Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Shirley Halpern, Executive editor of Music. Rossio Guerrero, Global head
Speaker 1: of Latin Music at Amazon Music has collected many professional
Speaker 1: accolades over her career. If there's a power list of
Speaker 1: women in music, she's on it. Latin leaders, she's there too,
Speaker 1: and among international executives, the well traveled native of Spain
Speaker 1: ranks high as well. But to hear Rossio's stories to
Speaker 1: connect with a personal journey, one which took her from
Speaker 1: a musical family in a small Spanish town to Brazil, London, Stockholm,
Speaker 1: and now New York, which she's called home for ten years.
Speaker 1: Talk about being early on music streaming, Rossio joined Spotify
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven, before the service had even launched
Speaker 1: in the US. She started there as a sales planner
Speaker 1: and rose up the ranks to the position of head
Speaker 1: of Global Music, Cultures, Shows and Editorial. That's when Rosso
Speaker 1: truly went global. Her purview at Spotify included Latin music,
Speaker 1: of course, but also Indian, Arabic and African songs as well.
Speaker 1: Dialed in on the music consumption habits of the diaspora.
Speaker 1: Rosso then took her institutional knowledge of the tech platform
Speaker 1: and learned the music business from the other side, joining
Speaker 1: Warner Music Group in twenty eighteen as vice president of
Speaker 1: A and R and cross cultural Strategy. Just before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: Amazon came calling and Rosso signed on to lead the
Speaker 1: Latin music team. For the last three years, she's been
Speaker 1: busy building exclusive original content opportunities via video, podcasts, live streaming,
Speaker 1: or playlisting, and has taken on such ambitious projects as
Speaker 1: the mini document ENTERI La Cuna del Dembo, tracing the
Speaker 1: evolution of the dembo subgenre and featuring Latin music's biggest
Speaker 1: current crossover star, Bad Bunny. Thanks in large part to
Speaker 1: top album and ticket seller Bad Bunny, Latin music has
Speaker 1: seen explosive growth in recent years, and in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two exceeded one billion dollars in US Latin music revenues
Speaker 1: for the first time, up nearly twenty five percent from
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Amazon Music has also seen continued growth
Speaker 1: as it relates to Latin music, which is not in
Speaker 1: itself a genre, but rather a diverse musical through line
Speaker 1: for Spanish speaking artists worldwide. On this episode, which follows
Speaker 1: Varieties April thirteenth, Miami Entertainment Town event recognizing Latin executive talent,
Speaker 1: I talked to Rossio about hermo to super serve music's
Speaker 1: underserved globally, as well as her accomplishments, which include a
Speaker 1: Maluma answered live stream from magazine, and what she learned
Speaker 1: during Spotify startup years, namely Swedish, a suggestion of the
Speaker 1: platform's co founder Daniel Eck join us after the break,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to strictly business. Here's my conversation with Amazon
Speaker 1: Music's Rossio Guerrero. So you grew up in Spain.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I grew up in Spain, in a small town
Speaker 3: in the middle of nowhere. Really it's like between Sevilia
Speaker 3: and Madrid, and my family is still there. I have
Speaker 3: some relatives in Madrid, but most of them my dad,
Speaker 3: my mom, my brother, they're still in Don Benito.
Speaker 1: How did you get into music growing up in Spain?
Speaker 3: So my family it's a family of musicians. So I
Speaker 3: was really it's in my dna. I was born to music.
Speaker 3: My mom is a pianist. Both my mom and my
Speaker 3: dad worked at the Conservatory of Music in Dominito. My
Speaker 3: mom was the director, my dad was the vice director.
Speaker 3: She's an interesting dynamic. That's all we talked about at home.
Speaker 3: It was my second home. I studied my musical studies
Speaker 3: at three. My mom was my teacher at the beginning,
Speaker 3: and then yeah, and then I studied piano, then moved
Speaker 3: to violin. So you know, I did at least seventeen
Speaker 3: years of music classical. My sister is also a music teacher.
Speaker 3: She's a pianist as well, so we all play instruments.
Speaker 3: None of them work on the music industry per se,
Speaker 3: but both my mom and my sister do teach music
Speaker 3: in college and in school as well.
Speaker 1: Wow, so were you supposed to be a professional musician?
Speaker 3: To be honest, growing up, I was like rebelling against
Speaker 3: I was mad that my mom was pushing me and
Speaker 3: you know, telling me you have to do music. I
Speaker 3: just didn't understand. Why did I have to do that?
Speaker 2: Now? I do? Right?
Speaker 3: So when I moved out of my home to study
Speaker 3: and I went to college, I did journalism.
Speaker 2: I quit, so to speak.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I'm free now I don't have
Speaker 3: to do classical music anymore.
Speaker 2: Then I took it back after the years.
Speaker 3: By the way, I actually ten years ago I studied
Speaker 3: in New York again, So you know, I think the
Speaker 3: teenagers period kind of took me to another side.
Speaker 2: So I never thought of being a professional musician.
Speaker 1: Now, okay, how did you end up in the States.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's a story, you know.
Speaker 3: After I went to study to Madrid journalism, I got
Speaker 3: a scholarship to study in London, and that was an
Speaker 3: inflection point for me. I get those pumps, even though,
Speaker 3: like you know, it's my life. But I remember very
Speaker 3: clearly the first time I leave my country is when
Speaker 3: I realized how little did I know about the world
Speaker 3: and how much was out there to explore. So I
Speaker 3: really never came back after that. I went to Brazil.
Speaker 3: I spent a few months in Brazil just because learned
Speaker 3: the language, learned the culture, which was fascinating. By the way,
Speaker 3: Brazil is another universe. After Brazil, went back to London
Speaker 3: stay a few months. I shoot about what to do
Speaker 3: really next, so my mom convinced me come back to Spain.
Speaker 3: Figured it out what you're gonna do with your life.
Speaker 3: So went back to Madrid for a short period of
Speaker 3: time and that's where I found my first job in
Speaker 3: the industry, per se, and then from their move to Stockholm.
Speaker 3: With that job, I stayed there for three years, Stockholm,
Speaker 3: New York, and I been in New York every since. Sportify.
Speaker 3: I was very small at the time. We were only
Speaker 3: one hundred people I think. And what's fun is that
Speaker 3: Spain happened to be one of the first three countries
Speaker 3: that it was available at, so that's why you know,
Speaker 3: I got the job.
Speaker 2: It was in sales, so.
Speaker 3: It was really not like still like musically focused, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean it was just the beginning.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So you were in Stockholm twenty twelve and
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, that was like before it even launched in
Speaker 1: the US.
Speaker 2: Mm hm, that's correct.
Speaker 3: So when I moved to Stockholm, Spotify still wasn't available
Speaker 3: in the US or Latin America. It was a very
Speaker 3: interesting time because it was a very small company and
Speaker 3: it just took off, you know. And when Spotify launched
Speaker 3: in Latin America and the US is when I moved
Speaker 3: to New York.
Speaker 2: I liked the stokom. It's just like a differentent world.
Speaker 3: In summer is day all day, and then in winter
Speaker 3: is dark most of the time, which I had a
Speaker 3: very hard time dealing with as a Southern Spanish person.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful.
Speaker 1: Talking about Latin music today. So the big headline when
Speaker 1: it comes to the Latin music business is that US
Speaker 1: Latin music revenues in twenty twenty two exceeded a billion
Speaker 1: dollars for the first time. And it also the genre
Speaker 1: grew significantly faster than the broader industry. It's up nearly
Speaker 1: twenty five percent from the year before. Also in Amazon Music,
Speaker 1: there's been continued growth in Latin America. Your monthly streams
Speaker 1: of Latin music is doubled year over year worldwide. Why
Speaker 1: the boom? What's driving it?
Speaker 2: What's happening right?
Speaker 3: The boom really started a few years ago, and even
Speaker 3: before the first boom, I mean the first most recent
Speaker 3: boom with the Spasito. As you might remember, Latin music
Speaker 3: was always there. So just to give context, Latin music
Speaker 3: was always big because there is a lot of people
Speaker 3: that live in Latin America and Spain and in the diaspora.
Speaker 2: It's huge as you.
Speaker 3: Know in the US, the settlement speaking Europe as well,
Speaker 3: So it was always big. What happened was that were streaming,
Speaker 3: we started counting that consumption and those streams, so you
Speaker 3: could see being in the inside, how the more people
Speaker 3: were listening to Latin music coming from Latin America, the
Speaker 3: more penetration of streaming in those territories, the more Latin
Speaker 3: songs were popping up in the global chart.
Speaker 2: So it was just math. It was just math.
Speaker 3: And the more Latin music songs were popping up in
Speaker 3: the global charts, the more visibility of Latin music to
Speaker 3: known Latin audiences. So it was like a visious circle
Speaker 3: that started with streaming. But it also in parallel, the
Speaker 3: population of the United States continue to grow with Hispanics
Speaker 3: right like today young adults twenty five percent of young
Speaker 3: adults are Hispanics and they're growing six times faster than
Speaker 3: no Hispanics. So obviously, when you think about the combination
Speaker 3: of the streaming penetration in Latin countries, the growing Latin
Speaker 3: population in the US, these are people that are very
Speaker 3: digital oriented. They over indexing consumption, music consumption, digital consumption.
Speaker 2: So when you put all.
Speaker 3: Of that together, this happens, and it's going to continue
Speaker 3: to happen. It's it's no way to go back because
Speaker 3: the population continues to grow, the music continues to grow,
Speaker 3: the exposure to other cultures continue to happen.
Speaker 2: So this is honestly just not the beginning.
Speaker 3: But we are still at the beginning of a very
Speaker 3: long journey, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally well, and especially like looking at your journey.
Speaker 1: When Bad Bunnies Unveranos in Ti became the first non
Speaker 1: English language to top the Billboard two hundred, it feels like,
Speaker 1: in a way it was like the culmination of the
Speaker 1: many years that you spent building this Latin music global
Speaker 1: expansion strategy, which was kind of instrumental in globalizing the genre.
Speaker 1: That was your job at Spotify is working with these
Speaker 1: musical cultures and diasporas. I mean, did it feel personal
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 3: You're talking and look I'm getting like goosetamps. I get
Speaker 3: a little emotional because it was and it still is
Speaker 3: something so incredible to.
Speaker 2: Be part of and have contributed, even if just a
Speaker 2: tiny bit.
Speaker 3: I always I remember a few years ago, I would
Speaker 3: always say to my team, you know what happened with food?
Speaker 3: International food, Like food has being embeedved into other cultures,
Speaker 3: Like we all eat Indian food, we eat Latin food,
Speaker 3: we eat you know, a lot of Japanese food. I
Speaker 3: always told them, we can make this happen with music,
Speaker 3: Like imagine a world in which music no matter the language,
Speaker 3: the genre, it's just it. It's just part of mainstream's,
Speaker 3: part of pop culture. It represents the world as it is, right,
Speaker 3: So being part of that was always very personal to me.
Speaker 2: That was my mission.
Speaker 3: It still is my mission today, is give Latin culture
Speaker 3: the space that it deserves. It's just pushing a little
Speaker 3: bit something that was going to happen, you know, And
Speaker 3: back then you'd be surprised, like we wouldn't have a
Speaker 3: lot of like Latin music songs in non Latin playlists
Speaker 3: or stations, and it was like challenging sometimes to make
Speaker 3: that happen. But now you look back at this, and
Speaker 3: you look at these playlists or stations or any radio station,
Speaker 3: and it just happens.
Speaker 2: And every time I'm.
Speaker 3: On a taxi, for instance, and I hear this pop
Speaker 3: radio sound like oh, and I suddenly hear a lot
Speaker 3: in so I'm like, wow, like this and it's just normal,
Speaker 3: you know, And I'm like, this just was not normal
Speaker 3: ten years ago. It just wasn't and it was a beautiful,
Speaker 3: beautiful thing to.
Speaker 1: Be part of this penetration of this English speaking market.
Speaker 1: You mentioned before that you know, the numbers of Hispanics
Speaker 1: are just larger. So is this kind of a bell
Speaker 1: whether to pay attention to because of its cultural impact
Speaker 1: or is it really just a question of demographics and
Speaker 1: you know, like what is opening the door here? Is
Speaker 1: it just the number of people or are people actually
Speaker 1: open to other cultures and other languages.
Speaker 2: It's an excellent question, and it's both.
Speaker 3: I think because of the demographic because of a streaming penetration,
Speaker 3: we were given the opportunity to be heard, and the
Speaker 3: more songs that were popping up, the more open people
Speaker 3: were to listening to other stuff that were in different languages.
Speaker 3: And that's just like any other transition, it just happens,
Speaker 3: and when you get to the other side, it's just
Speaker 3: part of the norm. It's part of mainstream, is part
Speaker 3: of pop culture. And I think it's both. I absolutely
Speaker 3: think streaming has also helped people be more open about
Speaker 3: music because you also listen to more music in general
Speaker 3: thanks for streaming.
Speaker 2: You listen to music when.
Speaker 3: You're working out, where you are trying to focus, when
Speaker 3: you're trying to party, So that in itself is giving
Speaker 3: you more chances to hear two more artists. And when
Speaker 3: you're getting all these like other songs popping up, you're
Speaker 3: giving it the chance.
Speaker 2: So it's a combination of both.
Speaker 1: Is there a particular subgenre of Latin music that is
Speaker 1: reacting more than others? Like I definitely want to talk
Speaker 1: about regional Mexican, but it seems like reggaeton was kind
Speaker 1: of the first one that was really embraced by US audiences.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is right, And I'm glad you bring this up,
Speaker 3: because Latin is not a genre, right. You know, sometimes
Speaker 3: Latin gets compared to other Anglo genres and I always say, wait, no,
Speaker 3: you need to talk about Anglo music and Latin music.
Speaker 3: And then you have hip hop and we have hip hop,
Speaker 3: and you have rock and we have rock. It seems obvious, right,
Speaker 3: But you'd be surprised that a lot of people don't
Speaker 3: understand that nuance which is massive right within all of
Speaker 3: the genres of Latin music, which again you have all
Speaker 3: the same ones that you're familiar with in the Anglo world.
Speaker 3: You then also have Latin exclusive genres like sasa, chata, menge.
Speaker 3: Those are very just like Latin music and then you
Speaker 3: have the typical genres reggaeton and upbat. Latin music was
Speaker 3: the one that really studied the globalization because it's something
Speaker 3: you dance to, it's something you party.
Speaker 2: It's not like the lyric the most important part of
Speaker 2: the song.
Speaker 3: It's important too, and in many cases they have strong,
Speaker 3: powerful messages, but it's the feeling. So that, combined with
Speaker 3: the fact that in the Latin markets for US, celebration
Speaker 3: and party is part of our culture, is one of
Speaker 3: the reasons why it did resonate with all of the
Speaker 3: Latin countries. By default, then those were the songs that
Speaker 3: were popping up the most in non Latin countries. And
Speaker 3: again you get a feeling. It doesn't matter the language
Speaker 3: you're listening to. It's a big feeling, a danceabold track.
Speaker 3: So it makes sense that that was the genre that started,
Speaker 3: like the movement, but I'm hoping that reg don't opened
Speaker 3: the doors so people would be open to hear other
Speaker 3: songs and other languages. And now it's our job to
Speaker 3: prove that there are many other genres of Latin music.
Speaker 1: We need to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: back with more from Rossio Guerrero and we're back with
Speaker 1: Amazon's global head of Latin Music, Rosso Guerrero. What is
Speaker 1: sort of the essence of your job as a curator
Speaker 1: at Amazon?
Speaker 3: So right now, our Latin team just takes care of
Speaker 3: many different aspects of the Latin business.
Speaker 2: One of them is the curation and the programming.
Speaker 3: We have an excellent programming team that takes care of
Speaker 3: literally a soundtrack your life, and they're literally investigating all
Speaker 3: the trends that are happening.
Speaker 2: What should we curate for what moments.
Speaker 3: That's the work I started at at Spotify, by the way,
Speaker 3: so I know it's a beautiful work. It's very reworthing.
Speaker 3: You're listening to users' feedback and then you're also trying
Speaker 3: new stuff, presenting to customers and fans things they didn't
Speaker 3: even know they liked yet. That is such an exciting
Speaker 3: part of our programming job. There is something very exciting
Speaker 3: that we do, particularly at Amazon, which is a global
Speaker 3: Latin syndicate. Syndicate basically means that we are curating for
Speaker 3: local audiences in the different local markets, but we also
Speaker 3: have regional and Latin global playlists. So what we do
Speaker 3: is that we help music travel across countries, so when
Speaker 3: we see something starting to work in one country, we
Speaker 3: transfer that to the regional playlist so we can show
Speaker 3: is that music to other countries and then from there,
Speaker 3: if it works, we move it into global playlists, so
Speaker 3: maybe non Latin fans can also enjoy. So it's a
Speaker 3: very exciting part of the business for sure.
Speaker 1: Talking about a subgenre that has really seen significant growth,
Speaker 1: Regional Mexican. Explain what it is and why we're seeing
Speaker 1: And I love the name of your initiative, gen Max,
Speaker 1: so great. Why we're seeing this, Like I feel like
Speaker 1: it was always there, but just more attention on it,
Speaker 1: more I guess, more consumption of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So regional Mexican is a local genre that it's
Speaker 3: massive in Mexico, but it's also huge in the US
Speaker 3: because of how big the Mexican population is, so the
Speaker 3: genre has historically been really isolated in a way to
Speaker 3: those territories US, Mexico, a little bit of Colombia. Now
Speaker 3: streaming in those markets is also growing really fast, and
Speaker 3: you probably aware that Mexico is one of the biggest
Speaker 3: streaming capitals of the world, so of course what's happening
Speaker 3: is a lot of regional Mexican consumption is coming from
Speaker 3: those countries and it's kind of happening what happened with
Speaker 3: Latin music, but within our world. So the more people
Speaker 3: are consuming regional Mexican from those territories, the more it's
Speaker 3: popping up into all the Latin countries, the more other
Speaker 3: Latin arries when I jump on that wagon. The more
Speaker 3: Latin songs that are regional Mexican are coming out there
Speaker 3: that are being globalized, and that's what's happening currently with
Speaker 3: artist like Pest and Pluma, they are so big right now.
Speaker 3: Christian Nodal bad Banni just released regional Mexican song with
Speaker 3: group of from Tera, literally like out of the blue.
Speaker 3: It's such an exciting movement within the Latin music space
Speaker 3: to see how artists don't care about genres anymore.
Speaker 2: They are all collaborating with it other.
Speaker 3: A lot of the young Latin artists don't want to
Speaker 3: put themselves in a genre box. They're just doing different
Speaker 3: like fusion like stuff. It's the nature of our market too,
Speaker 3: it's so big. It's Latin country is a little different
Speaker 3: to each other. We are connected culturally by many trades,
Speaker 3: but we're.
Speaker 2: Also very different.
Speaker 3: But the nature of this market is so powerful because
Speaker 3: it allows artists to just collaborate with each other all
Speaker 3: the time. If one Mexican artist wants to increase their
Speaker 3: career in Spain, they're gonna collaborate with the Spanish artists
Speaker 3: and vice versa, and then a Brazilian one with a
Speaker 3: US Latin artist. Like it's just kind of impressive and
Speaker 3: you don't see that in other markets, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's really interesting that the Latin Grammys
Speaker 1: are going to be in Spain next year.
Speaker 3: Very interesting and also south of Spain, like that's where
Speaker 3: I'm from.
Speaker 2: Let's see how that goes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, I think changes are always good
Speaker 3: and it's going to be exciting to see what happens
Speaker 3: when you take it out of the US. But it
Speaker 3: speaks a lot about the global nature of this music category.
Speaker 1: Tell me about content that you guys are creating Amazon Music.
Speaker 1: Beyond actual music, there's there's podcasts, as documentaries. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the live stream. Are these your initiatives and your ideas?
Speaker 2: Yes, So we have a team for Latin music.
Speaker 3: We have a team in the US, but also countries
Speaker 3: in Latin America, in Spain, we collaborate and work together
Speaker 3: to deliver the best content and initiatives that we came
Speaker 3: for Latin music fans. One of the things that I
Speaker 3: was most excited about when I moved to Amazon Music
Speaker 3: was precisely that the breadth of possibilities that a place
Speaker 3: like Amazon could offer two artists and fans. I was
Speaker 3: very drawn to that. You know, I'm like, Wow, this
Speaker 3: is going to be exciting, and it is very exciting.
Speaker 3: I've been here three years and I can say I
Speaker 3: was right in my assumption.
Speaker 2: And you know, one of the things that.
Speaker 3: We're very proud of is the entertainment offering that we
Speaker 3: can provide to artists. And you know, it goes from
Speaker 3: we talked about playlists, all of the stuff that you
Speaker 3: can do in the Amazon Music app, but then you
Speaker 3: have live stream, we have Twitch, we have Alexa with
Speaker 3: the voice projects. We have video, and we spoke about
Speaker 3: video before Latin audience is over Index, so something that
Speaker 3: we really focus a lot.
Speaker 2: We have podcasts, we have merged.
Speaker 3: So there is so many different things that we're doing
Speaker 3: for the Latin business, and there are things that have
Speaker 3: never been done, there are things that are new, Like
Speaker 3: it's just very exciting. Not too long ago, we released
Speaker 3: Mini Dog. Speaking about sub genres, by the way, Laguna
Speaker 3: del Denbo is one of those initiatives that we do
Speaker 3: to focus on the subgenres that maybe don't get as
Speaker 3: much as pecipity, or they're about to or they are
Speaker 3: happening right now. Then boy is one of those subgenres
Speaker 3: that it's really like happening coming from the Dominican Republic.
Speaker 3: This documentary we have Bad Bunny. We had a lot
Speaker 3: of different artists that were part of it. Was a great,
Speaker 3: great initiative with live streams with Don Maluma. Maluma live
Speaker 3: stream last year was very special because it was the
Speaker 3: most important moment of his career, and that's what I
Speaker 3: was so excited about. It's like, how are we together
Speaker 3: with artists in those moments and bring that to the
Speaker 3: rest of the world. So we did the global license
Speaker 3: from Medejing, his hometown to the world. It was called
Speaker 3: put Medajong l Mappa, so it's like put it on
Speaker 3: the map, and it was so beautiful. It was so exciting,
Speaker 3: and this is the type of things that we really
Speaker 3: are looking forward to do with merch.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're familiar with the merch business.
Speaker 3: We've done several stuff with jabalbing with it a monopoly
Speaker 3: last year with Murakami Exclusive line. So March business obviously
Speaker 3: a very exciting one that it's very natural to Amazon. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we've also done exclusive podcast We had one with Beggy
Speaker 3: Gee a couple of years ago. We right now did
Speaker 3: La Semnal, which is actually becoming a Twitch show. So
Speaker 3: you see, there is all these different channels that we
Speaker 3: can play with and excite both fans and artists, and
Speaker 3: that's honestly something we we really are focusing on right now.
Speaker 2: So great.
Speaker 1: I haven't had a chance to, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: watch the documentary because I love those stories about how
Speaker 1: a type of music was born, like Reggaeton is a
Speaker 1: fascinating stories like people who came to the Panama Canal,
Speaker 1: and you know, I just I love that stuff. I
Speaker 1: love being able to contextualize it, and it's it's really
Speaker 1: great that you guys do that. Okay, So I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about your time at Warner because
Speaker 1: you were Warner Music Latin at VP of A and
Speaker 1: R and cross cultural strategy, which included artist development, identifying
Speaker 1: emerging talent. Is there any artists that you worked with
Speaker 1: or examples of key campaigns that you were very proud of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So my timent Warner was very exciting because I
Speaker 3: wanted to get closer to the beginning of the music journey,
Speaker 3: that makes sense, Like I wanted to get closer to
Speaker 3: the artists, look at everything from the inside, gain even
Speaker 3: more respect for music.
Speaker 2: So I was super lucky.
Speaker 3: I was based in New York out of the Atlantic offices,
Speaker 3: but reported to the Warner Latin branch in Miami, and
Speaker 3: the best part of my job it was that cross
Speaker 3: cultural interactions. So I would bring some Latin artists to
Speaker 3: some of them maybe Atlantic artists, and we would do
Speaker 3: some crossover. We did one with Paolo Londra. I mean
Speaker 3: we did many Anita. I remember this duo called Las
Speaker 3: Vidia that we sign while my time there, and they're
Speaker 3: like amazing, their twins beautiful, so talented. I'm still looking
Speaker 3: at them very closely all the time. But yeah, in general,
Speaker 3: getting closer to Aris, getting closer to the managers and
Speaker 3: this studio part of it, and then how do you
Speaker 3: globalize this from the label side, That was definitely very exciting.
Speaker 1: Okay, so being the global head of Latin music, I
Speaker 1: assume that involves traveling a lot.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I have to admit during the pandemic,
Speaker 3: things slow down a lot. Prior to the pandemic, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I definitely had to travel Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Miami. I
Speaker 3: go to Miami a lot from New York. I go
Speaker 3: to LA sometimes, but Miami it's definitely.
Speaker 2: Where I got the most.
Speaker 3: Miami's were a lot of the artists community and the
Speaker 3: industries they are based there.
Speaker 2: There's a huge, huge industry.
Speaker 3: We have some of the industry in LA, but Miami
Speaker 3: is definitely the number one CD for the industry and
Speaker 3: the artists. So that's where all of the companies that
Speaker 3: we work with. The music labels are managers. Puerto Rico
Speaker 3: as well, but Miami is the hub without a doubt.
Speaker 1: You speak several languages, right, yes, so you speak you
Speaker 1: speak English, Spanish, Portuguese.
Speaker 3: French, and I knew a little bit of Swedish, but
Speaker 3: that's gone. It was one of the requirements we had
Speaker 3: to actually learn Swedish.
Speaker 2: Are you serious, Daniel Kbete. Everyone learned Swedish. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was optional, but it was encouraged.
Speaker 3: But also you know, my partner was Swedish at the time,
Speaker 3: so you know, I did immerse myself into the culture,
Speaker 3: and I do like doing that though. Every time I
Speaker 3: have lived somewhere, I like to really immerse myself.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that's been an advantage for you being
Speaker 1: multi lingual.
Speaker 3: I think both music studies and languages definitely allow my
Speaker 3: brain to be on the move all the time.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I feel like my brain is always constantly like moving,
Speaker 3: so it's like agile, and that allow me to kind
Speaker 3: of like absorb things maybe quicker.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's hard to know because I don't know anything different,
Speaker 3: but I think definitely studying music and languages has helped me.
Speaker 1: Last thing, I'm a big fan of LinkedIn, and there
Speaker 1: was one thing that you wrote in there that I
Speaker 1: really love. You wrote it's always day one. I love that.
Speaker 3: That is actually I can claim that that's Amazon's, that's
Speaker 3: Jeff Bezos. Always day one means every day is a
Speaker 3: day and an opportunity to innovate. It's a day to
Speaker 3: start from scratch. You don't slow down, you always think forward,
Speaker 3: You're always try new things. You never you're not scared
Speaker 3: of failing, you know, And that resonated so much with me.
Speaker 3: I literally believe so so much in that statement that
Speaker 3: I take it to her every day and I use
Speaker 3: it with my family.
Speaker 2: I use it all the time.
Speaker 3: It's just something that with two three words, you're saying
Speaker 3: so much and you're packing so much, and it really
Speaker 3: kind of like embraces what I am in a way.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's always day one.
Speaker 1: I love that. Rossillo, thank you so much for speaking
Speaker 1: with us, and we're just so impressed with everything that
Speaker 1: you're doing. Congratulations and thanks for being on Strictly Business.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Sheirley. Honestly, it was such a pleasure.
Speaker 3: I mean this, I'm super honor and I hope that
Speaker 3: was useful to you and to everybody.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to Variety's Strictly Business. This episode
Speaker 1: was edited by Laurence Schroeder. Please make sure you subscribe
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