There is a long history of Latin involvement in R&B, especially in the United States. “There was a kind of kinship there [between those communities],” says Ruben Molina, the author of
Chicano Soul: Recordings & History of an American Culture. “Think of a place like San Antonio — it was the last stop for the Chitlin circuit [a system of clubs where black performers were allowed to play in the days of segregation], which soul singers, blues singers relied on. A lot of times the audience was basically a Chicano audience.”
Molina continues, “In Los Angeles, many of the Chicano groups had really good horn sections — they studied in school, read music, knew how to put a song together — and they became the backing bands on some of the main radio stations here. Back then, a lot of the singers that stations brought in were black artists. There was a camaraderie.”
Much of the Chicano soul Molina loves — pretty, unhurried, often with strong connections to doo-wop — was sung in English. But Spanish versions of popular R&B songs sprang up in Mexico and other countries south of the U.S. “A lot of collectors are going through Central America and digging up recordings of soul groups in Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala,” Molina says.
But Spanish-language variants of R&B didn’t always captivate large chunks of the Latino audience. “We’ve never had [Spanish-language] R&B artists that succeeded,” says Rebeca León, who manages J Balvin and Rosalía. “If you wanted to sing and make it to the next level in Latin America, you automatically had to do pop,” adds Jesse Baez, an artist who grew up in Guatemala and now frequently sings R&B in Spanish. “And not a cool pop — on the cornier side.”
During the last 15 years in particular, reggaeton has been the dominant form of commercial music in Spanish. “Reggaeton was more rap-oriented,” says Angelo Torres, who runs A&R for Marc Anthony’s label Magnus Media. “Or if artists sang, they did Latin-sounding singing [rather than borrowing the inflections of R&B].” So around five years ago, when Baez surveyed the pop landscape, he recalls lamenting that, “No one makes R&B in Spanish.”
But that has been changing, thanks in large part to the rise of Latin trap. As trap singles from Bad Bunny, Ozuna and others gained a global audience, this had two important effects. First, these tracks helped loosen reggaeton’s chokehold on the Latin mainstream. “It opened a space for these kids who listen to other music,” Torres says. “Now it’s about what you grew up with — if you grew up listening to Trey Songz and the Weeknd, that’s way more acceptable.” Baez credits his Spanish cover of the Weeknd’s “Tell Your Friends” with helping him get a record deal.
In addition, Latin trap brought Spanish-language pop and English-language pop that much closer. “The sounds, the chord progressions in trap are naturally more American,” says Fonseca. This made interchange between the two musical cultures even more frictionless.
Magnus Media’s Torres began to hear more Spanish-language R&B soon after trap started to gain traction in Puerto Rico. “That’s where artists have been doing this for a bit: Rauw Alejandro, Lyanno, Sousa are leading that charge in the Puerto Rican space,” says Torres. “That is being felt throughout Latin America,” he adds, thanks to
nearly exponential growth in Latin listening in the last few years. “Now there’s more ears on the music, more eyes on the videos.” In 2018, Spotify established a new playlist titled “R&B en Español.”
Last year’s definitive Spanish-language R&B hit was the remix of Alex Rose’s “Toda” with Cazzu, Lenny Tavárez, Lyanno and Rauw Alejandro, a sort of R&B counterpart to the
global posse-cut-smash “Te Boté.” The careful doses of melisma in Rose’s first verse, the smartly arranged backing vocals in Tavárez’s hook, the sky-high cry Alejandro lets out before passing the baton to Cazzu — these are all traditional hallmarks of R&B. As of January, the “Toda” remix is closing in on half a billion views on YouTube.
Other songs in this vein have been reverberating around the Spanish-speaking world, and, importantly, attracting interest from record labels. Magnus signed Yashua, a young Dominican-American singer;
his 2018 single “Pena” is full of appealing falsetto twirls and vocal quavers, and his dance moves pay tribute to Michael Jackson by way of Ne-Yo. On the other side of the Atlantic, Universal Music Spain put its weight behind Maikel Delacalle. On tracks
like “Condiciones” and “Latinoamericana,” Delacalle relies on the simple guitar licks that buoyed countless R&B singles from the late Nineties and early 2000s. As “Latinoamericana” comes to a close, the singer starts to multiply his voice, adding vocal runs that loop and dive around the lead — another trademark R&B technique.
R&B/soul by latinos was done back in the day (brown eyed soul) but at least they often attempted to latinize it. 
