Young Miko

One Liner:  Puerto Rican reggaeton lady with lots of famous collabs

Wikipedia Genre:  Latin trap, Latin R&B, reggaeton

Home: Rico

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 3
Both Weekends. 
Saturday at 4:30

American Express Stage

Thoughts: DAMMIT!  I don't know why, but I was certain that this was going to be a rapper.  Do y'all remember FEID from last year's poster?  This guy's top song is actually that guy's song, that this guy appears on.  I can't tell which one of them is nasally yelping in Auto-tuned Spanish, but I know that I dislike it immensely.

Oh, wait.  She is the lady singing behind the yelping in that song.  She is not a reggaeton bro, she is a reggaeton lady.  

I have had this thought before, and it is just an interesting thought exercise.  Probably shows some latent racism inside of me that I still have not been able to shake over the years.  But it is really interesting to think of how when you walk by certain construction sites where Hispanic people might be working, you frequently hear a certain style of music playing inside of the house.  Or like if you go to the shop where I take my vehicle, it is always pegged to a classic rock station.  And so it makes you wonder whether an immigrant from Mexico rolls their eyes when they hear Foreigner followed by Van Halen followed by Journey followed by David Bowie, because in their mind those all sound just the same and it is so weird that someone would listen to those things.  Anyway, I say this because all of the reggaeton-type music sounds similar to me, where a moment ago I was like, "this could be Bad Bunny for all I know" and it actually was.

María Victoria Ramírez de Arellano Cardona is a Puerto Rican rapper/singer who apparently used to play soccer professionally and for P.R.  That is actually interesting - I didn't think about Puerto Rico having its own national soccer team - seems like they should be playing for the U.S.?  She got her start by writing raps over beats she found on YouTube, and was also a tattoo artist as she was working on her music.  Her 2022 debut EP was called Trap Kitty, but most of her early notoriety came from being featured with Feid, Bad Bunny, Karol G and other artists.  She was even there at the Super Bowl halftime show for Bad Bunny.

Her collab-heavy world makes it harder to find the songs that are just her.  That Feid track has 1.2 billion streams, but that isn't her song.  Of her top ten, only four appear to be her own song, and one still features FEID.  I'll give you "WASSUP," with 184 million streams, and an instantly recognizable sound like Lil Wayne's Lollipop.

I find that one sort of boring.  Maybe if I had any clue what she was saying other than WASSUP, then maybe it would feel better.  That is a lot of tattoos.  That track was on her 2025 album called Do Not Disturb.  Why use English in the name of the album but not sing in English?  She has a 2023 single that had a lot of streams too - "Lisa" has 304.3 million.

Sure.  Kind of a basic beat, but the flow sounds pretty good.  No clue what she's rapping about, but I find myself kind of bumping along to it anyway.  Not going to go see it.  But have fun if you want to get into it.

Rusowsky

One Liner:  Latin Trap seems like genre to avoid

Wikipedia Genre:  reggaeton, Latin trap, R&B, experimental, bedroom pop

Home: Valladolid, Spain

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 8.
Both Weekends. 
Friday at 5:30

Beatbox Stage.

Thoughts:  Not trying to be rude, but I literally was about to start doing some other task at work, noticed the sounds coming from my speakers, said "I gotta get this thing done and move on," and then involuntarily shivered like I had tasted bad sushi.  I'm going to say that this is like if Bad Bunny did techno?  I don't pay attention to either of those genres, so that could be entirely off, but it makes sense to me.

Ruslan Mediavilla is from Spain, and Wikipedia claims that he explores: "underground and avant-garde genres such as bedroom pop, R&B, reggaeton, techno, hip hop and even jazz."  He began his musical training by the age of four at the music school run by his mother, who was a member of a Belarusian folk group.  He also studied piano at a professional conservatory.  The background of the name here is that it combines his nickname of "Rus" with the name of the little green dude from Monsters, Inc.  Which, uh, sure.

Lots of singles until his one album, DAISY, from 2025.  "MalibU" is his top track with 108.7 million streams.

I was thinking 'bout you, BIROMBA.  A little English, a lot of Spanish.  I don't care for it.  I am about to go vacation in Costa Rica, so maybe I need to download this to my phone so that we can roll down the windows of the rental and look legit as we cruise around the hard streets of some fancy beach resort.

His second biggest streamer is a 2022 single called "mwah :3".  I have looked at that and thought through the meaning of that song title and nothing I can come up with makes me more comfortable than what I first considered.  67 million streams.

Dammit.  Now I am getting AT&T commercials en Espanol before these videos.  Doing this blog jacks up my algorithms so much.  I will not be going out of my way to hear what this fella can do with underground and avant-garde genres...

Latin Mafia

One Liner: Spanish indie pop, which, I guess I knew had to exist, but somehow didn't expect

Wikipedia Genre: reggaeton, Latin trap, house, Latin R&B, dream pop, indie pop
Home: Mexico City

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 8
Day: Saturday
Both Weekends.

Miller Lite Stage at 5:15.

Thoughts:  This was one of the bands that was teased with the postcards that went out before the lineup was announced.  I had no idea who they were, and now I know why.  This first song sort of feels like if a K-Pop song was in Spanish.  Which is an ignorant take, since I don't think I know a single K-Pop song, so maybe this is like what I imagine K-Pop would sound like in Spanish.  It is terrible.  Like, crazy generic guitar licks coming in over completely forgettable pop synth garbage.  And a bunch of Spanish words saying lots of things.

This band has two twin brothers doing the vocals, which is kind of fun.  Milton and Emilio de la Rosa, with their older brother Mike doing the production.  It's all in the family!  Wikipedia says they "appeared on the scene" using TikTok during the pandemic.  Not sure which scene, but they did some tracks on video in their bedroom and received a positive response.  By the end of 2022, they sold out the Olympic Velodrome in Mexico City in minutes.  By April 2024, they were at Coachella, and I guess now we get to enjoy this too.  They won the Lo Nuestro Award for Best Latin Fusion Song in 2024.  So, they've got that going for them.  Which is nice.

One album, 2024's TODOS LOS DIAS TODO EL DIA.  Which is weird to type and means Every Day, All Day.  JEAAAAHHHH!!!  But their top song is a 2023 single called "Patadas de Ahogado," which I swear I have ordered in a restaurant before.  What does that mean?  According to the google, it means "Drowning Kicks."  Which is a really weird title.  But I can't understand what they are singing about anyway, so maybe it is all about how a person they were drowning while doing hardcore mafia shit kept kicking them as they drowned?  Dunno.  221.4 million streams.

🎶 "I drowned that dude in the bathtub while he kicked like Pele!"  🎶 Iconic line for sure. Yeah, not really.  That song is not my thing at all.  Even if I could understand it, it sounds super lame.  Second-biggest streamer is "Julieta," which translates to "Julieta."  179.8 million streams.

Bro.  If you can sell out a stadium, you can afford some real Chuck Taylors.  Damn.  Also, that song is very boring as well.  Even if this was in English, I really think I would have felt the same way that these are bad tracks made by Mike in his bedroom when he should have just like, gone to college and become a nurse practitioner or something.  This is not my thing.

Feid

One Liner: Reggaeton/Urbano in Spanish
Wikipedia Genre: Urbano 
Home: Medellin, Columbia

Poster Position: Top Line - Line 2
Day: Sunday
Both Weekends.

T-Mobile Stage at 6:15.

Thoughts:  Always a fascinating thing to realize how limited your musical scope is.  I think I listen to an absolute ton of music, and yet I've never even heard the name of this guy who has FIVE billion stream songs in his top ten on Spotify.  But have I ever heard anyone say the word "Feid" before?  No, dear reader, I have not.  In fact, I need to figure out how you pronounce it.  Actually fascinating.  Not like feed, and not like the end of Bonafide.  You pronounce it like the word "faith," but with a Spanish emphasis.  Sort of like "fade," but with a little faiid to it.  There you go.  Faiide.

Salomon Villada Hoyos is from Medellin, Columbia, and also performs under the name Ferxxo.  To my extremely untrained ear, this just sounds like Bad Bunny.  Wikipedia calls this style of music "urbano," but also mentions that he got into reggaeton after he stopped playing the clarinet.  His background on Wikipedia is pretty limited - his dad is a university professor in "arts" and his mom is a preschool teacher and psychologist.  He got to work with other reggaeton artists like J Balvin, which helped him get bigger.  He is also apparently a partner to Karol G, who was here previously.

I winded about this last year when Carin Leon took this exact same spot on the poster.  Annoying to have an artist I can't understand at all take over a top tier spot in the lineup.  Yes, I know he is insanely popular.  But also, for me personally, this is just something I won't go watch.

His first singles popped out in 2014, but he didn't start getting serious streams until 2016 singles, about the time he partnered with J Balvin.  9 albums - 2017's Asi Como Suena, 2019's 19, 2020's FERXXO (VOL 1:M.O.R.), 2020's BAHIA DUCATI, 2021's INTER SHIBUYA - LA MAFIA, 2022's FELIZ CUMPLEANOS FERXXO TE PIRATEAMOS EL ALBUM (wtf is up with these album titles?), 2023's MOR, No Le Temas a La Obscuridad, 2023's FERXXOCALIPSIS, 2024's LOS 9 DE FERXXO Y SKY ROMPIENDO.  Typing all of that out truly sucked ass.  He has a million singles as well.

Top track is from FERXXOCALIPSIS, called "LUNA" and with 1.25 billion streams.  Also features something called ATL Jacob.

Sure.  No clue what he is saying, and the beat really gets me nothing.  I know that a lot of people disagree with me on that, which is fine, but I just don't get the appeal.  We'll do one more just to give you the flavor.  Second biggest is "Feliz Cumpleanos Ferxxo" with 1.20 billion streams.

I never want to come off as dismissing of these sorts of artists, and I'm sure someone from Columbia thinks that every Pearl Jam song sounds just the same, but ...  I think that maybe because I don't know the words, those just sound like another noise in the song, so that it just feels like the same beat with the same vocal noise over and over again.  I'll find something else to check out during this hour and leave it to the fun people to go dance their asses off.

Lunay

One Liner: Reggaeton guy
Wikipedia Genre: reggaeton and urbano
Home: Puerto Rico

Poster Position: Late Addition
Both Weekends.
Weekend One Saturday at 4:20 on the Tito's Stage.
Weekend Two Sunday at 4:30 on the Tito's Stage.

Thoughts:  Spanish language singer guy.  Real name is Jefnier Osorio Moreno.  That first name is cool.  Maybe it sounds like Hefner, which means this guy is a playboy pimp.  This music is apparently reggaeton.  I wouldn't know reggaeton if it bit me.  The bigger issue is that I understand nothing of what is being said.

Wikipedia says that he originally released music as Jefnier, before changing it up with Lunay.  And while this seems a simple thing, the fact that it is one of the limited facts on his Wikipedia page must mean it is a bigger deal than I am thinking: "On his musical style, Lunay has commented that his songs do not encourage violence or denigrate women. In an interview he gave to the top 40, he said: "Not necessarily, even if I am in this world of urban music, [do] I have to be fostering violence, which is against God's purpose. I just do what I like and I know the relationship I have with Him.""  Good job Heff!  

Meanwhile, one of his tracks has freaking 659 million streams.  So other people who dig this style of music apparently really dig his stuff.  "Soltera - Remix."

Ah yes, well when you add Daddy Yankee and Bad Bunny to the track, and I've actually heard of those dudes, I guess you end up with big streaming numbers.  I guess that song sounds fine?  I dunno.  Here's his second-most streamed, without those other famous dudes.  But with two other collaborators again - Anuel AA and Ozuna.  This is "Aventura" with 233 million streams.

I may not understand what the man is singing about, but I can definitely tell you that he's a handsome mofo.

Hopefully he has a wonderful crowd of folks.  I won't be among it.