest rusowksy’s cartoonish, pitch-shifted vocals give everything a neoperreo sheen, while the Argentine trash-pop princess sex-whines about cavorting around the city at night like a Beyblade toy, knowing her paycheck is about to hit. The track’s late-in-the-game, glitched-out breakdown is so filthy, you’ll find yourself involuntarily clapping your cheeks and twisting your face into a mean mug. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen: TAICHU, “PAYDAY” [ft. rusowsky]
Tainy: DATA
DATA, somehow the first producer project by the Puerto Rican hitmaker Tainy, is a gorgeously textured flex of a self-assured curator. It’s not just a packed roster of collaborators old and new—Bad Bunny to Daddy Yankee, Arcángel to Arca—but also a tight showcase of his expansive range. He melds sensuous indie pop with watery dembow (Young Miko and the Marias’ exquisite “mañana”), drops new-wave synths on a glossy lonelyboi anthem (“MOJABI GHOST,” with Bad Bunny), masters tropical trance (“VOLVER,” with Skrillex, Four Tet, and Rauw Alejandro), and possibly invents Debussy-esque piano rap (Xantos’ “SACRIFICIO”). It’s underpinned by an album-long analogy comparing Tainy’s longevity and creativity to the infinite cyberverse. As Arcángel raps on the trappy lead single, “¡Soy una fucking leyenda!” (“I’m a fucking legend!”) –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
That Mexican OT: “Barrio” [ft. Lefty Sm]
A highlight from Lonestar Luchador, the debut from rising Texas rapper That Mexican OT, “Barrio” is a celebration of the grit and beauty in OT and Lefty Sm’s respective neighborhoods. They toast to choppers, vatos, trocas, and drogas over a trap-corrido beat while OT sings mournfully over traditional guitars—or “grito ranchero” as he’s termed it. By rapping so specifically about each of their communities, they highlight the differences among Mexicans of various origins and showcase the porosity of the culture across imaginary borders. But the power of “Barrio” was also a tragedy—Lonestar Luchador was released mere months before SM was murdered by three gunmen who invaded his home in Zapopan, a still-unsolved incident that devastated the Mexican rap scene. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Listen: That Mexican OT, “Barrio” [ft. Lefty Sm]
Y La Bamba: Lucha
On Lucha, Y La Bamba leader Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos assembles fragments of ancestral memory and lovingly spins them into small miracles. There are traces of mariachi and boleros here, but their gestures toward form are enveloped in muted percussion, hushed guitars, or field recordings of chirping birds and bustling city streets. There’s a nurturing impulse to these songs, like a warm hug in the rain: On “Ceniza,” Mendoza Ramos sings of their forebears’ gentle faces full of light. In Y La Bamba’s hands, inherited pain transforms from eternal hardship into the promise of redemption. –Isabelia Herrera
Listen/Buy: Rough Trade | Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal