Latin Music Pops

We've seen the future. It looks like Ricky Martin. It sings like Marc Anthony. It dances like Jennifer Lopez. Que Bueno!

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But record labels, eager for a hot new sound, have started to court Latin pop stars. The death of Tejano star Selena in 1995 and the sales boom in her music that followed got many label suits thinking: If Selena can sell millions of CDs posthumously, how much money could we make with a Latin pop star who can still tour? Says Maria Zenoz, CEO of Caliente Entertainment, a New York City-based record company: "The untimely death of Selena caused the mainstream labels to take a look."

It's perhaps appropriate that the Latin female singer who is best positioned to grab hold of a Selena-proportioned success is the woman who portrayed her on film. Gregory Nava, director of the 1997 biopic Selena, cast Jennifer Lopez in the lead. The finished film used Selena's real voice for the musical sequences, but, Nava says, Lopez would sing through her scenes during the filming. The experience inspired Lopez to launch a singing career. "I did a demo in Spanish after Selena and submitted it to the Work label," says Lopez. "They said, 'We like it, but we want you to do it in English.'" So she did. Her album, On the 6, is due out June 1.

Enrique Iglesias, who was rejected by several major labels at the start of his career but who has since sold more than 3 million CDs worldwide, recently got a call at home from actor Will Smith, asking him to contribute a song to Smith's upcoming film Wild Wild West. Iglesias' English-language song Bailamos will be on the Wild sound track, and he is now considering recording a CD in English. But he says he will never leave Spanish behind. "I gotta remember something--what got me here was Spanish," says the 24-year-old Iglesias, son of crooner Julio Iglesias. "If it wasn't for my Spanish record sales, I wouldn't have these record companies after me."

Still, some longtime aficionados fear that the new pop Latin wave could wash away important cultural connections. Esmerelda Santiago, author of the memoir When I Was Puerto Rican, says the current crop of singers being pushed by the major labels could use some skin-tone diversity. She feels the artists who are being promoted to superstardom mostly look Anglo, leaving the darker performers behind. "It's fascinating to me, and a little upsetting, that this is still the white face of the Caribbean," says Santiago. "I'm sure that there are equally talented and gifted artists out there whose facial features don't conform as much to the European ideal."

In a studio in Manhattan, Marc Anthony is working on his new English-language album. He is dressed simply in jeans and a white T shirt, and his voice is ringing out, pure and direct. Sony chief Mottola sits in the control booth, listening, looking, betting on a hit. These are good days for Anthony: he recently completed work on a featured role in Martin Scorsese's film Bringing Out the Dead, co-starring Nicolas Cage. In a few weeks he'll begin recording a duet with neo-soul singer Maxwell. And Anthony's duet with Lopez, No Me Ames, is already a hit on Spanish-language radio.

Yet he is unsatisfied. Although Anthony knows Martin well and is good friends with Lopez, he is wary of media stories lumping them into a single group. "I don't know what they're talking about with this Latino crossover thing," he says. "I could see it if I was doing a salsa album in English. But you know what? We're not doing Latin music on our English stuff. Latin-tinged, yes."

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