Maluma melted hearts on Mother’s Day (May 10) by announcing that he and his partner are expecting another child together. He shared the news with a tender black-and-white Instagram photo featuring his girlfriend Susana Gómez’s baby bump, as he and their daughter, Paris Londoño Gómez — born March 9, 2024 — shared a sweet moment, both planting kisses on Gómez’s growing belly.

The 32-year-old kept his caption simple, adding only a baby blue heart emoji, while fellow artists such as J Balvin, Ryan Castro and Prince Royce flooded the comments with hearts, blushing face emojis and warm congratulations. The picture received more than 2.6 million likes in less than 24 hours.

Maluma and Gómez have been together since 2020. The Colombian star first announced they were expecting their first child in October 2023, through the music video for his song “Procura.”

In 2024, Maluma posted a heartfelt photo on social media that showed him leaning down to with his baby daughter. “My first 15 days as a dad, this is the best I’ve ever lived in my life,” wrote the singer in the post.

In addition to his growing family, the singer has been busy on the music front. Maluma recently dropped a sultry reggaetón single “QHP Piñata,” featuring fellow Colombian stars Sky Rompiendo and Kris R. Fans won’t have to wait long for more music, as he’s set to release his seventh studio album, Loco x Volver, Friday (May 15). Marking his first album in three years, the 14-track project boasts collaborations with a lineup of artists that includes Beéle, Lenny Tavárez, Justin Quiles, Kany García and more.

In March, Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge spoke with investors about his company’s $775 million acquisition of Downtown Music Group. The moment marked Grainge’s first comments since European regulators greenlit the deal, and the major-label mogul likened it to UMG’s $1.9 billion acquisition of EMI in 2011. 

“Today, 15 years later, that acquisition is universally acknowledged as one of the most successful and strategically important in the history of the music industry,” Grainge said. “I firmly believe that our acquisition of Downtown will be as transformational.” 

Downtown’s businesses — distributors FUGA and CD Baby and publishing administration platform Songtrust among them — will help UMG expand its offering and geographic footprint in the high-growth global indie segment, where UMG is third behind Sony’s The Orchard and Believe. 

Nat Pastor and J.T. Myers, co-CEOs of Virgin Music Group, are overseeing the hard work of integrating Downtown’s suite of businesses into UMG’s independent label and artists division. The entrepreneurial duo — who both separately started their careers in investment banking, then moved to Warner Music Group before co-founding the management firm mtheory — have seen all sides of the artist-label world during that time and are focused on trying to bring Downtown’s expertise under the Virgin umbrella to help artists of all sizes. While the process will take years, the upside is immense and vast, Pastor and Myers say. 

“We’ve seen an explosion in the independent space largely driven by the growth in the sort of middle- class artists [who] are making enough money to have a career in music but aren’t superstars,” Pastor tells Billboard. “We’re so well-positioned to empower and continue to fuel that part of the business, not even [to help] the next Sabrina Carpenter, but rather [to create] 10,000 more career artists … who have real careers and opportunity.”

You built the management company mtheory, and in 2022, UMG acquired the company and decided it should be the backbone of its indie division, Virgin Music Group, with you two overseeing Ingrooves and Virgin. How did that happen? 

Nat Pastor: When we left the major-label system to build our own thing, it was at a time of great weakness for the majors. Over the 12 years that we were running mtheory, we got to try a lot of stuff: partner with artists in nontraditional ways, produce tours, strike direct deals with nascent [digital service providers], put out records. Nobody else would put out a Diplo record or no one else was paying attention to Skrillex. We found ourselves being bit players in a really exciting, transformational time in the independent space, and our company got to achieve a lot of success that otherwise hadn’t been possible. It changed how we viewed what independent labels, management companies [and] artists [could] achieve outside of the major- label system, and that was hugely formative for us spiritually.

J.T. Myers: Originally Lucian [Grainge, UMG CEO] said, “I want you to run my independent distribution company.” And our reaction was, “No, that sounds terrible.” Because distribution is a fundamental part of what we do, but it is simple … and not where the opportunity to add value was. Customers have more than 100 options to do that, including working with nobody.

We felt there’s more success among independent labels and artists at every level than ever before. We can be a catalyst to help empower that further and actually help the biggest music company in the world be a champion for independence, as weird or counterintuitive as that might sound. That’s the thing that we signed up to do.

Since then, Virgin has made several acquisitions, the biggest being Downtown Music. How are the Downtown companies integrating and enhancing Virgin’s business? 

Myers: The parts of their business that are the most analogous to what we were previously doing — FUGA and Downtown’s Artist and Label Services — have been going through an integration process. We’re going to continue that journey with Virgin and Ingrooves to try to have that come together as one thing, in the same way that we’ve been bringing [Integral into our portfolio from [PIAS]. Everybody in our sector is good at digital. What are the second-, third-, fourth-, 12th-most important things to a customer? It’s neighboring rights and synch and physical and [user-generated content] monetization. That’s where we are complementary with each other. 

Pastor: We had a road map of what we would have wanted when we were running mtheory if we were going to partner with Virgin Music Group. Mtheory had been a FUGA client in the old days. We knew they had great executives that were service-minded people. There was cultural alignment. [Downtown] checked off a bunch of the boxes that were on our road map to work with entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes. 

J.T., you’ve said in the past that it didn’t make sense for Virgin to add a DIY upload service, like CD Baby. What changed, and why this is a business Virgin wants to be in now? 

Myers: At the time, the answer was, “To what end?” There is so much data. We didn’t need to own an aggregator to see what was bubbling up. That remains true. We didn’t want to lose sight of why we were doing this. When you’re in the business of trying to have as many people upload as many tracks as possible and charge $30 [a year], you can end up embracing customers that aren’t real artists or have a different motivation. It was never about [not wanting] to be in business with emerging artists. I don’t like a business where you’re making money by charging people more than they generate in royalties, and it doesn’t matter whether that is a human being making music or AI-generated background noise. 

But there is a real opportunity there. There is an emergent class of creators who are making a living for the first time. And that’s powerful. We’re just trying to think about what we can do [beyond] letting people get music up on Spotify, which is almost trivial at this point. With AI, you can start to think about tools that you can deploy at scale to add value beyond just releasing music. 

Fraud is a serious concern for DIY distributors. How are you dealing with that at CD Baby? 

Myers: We are very careful about the trust and safety elements. We’re not excited about AI slop factories using a laissez-faire entrance into the system to skim money from real artists. The good news is a big area of our diligence process [was] understanding how Downtown approached that, and they had done an amazing job with technology, tools and other means policing that stuff quite well. We will help them continue that. There’s always room for improvement. It’s a constant cat and mouse game. Product features and pricing can offer ways to incentivize the people we want to be with us and disincentivize the people that we don’t want to be with us.

How can pricing help fend off bad actors? 

Myers: By not having unlimited uploads for an unlimited number of artists for one low, low price. That’s really attractive to bad actors. And CD Baby does not have a pricing structure like that. They’re on a revenue share [model]. If you’re a slop factory, you’re going to choose to go somewhere that’s not going to take 9% of your revenue. You’re going to go to the lowest cost provider. 

Pastor: The good news is Lucian leads the charge on this. He’s the guy out front saying we as an industry need to evolve. We get to benefit from the great investment from UMG. It’s not something we lose a lot of sleep over because at the end of the day, we know what initiatives we and they at Downtown have been doing, and they have been successful, so we will continue to develop those tools. And we know that we work with great artists who are creating things that fans love.

What are the margins like on CD Baby, and what do you need them to be to continue running a profitable business? 

Myers: Everybody knows the nature of the margins in our sector is lower than the traditional record-label margins. We’re used to operating in a lower-margin business, as is the concert promotion business and the agency business; everybody’s been very healthy in fairly low-margin businesses. CD Baby’s margins are quite consistent with the rest of our businesses. 

Are you able to into the UMG infrastructure and Michael Nash’s digital team?

Myers: That’s one of the nice things about being affiliated with Universal is they have a lot of people and clout to be addressing the big questions.

Pastor: We have the benefit of being our own self-contained, global organization [with] our own digital and physical supply chains. We get to be independent, yet we get to live under the umbrella and in the shadow of biggest, most influential music company in the world. JT and I talk to Michael Nash and Nash’s team multiple times a week when they’re making policy decisions, thinking about how to structure the next deal with the next music company … to have the ability to give the independent perspective on those decisions and negotiations is huge.

What it means to be independent has evolved over time, and you are owned by a major company but serve indie labels. With BMG and Concord becoming one company, the definition of independence might be even harder to pin down. Would they be a competitor? 

Pastor: We’re all leading experts in this field and we are not totally sure whether we’re  competitors with a new BMG Concord. There’s so much choice. Back in the days when I started my career in music, there were only a few doors you could enter if you wanted to have success as an artist. Today, those lines being so blurry is one reason that we feel so strongly that it’s the best time ever to be an artist. You have so many paths and so many choices and so many ways in which you can find success on your own terms. At the end of the day, that’s net positive for the whole music industry. 

A combination of factors — including a surging independent sector, a varied release schedule and some big albums shifting from current status to catalog — has made the first quarter of 2026 an aberration in comparison to the recent history of U.S. recorded-music market share. 

Still, some things don’t change: As has been the case for much of the past half-decade, big albums from Taylor Swift (The Life of a Showgirl) and Morgan Wallen (I’m the Problem) helped drive REPUBLIC to an industry-leading market share, ending the first quarter with a 9.98% current share, defined as albums released in the past 18 months, according to Luminate. (REPUBLIC’s market share includes Island, Big Loud, Mercury and Universal Records.) Yet those fluctuations in the quarter — as well as Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) and The Tortured Poets Department; Wallen’s One Thing at a Time; and Drake’s For All the Dogs all moving to catalog status — meant that REPUBLIC’s current share slipped below 10% in a quarter for the first time since 2022. 

Also shaking things up is Atlantic Music Group, which has capitalized on growing momentum over the past year to surge into second place, with an 8.76% share — its highest current market share since 2022, when it regularly posted figures north of 9%. (Atlantic’s market share also includes 300 Entertainment and 10K Projects.) Big projects from Bruno Mars and Don Toliver and continued success from singles by Kehlani and Alex Warren helped boost Atlantic to the No. 2 slot. Year-over-year comparisons for Atlantic are tough, as 10K, which on its own has a 1.69% current share this year, was not incorporated into its market share until the third quarter of 2025. 

Dropping to third is Interscope Geffen A&M, at a 7.95% share, a reflection of both its release schedule and two major releases of its own shifting to catalog: Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft and Gracie Abrams’ The Secret of Us. (IGA’s market share also includes Verve.) That’s down from a current score of 12.67% in last year’s first quarter, when it was the top label in the U.S. industry. 

All that upheaval among current titles at the top means that Universal Music Group’s current market share by distribution ownership dipped to 30.76% for the first quarter of 2026, down from the 36.82% it had in the first quarter of 2025. (Olivia Dean and J. Cole albums were big drivers in the quarter as well.) Each of its competitors — Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group and the collective independent sector — had gains year over year, with Sony closing the gap at the top with a 28.62% share, up more than a percentage point from last year, bringing it to within two points of UMG for the first time in years. (Sony owns indie distributor The Orchard, which has had a massive first three months of 2026.) Warner also jumped, increasing over 2% to 17.98% in the first quarter. But the biggest beneficiary was the indie sector, which grew from 19.92% last year to 22.65% in the first quarter of this year.

By label ownership, the indie sector’s growth is even more impressive: At 44.15%, indies collectively are by far the largest portion of the current music business in the United States, according to Billboard estimates based on Luminate data. Indies have had a big year so far with both Bad Bunny and Djo being big drivers for their labels, Rimas and Djo Music, respectively. Bad Bunny in particular had an extraordinarily strong beginning of the year, capped by his performance at the Super Bowl halftime show and victory at the Grammys for album of the year. Universal was second at 22.64%, followed by Warner’s 17.26% and Sony’s 15.95%. 

Beyond the top three among individual labels, Warner Records came in fourth by current market share with 5.54%, bolstered by a big January release from Zach Bryan, followed closely by a surging Columbia Records, whose 5.49% was up markedly from last year’s 4.25%, as Harry Styles, Ella Langley and Dominic Fike began to catch fire. Capitol Music Group (which includes Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol Christian and others) stayed in sixth, with a market share gain to 4.92% from last year’s 4.56%. RCA dipped to seventh, coming in at 3.23%, dropping from last year’s 4.83%, when it placed fifth in the first quarter. Rounding out the top 10 is another trio of Sony labels: Alamo Records (2.11%), Sony Music Nashville (1.91%) and Sony Music Latin (1.74%). 

Among label groups by distribution ownership, overall market share — which includes catalog titles as well as current — adhered much closer to the standard of the past few years. Universal’s industry-leading tally came in at 37.68%, followed by Sony’s 28.09% and a 19.38% share for WMG, with the indies at 14.84%. That represents a slight dip for both Universal and the indie sector year over year, while Sony and WMG both grew in market share. Interscope led an extremely close three-way race at the top among individual labels with 9.75%, closely followed by REPUBLIC (9.32%) and Atlantic (9.29%). 

In catalog share, Universal was even more dominant with a 39.76% share, with Sony at 27.93%, Warner at 19.80% and the indies at 15.35%. Interscope again led a tight race at the top with 10.28%, followed by Atlantic at 9.45% and REPUBLIC at 9.12%. 

A new Latin music festival is on the horizon with the announcement of Bamba set to debut in October in Chile.

Cofounded by Juanes and Lotus — the production company behind Lollapalooza Chile — along with their management team helmed by Rafael Restrepo, Bamba seeks to elevate Latin music by combining a world-class production with defining hospitality. 

“Bamba was born to take the experience of our music to another level,” said the Colombian singer-songwriter in a press statement. “We want to celebrate Latin talent and identity with the production quality of the world’s greatest stages, while maintaining that intimacy and warmth that define us. It is a space where our cultures meet to proudly celebrate who we are.”

The two-day festival taking place Oct. 24 and 25 at Parque O’Higgins in Santiago has a curated lineup that embraces rock, pop, alternative and dance music. 

In addition to Juanes, Marc Anthony, Fito Páez, Carlos Vives, Bomba Estéreo, Elena Rose, Orishas, Conociendo Rusia, Gale and Paloma Morphy — who won the 2025 Latin Grammy for best new artist — will form part of the lineup.  

“We want the public to be able to enjoy Latin American music in a new dimension, inviting those who love major concerts to experience them in a more intimate way,” added Sebastián de la Barra, director of Lotus. “We have designed a gathering featuring spacious settings and genuine hospitality, where the warmth of our spirit allows for a full connection with the music and energy of our region.” 

For more information, visit the festival’s website, and see the full lineup, below: