During the Sony Music Publishing Icon Q&A session with JOP (Jesus Ortiz Paz), the Fuerza Regida frontman sat down with his team of writers on Wednesday (Oct. 16) for Billboard Latin Music Week 2024 to offer a glimpse into his career and vision with his band and label Street Mob Records.

The session was introduced by Jorge Mejía, president/CEO of Sony Music Publishing Latin America and U.S. Latin, and moderated by Leila Cobo, chief content officer for Billboard Latin/Español. Here are the best quotes from the conversation:

JOP:

Armenta:

Diego Millán (Calle 24):

Cristian Avila García:

Latin Music Week coincides with the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards set to air at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 20, on Telemundo. It will simultaneously be available on Universo, Peacock and the Telemundo app, and in Latin America and the Caribbean through Telemundo Internacional.

Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. 

This week: A new Gracie Abrams hit bumps a similarly titled old favorite, Lil Baby scores a viral hit with an unlikely guest verse and The Penguin starts to show its value as a TV synch source.

‘Sorry’ Not Sorry: Gracie Abrams’ Viral Hit Becomes Her Highest-Charting Hot 100 Entry

On Tuesday night, Gracie Abrams wrapped up the U.S. leg of her The Secret of Us tour in Philadelphia, which found the singer-songwriter playing to her biggest audiences yet following the June release of her sophomore album; three days after that final headlining show, she’ll be in Miami, back as an opener on Taylor Swift’s Eras tour through the stadium trek’s conclusion in December. Along with the two high-profile tours, Abrams has watched a pair of her songs — including her latest single from The Secret of Us — take off on U.S. streaming services, yielding what is now her biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit to date.

The lilting strum-along “I Love You, I’m Sorry” has been a topic of discussion on social media for weeks — first with pop fans arguing over the quality of its official music video and Abrams’ gentle performance on the song, then with a TikTok trend supporting Abrams’ vocal take (literally called “whisper allegation beater”), and finally with a Vevo live performance of the track that fans rallied behind following its Oct. 2 release. The chatter has helped the song’s weekly U.S. on-demand streams soar from 7.38 million during the week ending Sept. 5 to 11.35 million during the week ending Oct. 10, according to Luminate.

As those streams have helped “I Love You, I’m Sorry” streak upward on the Hot 100 — moving up from No. 53 to No. 31 on this week’s tally, Abrams’ first solo top 40 entry — an older Abrams song, “I Miss You, I’m Sorry,” has also benefitted, thanks to longtime fans championing the 2020 track that belatedly received a titular callback. “I Miss You, I’m Sorry” earned 2.5 million streams during the week ending Sept. 5, but in the most recent tracking week, that number had jumped to 3.73 million — a 48% gain over those five weeks, not too far off from the 53% jump for “I Love You, I’m Sorry.” – JASON LIPSHUTZ

---

No Hate for Lil Baby’s Guest Verse on Italian Rapper’s ‘Canzone D’Odio’

Just a couple years after unquestionably being one of the most ubiquitous rappers in popular music, Lil Baby’s mainstream presence has been a little more sparse the past couple years. But now he might be on his way back to another viral hit with as a guest rapper – no surprise there, except for the artist he’s supporting: Italian MC Lazza, whose Italian-language single “Canzone D’Odio” (in English: “Hate Song”) Baby has turned up on, with a verse in English. 

“Canzone” originally appeared on Lazza’s Locura album – the rapper’s third straight set to top Italy’s FIMI Albums Chart – before catching fire internationally online. Listeners were of course intrigued by hearing such a recognizable American voice on an otherwise Italian-language song, leading to the song climbing to No. 2 on Shazam’s United States top 200 chart. Fans have flooded the YouTube comments for the video in praise of Baby’s guest verse, with many wishing for a version of the song with just his part. 

The song has also begun to ignite on streaming services as well. The song has grown by over 300% in official on-demand U.S. streams each of the last two weeks, according to Luminate, and posted over one million streams during the past tracking week, ending Oct. 10. That’s not enough yet to really threaten a Hot 100 bow – but if the song continues to grow from here, the new collaborators may be “cin cin”-ing to Lil Baby’s 142nd career entry on the chart before long. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER

---

‘The Penguin’ Synchs March to Greater Streaming Numbers

Back in the ‘90s, a big Batman placement for a pop song was one of the surest paths to pop success: Just ask Seal, who had his lone Hot 100 No. 1 hit with a Batman Forever soundtrack single (“Kiss From a Rose” in 1995). While the Christopher Nolan-era Dark Knight trilogy of the early 21st century wasn’t as interested in creating big musical moments, Batman refound its pop footing in 2022 with The Batman, which created a chart hit out of grunge legends Nirvana’s once-deep cut “Something in the Way” – even getting the 30-plus-year-old Nevermind-closing ballad onto the Hot 100 for the first time.

Now, the Gothamverse is aiding the music world again, thanks to the well-received new HBO crime drama The Penguin, starring Colin Farrell as the titular villain (anti-hero?) and taking place after the events of the 2022 Batman. The bumps for songs featured are thusfar more modestly scaled than “Something in the Way” post-The Batman, but synth-pop outfit Floor Cry’s cover of the Turtles’ 1967 pop classic “Happy Together” spiked 616% to nearly 93,000 weekly official on-demand U.S. streams in the two weeks after the moody rendition was featured over the end credits to The Penguin’s second episode. Similarly, EDM duo Bob Moses’ seething electro-funk banger “Broken Belief” was up 1,779% for the week ending Oct. 10, to nearly 81,000 streams, after being featured in an episode three montage. 

Given the muscle it’s already showing with its synchs, it might only be a matter of time before The Penguin finds the right hit, new or old, to put back over the top – “Earth Angel,” perhaps? – AU

Mariah Carey is looking back at some of the most defining moments of her career.

The chanteuse sat down with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang for a new episode of the duo’s Las Culturistas podcast, where Carey revealed how much her sixth studio album, Butterfly, meant to her. “It definitely has very special significance to me. I think it’s probably my best album,” she revealed.

When Rogers replied that he doesn’t understand why Butterfly “doesn’t have all the accolades,” Carey agreed. “It has zero accolades, I think,” she joked, before adding, “I love that album. It has a certain feeling when you listen to it. It’s just got a lot of diversity. You go from ‘Breakdown’ to ‘Butterfly’ to ‘My All.’”

The collection was released in September 1997 and featured the singles “Honey,” “Breakdown,” “The Roof” and the title tracks. The project debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album’s chart and was certified five-times platinum but the Recording Industry Association of America. While the project did not receive a Grammy, in 1998, “Honey” was nominated for best female R&B vocal performance and “Butterfly” was nominated for best female pop vocal performance.

Butterfly also represented a musical freedom for Carey, as she took control of her creative vision and began playing with hip-hop-influenced R&B to balance the pop and adult contemporary musical style fans were used to up until then.

To celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2022, the superstar reflected on the project via social media, writing, “I will never forget the day I released this album to the world. I had never felt more exposed and vulnerable yet free and euphoric at the same time. It was a true EMANCIPATION (no pun intended!) of my spirit, soul and innermost feelings which I poured into every lyric and every note on every song. 25 years later, it’s still one of the proudest moments of my life & career.”

Watch Carey’s full Las Culturistas interview below.

Lil Nas X‘s 2019 smash “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, has maintained some pretty impressive records on the Billboard charts. But five years later, he’s happily passing the torch to two other artists.

Last week, Kendrick Lamar‘s “Not Like Us” broke the record for most weeks at No. 1 (21) on Billboard‘s Hot Rap Songs chart — where it has now spent 22 weeks at the top, chart dated Oct. 19) — surpassing the 20-week streak of “Old Town Road.” “It was a good run ! the horses are officially actually in the back now! Congratulations to Kendrick!” Lil Nas X tweeted on Wednesday (Oct. 16) in response to NFR Podcast‘s post sharing Billboard‘s reporting.

But “Not Like Us” wasn’t the only song that moved past “Old Town Road” on a chart. On Tuesday, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” — which has been No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 weeks (and counting) — broke the record for most weeks at No. 1 (20) on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100, surpassing the 19-week streak of “Old Town Road.” “It was a good run ! the horses are officially actually in the back now! Congratulations to Shaboozey!” Lil Nas X wrote on X in response to Chart Data’s post sharing Billboard‘s reporting.

“Old Town Road,” which was the lead single from Lil Nas X’s major label debut EP 7, is still the longest-leading No. 1 in Hot 100 chart history, with 19 weeks at the penthouse suite.