In contrast to the all the colorful music fest lineups with big-font headliners we've seen over the past few weeks, Sónar just dropped a beige, all-lowercase, one-font-size lineup for their June 2020 Barcelona event. Despite the simple layout, the list is filled with an epic artist offering, including The Chemical Brothers, along with rising rapper/producer/dance hero Channel Tres, LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, '00-and-beyond house & techno innovator Eric Prydz, environmental scientist/disco queen Jayda G, "Love$ick" producer Mura Masa and many more.

Read: Channel Tres Talks Honoring Isaac Hayes On EP 'Black Moses,' Healing With Music & Being A "Ghetto Savior"

The "music, creativity & technology" festival returns with its flagship Barcelona event on June 18–20. Oft Björk-collaborator Arca, emerging French producer/director duo THE BLAZE, along with worldwide house and techno legends The Black Madonna, Charlotte de Witte, Carl Cox, Richie Hawtin and Laurent Garnier, will also perform.

According to Sónar, current 2020 GRAMMY nominees The Chemical Brothers will be making the Spanish debut of their acclaimed live show, which they toured in 2019 alongside the release of their GRAMMY-nominated No Geography. THE BLAZE will be performing their only live show of 2020 at the fest. Both acts are a great representation of artists celebrated by Sónar—cinematic, unexpected electronic music elevated by the stunning visuals/technology of their live shows.

While Sónar is beloved for their expert curation from within the eclectic electronic music rainbow, they also celebrate left-of-center acts in other areas, particularly in the hip-hop. Channel Tres, whose self-made beats are infused with '90s G-funk, is an artist whose music lives within both worlds. Afro-Latina rapper Princess Nokia, who marks her return to the fest this year, also uses the medium of rapping to incorporate and celebrate diverse sounds and identities within her music.

Related: Princess Nokia Is Making Space For People Who "Don't Have A Voice Yet" In Music

U.K. rappers Dave, AJ Tracey, Headie One and Conducta, will bring Britain's prevalent trap Grime and drill sounds to the iconic festival. The newer SonarXS stage grows this year as it "expands its mission as a springboard for local and international talent from the fringes." Now in its fourth year, the newly revamped stage "presents Spanish trap and reggaeton from Morad, Afrojuice195 and Miss Nina, as well as unclassifiable strains of street derived music from the likes of Chenta Tsai - Baobae, Califato ¾ or Kaydy Cain."

Tickets are on sale now; visit Sónar's website for more info as well as the complete lineup.

Primavera Sound 2020 Lineup: Bad Bunny, Beck, Kacey Musgraves, Tyler, The Creator & More

As any fan can attest, dance music is a broad church spanning myriad micro-genres, fan communities and city-specific scenes. The genre’s reach was as wide as ever in 2023, stretching from the biggest festival stages to the most intimate clubs, with variations in moods and beats-per-minute to suit all tastes. 

Nostalgia for rave’s ‘90s heyday was everywhere, fueling big-name releases and underground club sets alike. [Surprise supergroups](https://www.grammy.com/news/coachella-2023-weekend-2-recap-skrillex-four-tet-fred-again-gorillaz-bad-bunny-eric-pyrdz-performances-surprises-video) and [long-time collaborators](https://www.grammy.com/news/skrillex-fred-again-friendship-timeline-collaborations-videos) hit big in 2023, while albums from [James Blake](https://www.grammy.com/artists/james-blake/17760), [the Chemical Brothers](https://www.grammy.com/artists/chemical-brothers/7746), Disclosure and Everything But The Girl showed there’s still power in the electronic LP format. 

With festivals and DJ touring schedules back to a pre-COVID pace, dance music also enjoyed a busy year on the road. Across North America, [ILLENIUM](https://www.grammy.com/artists/Illenium/38165), G Jones, ZHU and ODESZA (not to mention Beyoncé’s house music-indebted Renaissance tour) sold out venues across the country. In a genre that can feel impossible to get your arms around, these five trends were undeniable in 2023. 

Everything Old Was New Again

Wherever you looked this year, DJ-producers were reaching back to the racing sounds of trance, rave and Eurodance that dominated dancefloors in the ‘90s and early 2000s. David Guetta and Calvin Harris spent 2023 memorably mining this past — the latter’s "Desire," featuring Sam Smith, could be ripped straight from a decades-old pop-trance compilation. 

Meanwhile, South Korean DJ-producer Peggy Gou released "(It Goes Like) Nanana," a dance-pop earworm with shades of ATB’s late ‘90s hit, "9PM (Till I Come)." Already a hugely popular draw as a DJ, Gou’s time-warping groover became her first Billboard chart entry and ignited buzz for her debut artist album, expected in 2024. 

On the less commercial spectrum, European producers like DJ Heartstring, Narciss and Marlon Hoffstadt continued to contextualize vintage sounds for a new audience. Meanwhile, a cluster of Dutch DJs, most notably Job Jobse, Young Marco and KI/KI, played throwback anthem-fuelled sets on festival stages usually reserved for steely techno, including at Dekmantel and Time Warp. 

For some DJs, looking back to the past meant embracing the fast and furious tempos of hardstyle and hard dance, two subgenres with passionate niche followings but little mainstream crossover. Continuing a trend from 2022, speedier BPMs were very much in vogue, as DJs kept pace with fans demanding a harder, faster workout. 

Women Danced To The Front 

Many of the year’s most invigorating and genre-blurring releases were made by women. Having built a steady career as a producer and singer, Kenya Grace broke out in 2023 with "Strangers," which caught fire on TikTok and converted new fans via a sleek mix of pop, drum & bass and Grace’s hushed vocals. Peggy Gou’s aforementioned "(It Goes Like) Nanana," also captured the TikTok zeitgeist with a widely-viewed video of Gou teasing the single for a dancefloor in Morocco. 

Electronic chameleon [Charli XCX](https://www.grammy.com/artists/charli-xcx/18360) stayed squarely in the limelight, following 2022’s stellar *Crash* with the one-two punch of "In The City" featuring Sam Smith and "Speed Drive"(from *Barbie the Album*, which is nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media alongside *AURORA*, *Weird: The Al Yankovic Story*, *Black Panther: Wakanda Forever- Music From And Inspired By*, and *Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3: Awesome Mix*). Meanwhile, two of the year’s standout albums came from women coloring outside the lines of their best-known projects: the xx vocalist Romy’s *Mid Air* embraced her queerness through euphoric dance-pop, while Aluna (of electronic duo AlunaGeorge) blossomed as a solo artist and activist on her second album, *MYCELiUM*. 

While dance music’s ranks remained largely white and male in 2023, undeniable albums from the likes of Jayda G, PinkPanthress and Róisín Murphy were a welcome counterbalance. 

UK Bass Got Bombastic

Following the runaway success of Eliza Rose and Interplanetary Criminal’s 2022 UK garage-tinged house anthem "B.O.T.A. (Baddest of Them All)" the previous year, British bass music continued to shine in 2023. 

While still relatively niche in the U.S., the UK garage (UKG) and bassline subgenres that thrived in the Y2K era found a new generation of British converts, thanks to releases like Interplanetary Criminal’s *All Thru The Night* and Conducta’s *In Transit* EP. Elsewhere, acclaimed British singer/songwriter Jorja Smith tapped her UKG roots on the irresistible single "Little Things." 

Welsh duo Overmono weaved garage textures into their accomplished debut album, *Good Lies*, and rounded out the year with a powerful Boiler Room live set from Manchester’s Warehouse Project. The set and album cemented their bona fides as the UK’s next dance festival headliner. 

The many mutations of UK bass music shone bright all year in DJ sets from the likes of Anz, Nia Archives, Jyoty and Joy Anonymous. (The latter’s near-three-hour set with Austrian producer salute and New Jersey-born garage godfather Todd Edwards at Amsterdam Dance Event captured the jubilant mix of house and UKG that was dominant this year.) 

Bringing it full circle, Eliza Rose parlayed the success of "B.O.T.A." into a collaboration with Calvin Harris on this year’s housey "Body Moving," which started with the pair exchanging Instagram DMs. 

Technology Upped The Ante

In a year where artificial intelligence and rapid technological advancement were burning topics, a wave of dance music artists found new ways to embrace the future. 

The possibilities of technology to enhance live performance were on full display in two raved-about Coachella sets. Swedish veteran [Eric Prydz](https://www.grammy.com/artists/eric-prydz/5679) brought his HOLO show to the California festival, deploying cutting-edge tech to create giant holographic images that extend over the crowd. Meanwhile, inside the festival's Sahara Tent, melodic techno duo Tale Of Us completed their transition to EDM crowd-pleasers with a full-scale audiovisual spectacle that explored themes of robot-human connection. (One half of the duo, Matteo Milleri, is also all-in on NFTs.) 

Meanwhile, techno favorite Nicole Moudaber debuted an AV show in which her own movements control a towering digital avatar. The year also saw big-name DJs embracing the metaverse — from Carl Cox playing a set in the Sensorium Galaxy to Swedish House Mafia joining the Roblox platform — in a trend that’s sure to carry into 2024. 

Techno & Techno-House Go Center Stage

Continuing a trend from 2022, big room techno and tech-house muscled onto U.S. festival stages usually reserved for EDM anthems. In particular, tech-house — which in 2023 sounds a world away from the raw UK club records that birthed the subgenre — cemented its place in the mainstream with Fisher and Chris Lake’s back-to-back set at Coachella’s Outdoor Theatre. (Later in the year, the pair shut down Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles for an epic street party.) 

Both coming off a star-making 2022, tech-house mischief-makers John Summit and Dom Dolla leveled up with bigger shows and feverish fan followings. Meanwhile, Belgian sensation Charlotte de Witte became the techno artist booked on the Ultra Miami main stage, scheduled incongruously alongside the likes of Zedd and Afrojack, while in Europe, techno specialists Amelie Lens and Nina Kraviz were given the same honor (and challenge) for a sprawling crowd at Tomorrowland. 

Whether mining the past or accelerating into the future, the dance/electronic genre never stood still this year, setting the stage for a thrilling 2024.  

[2023 In Review: 5 Trends That Defined Pop Music](https://www.grammy.com/news/pop-music-trends-2023-year-in-review-taylor-swift-sza)

In 2002, against the advice of his friends, a 34-year-old James Murphy released "Losing My Edge," an eight-minute track with a simple, slow-building drum machine pattern. On it, Murphy humorously questions his relevance: "But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent/ And they're actually really, really nice."

The track would, somewhat ironically, make Murphy's LCD Soundsystem and his burgeoning Brooklyn indie label DFA Records the cool new kids on the block.

Murphy started getting booked off of the song and decided to put an actual band behind LCD Soundsystem, calling on Nancy Whang (synths, keys and vocals) and Pat Mahoney (drums and drum machines). Two years later, bassist Tyler Pope became a core member; stellar musicians from the punk/indie/art rock world would join them in the studio and/or on tour over the years.

In January 2005, LCD Soundsystem released their eponymous two-disc debut album, which opens with one of their beloved classics "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House," a No. 1 hit on the UK Dance chart. The aforementioned track and album also earned them their first two GRAMMY nominations in 2006, for Best Electronic/Dance Album and Best Dance Recording respectively, and the album reached No. 6 on Billboard's Top Dance/Electronic Album chart in March 2005. Murphy and company hadn't lost their edge — rather, they were certified big-time indie stars.

Twenty-one years after their tongue-in-cheek debut and 12 years after their not-so-final farewell shows at Madison Square Garden, the beloved Brooklyn band is back with their third residency on their home turf, this time with twelve shows across three New York City venues: Brooklyn Steel (where they had their 2021 and 2022 residencies), Terminal 5 in Manhattan and Knockdown Center in Queens. The shows sold out in a matter of seconds and saw high resale prices clocking double to triple face value, just as their "final" show at Madison Square Garden did in 2011.

In the midst of their highly anticipated Tri Boro Tour — which wraps Dec. 10 — GRAMMY.com examines why LCD Soundsystem still resonates so strongly, even as the dance music and indie scenes around them have changed so much.

They're Y2K's Answer To The Talking Heads

LCD Soundsystem was born during the early aughts, their punk DIY ethos part of New York's brief but thriving indie rock scene (led by the popularity of the Strokes). As documented in Lizzy Goodman's 2017 book, Meet Me in the Bathroom, Murphy fell in love with dance music after trying ecstasy on a New York dance floor, promptly expanding his sonic world.

After this blissful experience, he finally felt comfortable dancing. He started DJing his favorite deep-cut records and throwing parties with DFA co-founder Tim Goldsworthy. 

With LCD Soundsystem, he brought garage and indie rock to the rave, mixing the euphoria and energy of disco, acid house, and electronic instrumentation with guitars and snarky, self-deprecating lyrics. Their influences — ESG, Loose Joints, David Bowie, Talking Heads, CAN, Daft Punk, Kraftwerk — were spiritually present but seamlessly mixed in. Chopped up and flipped until a whole new thing was born, LCD's sound was as inventive as the house music and hip-hop producers and DJs that came before him.

"For many overstimulated and underwhelmed New York hipsters, LCD Soundsystem provided the soundtrack for making sense of the late 2000s," Ryan Pinkard wrote for Tidal. "LCD was to 2000s New York what the Velvet Underground and the Talking Heads were in their own eras. And their legacy is no less hefty nor contentious."

While music labels and outlets became obsessed with finding "the next Strokes," LCD and DFA paved their own path in indie dance. They made significant contributions to the era of loud, chaotic danceable music largely made by bands or DJs' edits of bands, which would later be coined bloghouse or indie sleaze. The Rapture's 2002 single "House of Jealous Lovers" and subsequent debut album, Echoes, were produced by Murphy and Goldsworthy. It brought the post-punk band into a dancier arena that proved successful for them and DFA.

Like the Talking Heads — who, 30 years prior, made music "abuzz with nervous energy… [that] articulated the strangeness and anxiety of modern times" — LCD Soundsystem created artsy, humorous, danceable punk for the people, with an open-minded yet meticulously crafted DIY ethos.

Yet Murphy was a reluctant king of the indie dance scene. His own insecurities, perfectionism and jadedness around the scene and his own creative output resonated with his fans. He became — and remains — the moody, accidently cool Gen X father of his younger Gen X and older millennial fans; the younger generations are slowly catching up.

The Music — Lyrically and Sonically — Still Resonates

"It still kinda weighs on me a bit because we keep getting better and better at playing it live. It's surprising how long 'Losing My Edge' lingers around, for a dance song. But everyone's silly and shallow and insipid and vain and the more they accept it the less boring records we'll have," Murphy said of the ongoing popularity of "Losing My Edge."

"I made 'Yeah', which pretty much consists of me saying yeah over and over, to try and erase the expectation that it was gonna be another clever diatribe of lyrics. Etched into the vinyl of 'Yeah' is, 'Not as good as Losing My Edge.'"

The theme of relevancy and aging out youth culture is as old as time.  "Losing My Edge" is an anthem for aging DJs and music fans, who are loyal to their scene but no longer at the center of it. With his debut track, Murphy is knocking too-cool-for-school hipsters, but most of all, he's knocking himself — the music video is a close up of him getting repeatedly smacked as he says the lyrics with a straight face.

It is this playful self-depreciation and jaded introspection that permeates Murphy's lyrics — often sing-spoken, sometimes shouted — makes them so relatable. Just as Murphy found catharsis during his first experience with ecstasy, LCD's upbeat music and contemplative lyrics provide a similar energy for the band's loyal fans.

And as guitars gave way for perfectly programmed EDM-level drops at the end of the 2000s, LCD's music was a necessary balm. The group united emo rave kids and moody guitar heads under the disco ball, creating a cathartic dance party. Here, celebrating, crying, shouting and dancing like a weirdo are all okay, because Murphy does it too.

"Someone Great," placed midway through their second album 2007's Sound of Silver, is a heart-wrenching meditation on grief, pierced by droning synths, sparkling bells and a tender-sounding Murphy. It's easy to place your own story in the song (I thought it was about an ex no longer in his life), which is about his therapist Dr. George Kamen, who died in 2006. The album is also dedicated to him.

Sound of Silver ends with another melancholic track, "New York, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down," a slow-burning piano ballad that erupts into a can't-help-but-shout-along-chorus. It's a bittersweet love letter to the city that birthed the band (and that they still reside in), speaking to rapid gentrification and police crackdowns that pushed out (and continue to) creatives, venues and working-class people. Even when performed outside of NYC, the song feels poignant given the struggles of living in a capitalist society.

LCD Soundsystem's GRAMMY-nominated fourth studio album, american dream, was released in 2017, in Trump's dystopian America. The anxiety and discontentment are understandably still there, and Murphy is older, but no less disillusioned. "tonite" is a catchy GRAMMY-nominated acid house-tinged tune about all the songs on the radio declaring "you only live once, let's party!" Murphy's response is poetic: "I never realized these artists thought so much about dying/ But truth be told we all have the same end /Could make you cry, cry, cry, cry, cry."

The band has grown up (as have its core fanbase) but there are still plenty of feelings to be processed, sung out loud and danced out.

Their Sound Transcends Trends

LCD Soundsystem's first three albums were released during the first decade of the millennium and peak indie rock/bloghouse era, yet they don't feel dated. Instead, their music channeled something vintage without being nostalgic, and was incredibly fresh-sounding. They remain timeless and are among the era's standouts that still make great music and play killer shows, like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Murphy famously attempted to dissolve the band at the peak of their fame in 2011 — a year after their release of their third album, This is Happening. He didn't want to become a band he hated, to keep getting bigger regardless of if their music was better or not. The hiatus lasted for four years.

"As things mature — whether they be real estate, rock 'n' roll, politics, festivals, radio — there's an efficiency that develops and with it, very often, comes some soul-crushing truths. If you keep doing it, you get bigger even if the records get worse," Murphy told the New York Times in 2017. "It was our turn, And something about that turned my stomach."

When Murphy was working on music that sounded like his beloved band, it seemed silly to not release it because he killed the project. The band's first — rather surprising — new song in five years, "christmas will break your heart," was released in December 2015. A much-hyped Coachella 2016 headline set, followed by a summer tour including other big fests like Lollapalooza, Primavera Sound and Glastonbury, meant LCD was very much back.

While some fans derided the band for making a big deal about breaking up and then coming back, they were clearly missed. And with their 2017 album, they've been able to avoid getting stuck in the nostalgia trap.  Of course, LCD Soundsystem's latest tune, 2022's "new body rhumba," was created to close out the absurd grocery store dance scene in Noah Bambauch's White Noise (based on Don DeLillo's dystopian 1985 novel of the same name).

"There's a lot of music that came out in the '80s around the time of that book that I love," Murphy told Netflix about writing the song. "I didn't want to do anything that was sounding like '80s Radiohead… And I don't want to do emotions for emotions sake. Because I feel that life and death and fear and feelings and these things are too important to use cheap shorthand."

The Band Is Tight & A Joy To See Live

LCD Soundsystem are beloved for their energetic, cathartic live shows, where each song leads into the next and the bandmates riff with each other. They fill the stage with their talented musicians and their many instruments — several drum kits, percussion instruments and cowbells, Nancy Whang's keyboards and synths, and a whole vintage modular synth set up — and play with deft precision.

"We didn't set out to be cool. We set out to be an extremely tight band. We wanted to defy expectations," the frontman told GQ in 2018. And that they did — and continue to do.

Their live sets weave back and forth through their gem-laden catalog — when they performed 2017's "tonite" after 2005's "Tribulations" on the first night of their latest NYC residency, it's easy to forget how far apart they were recorded.

Whang and drummer Pat Mahoney helped bring LCD Soundsystem from the studio to the stage in its earliest days. Like Murphy, Mahoney played in punk bands (most notably Les Savy Fav) and his precise drumming drives LCD's music forward. Other band members include Al Doyle of Hot Chip and Tyler Pope of !!!, who bring funky guitar and bass, respectively, into the mix. Gavilán Rayna Russom offered her modular synth expertise on This Is Happening and on the farewell and reunion tours.

LCD Does Things On Their Own Terms

James Murphy cares about his art and is painstakingly perfectionist about sound quality. His stellar Despacio mobile sound room is a dark, joyful sonic wonderland — records sound as crisp and bright as ever — but is so costly to transport, they lose money when they use it.

After quitting at the height of their career, they came back when they were ready. Sure, Murphy thought painstakingly about whether he should or could release the music he'd been working on and knew there'd be backlash, but that didn't stop them. In fact, it was one of his idols, David Bowie, that encouraged him to do it.

"When I was working on Blackstar, I was talking to David Bowie, which is a luxurious thing to say. I said to him, 'I'm really freaked out as I've started writing music, what am I going to do? What if I come back after we quit so perfectly?'" Murphy told Crack Magazine in 2017.

"David said to me, 'Does it make you feel uncomfortable to come back?' I said 'Yes.' He said 'Good, you should be uncomfortable to do something. You need to be uncomfortable.' It was a funny thing to hear from him, because I always assumed he was comfortable all the time."

The band returned after four years away with a Christmas song, of all things. Almost two years later, they dropped their reunion album. They take their time with their music and release it when they're ready, on their own terms.

As the COVID-19 lockdowns eased up, they've experimented with different touring and festival formats, with their fans in mind as well as their older bodies and changing priorities. Their 2021 return kicked off their first NYC residency, with 20 shows at Brooklyn Steel (although the last three dates were canceled due to a new COVID variant spreading). They returned to Brooklyn Steel for 20 shows in late 2022, and kicked off their 2023 Tri Boro Tour on Nov. 16. The new format gives the band breaks in-between each venue, as Murphy explained the last run was a tough grind.

Murphy has also brought Despacio to more festivals recently, including his 2022 Ain't No Picnic in Pasadena, California and at Coachella 2023. He also launched the Re:Set Concert Series during summer 2023, which featured no set-time overlap and had LCD and the artists traveling shorter distances between shows.

What will 2024 hold for LCD Soundsystem? Hopefully new music to dance off the funk of 2023, more festivals with Despacio and LCD, and quotable moments from Murphy interviews, but who knows. They'll give us something great when they're ready and that will likely be just when we need it most.

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Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!

He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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Latin-infused dance music has started making waves around the world, bringing the musical subculture of Latin EDM into the mainstream. In the past few years, Latin acts in the U.S., Spain, and Latin America are remixing the sound of music in Spanish, creating hits like Farruko's "Pepas" and Bizarrap's "BZRP Music Sessions No. 52" with Quevedo.

Latin EDM first received a global boost in 2019 thanks to the Colombian guaracha of Víctor Cárdenas, who scored a No. 1 on Billboard's Dance Club Songs chart with "Baila Conmigo" after Jennifer Lopez covered it. Cárdenas then went on to produce Farruko's Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart-topper "Pepas." Argentine producer Bizarrap soon followed in his footsteps with his viral BZRP Music Sessions on YouTube. He has seamlessly blended trap, reggaetón, and regional Mexican music with electronica in his recent hit collaborations with Shakira, Peso Pluma, and Villano Antillano.

EDM is more embedded in Latin music than ever before. Puerto Rican producers Tainy and Caleb Calloway have pushed reggaetón music into the future by putting elements of house music hits by Bad Bunny and Rauw Alejandro. Latin EDM is also permeating pop music: Dominican producer Kelman Duran worked on Beyoncé's Renaissance, which won the GRAMMY Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album. He added a bit of reggaetón bounce to her swaggering song "I’m That Girl." 

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, GRAMMY.com is putting the spotlight on seven Latin EDM acts.

Sinego

Hailing from Bogotá, Colombia, Sinego first made waves thanks to his house bolero songs. He breathed new life in the age-old Latin sound in his songs like "Verte Triste" and "No Soy De Aquí." Sinego has received co-signs from and worked with acts like Sofi Tukker and Bomba Estéreo.

Sinego is looking to push Latin EDM even further with his upcoming album Alterego, which will be released on Oct. 27. He traveled throughout Latin American and Spain to collaborate with local musicians. In addition to bolero, Sinego reimagines genres like cumbia, samba, tango, and mambo through house music. There will also be a “Noche” version of the LP that will explore techno influences.

"'Alterego' is more than just an album; it's a sonic journey that transcends borders and genres, weaving together the rich tapestry of Latin American musical traditions with the limitless possibilities of electronic music," he tells GRAMMY.com.

Gordo

Gordo is making waves in EDM in both the English and Spanish markets, bridging the gap between Latin artists and electronic music. After a decade in the game, the Guatemalan American producer was tapped by Drake last year to work on his album Honestly, Nevermind. Gordo helped the Canadian superstar get into the house groove in songs like "Massive" and "Sticky."

In his own singles, Gordo is returning Spanish tech house to its Latin roots. Last year, he teamed up with rising Colombian star Feid for the alluring "Hombres y Mujeres," combining reggaetón with booming house beats. Colombian superstar Maluma later teamed up with Gordo for the pulsating "Parcera." 

"What I want people to take away the most from the Feid song is that I did it and I’m Hispanic," he told Uproxx last year. "There’s so much [Hispanic] talent, so why not keep it all in the family?”

Arca

Arca has broken boundaries for Latin artists in EDM. She has especially pushed the envelope for the LGBTQIA+ community as a trans and non-binary artist in the genre. Thanks to her Kick album series, Arca has been nominated at both the GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY Awards.

Throughout the Kick albums, Arca has proudly explored her Latina roots in her genre-bending club bangers. In 2020, she teamed up with Spanish pop star Rosalía for the freaky "KLK," which blended glitchy reggaetón beats with flourishes of traditional Venezuelan gaita music. A year later, Lady Gaga tapped Arca for a remix of "Rain On Me." Arca transformed the song with a sample of the raptor house classic "Metelo Sacalo" by Venezuela's DJ Yirvin. 

"Part of the lifeblood that has nurtured me was music that I heard on the radio," Arca told GRAMMY.com in 2021 about her reggaetón influences. "Music that reached me, through not just academic and performance, in more of a popular sense."

Deorro

Deorro is seamlessly blending his bicultural roots in his music. The Mexican American DJ and producer has toured the world and performed at all the major music festivals like Tomorrowland, Coachella, and Lollapalooza. In his sets, Deorreo often mixes in Mexican classics like "La Chona" by Norteño band Los Tucanes de Tijuana.

Last year, Deorro released Orro, further embracing his Latinx roots. He put a house music spin on regional Mexican music in songs like "Yo Las Pongo" with Los Tucanes de Tijuana and Dime with cumbia group Los Ángeles Azules. At EDC Las Vegas in May, Deorro brought out Eslabon Armado as a surprise guest. The Mexican American band joined him to perform his remix of the global hit "Ella Baila Sola" featuring Peso Pluma. 

"One of the most important things about collaborating with other artists is that it opens a lot of avenues for both me and other artists," he told iEDM.com earlier this year. "It's so inspiring to [...] evolve new sounds with them."

Martox

The Dominican duo of producer Eduardo Baldera and singer Juan Martínez are showing a different side to music from the Caribbean. Since their 2019 debut, Martox has experimented with multiple genres, but they have really hit their stride in dance music.

An alternative act with R&B and pop-flavored tracks, Martoz have started adding elements of electronica to the mix in the Se Siente Diferente EP. The title translates to "It Feels Different" and Martox lived up to that with the tropical house of "No Es Normal" and the disco-influenced "Pausa" with Gian Rojas. The sunny "Solsticio" best reflects where Martox is at now with feel-good funk colliding with the Dominican soul in Martínez's voice. 

"All the elements [of 'Solsticio'] groove perfectly," Martox tells GRAMMY.com "Everything stays constant and familiar, while at the same time, the track evolves and keeps things interesting and fresh."

The Martinez Brothers

Born Chris and Steve Martinez, the Martinez Brothers grew up on dance music in the Bronx. The Puerto Rican duo started incorporating their Latinx roots into their club bangers.

The Martinez Brothers helped usher in reggaetón's house music era in 2020 when they collaborated with Rauw Alejandro and Mr. Naisgai in the genre-bending "Química." Since then, they have continued to bring Latin acts into their world, including Fuego and Dominican star Tokischa. She featured on the intoxicating house track "Kilo." Alongside Gordo, the duo recently tapped into the world of Afrobeats with Nigerian star Rema in "Rizzla."

"Black people and Latinos really created this music," Steve Martinez told mitú in 2021. "It comes from the inner cities of New York and Chicago from Black and Latino communities. That’s always something we try to bring forth in our music."

2DEEP

2DEEP is representing his Latinx roots in his music. Hailing from the Bronx, the DJ and producer of Ecuadorian and Colombian descent immerses his EDM in elements of reggaetón and guaracha.

2DEEP previously distributed his music through Mad Decent where he also collaborated with Diplo. In 2019, he signed with Steve Aoki's Latin label Dim Mak En Fuego. Since then, 2DEEP has combined his love of dance music with Colombian guaracha, which is a Latin take on tribal house music. He also launched the dance party Reggaetonlandia that hosts events across the west coast. 2DEEP often spins his hits like "Guaracha En Reggaetonlandia" and "Takataka" in perreo-ready sets. 

"In the world of EDM, there aren't many Latinos like me and I want to make sure that every kid like me knows that their dreams can come true," he told People last year. 

2023 Latin GRAMMYs: See The Complete Nominations List