Somewhere between Havana and Hollywood, Camila Cabello has become the global pop equivalent of a diplomatic passport—stamped by Miami, validated by London, and occasionally detained by Beijing’s censors for “excessive pelvic swaying.” Born in Cojímar to a Mexican father and a Cuban mother, then shuttled across hemispheres like a well-mixed mojito, Cabello embodies the 21st-century…
Rauw Alejandro: The Last Caribbean Export That Isn’t a Tax Haven By the time you read this, the young man born Raúl Alejandro Ocasio Ruiz in San Juan has already racked up another million streams, another fashion-week cameo, another TikTok challenge that will eventually be cited by behavioral economists as proof that attention spans now…
Kali Uchis: America’s Newest Export in Soft-Focus Nostalgia and Hard-Edged Irony By Our Correspondent Who Has Spent Too Many Nights in Airport Lounges Listening to Elevator Bossa Nova Medellín → Los Angeles → Your Algorithm—The career arc of Karly-Marina Loaiza, better known as Kali Uchis, is a tidy parable for the age of planetary pop-on-demand….
The Punjabi Diaspora’s Favorite Baritone: Karan Aujla and the Globalization of Revenge Pop By Our Man in the Duty-Free Lounge Somewhere between the 39,000-foot cruising altitude of Emirates EK215 and the fluorescent hell of LAX baggage claim, Karan Aujla’s bass line is rattling in a stranger’s AirPods. The song—“52 Bars”—isn’t technically new, yet it’s charting…
Jess Glynne and the Universal Art of Not Giving a Damn By Our Correspondent Somewhere between Terminal 3 and Existential Crisis In the grand casino of global pop, where chips are counted in Spotify streams and the house always wins unless your name rhymes with “Lizzo,” Jess Glynne has quietly become the house wine: reliably…
Karol G and the Globalization of Reggaeton Guilt By Dave’s Locker, International Desk In a world where half of Europe is re-nationalizing its energy grids and the other half is busy banning TikTok, Colombia’s Carolina Giraldo—known to Spotify, Interpol, and your downstairs neighbor as “Karol G”—has quietly become a one-woman IMF for the Spanish-speaking pop…
Meghan Trainor and the Global Bass Line of Late-Stage Capitalism By our man in the departure lounge Somewhere above the North Atlantic, between the in-flight sushi and the eighth rewatch of “All About That Bass,” it hit me: Meghan Trainor is the perfect sonic ambassador for an era when geopolitical borders are closing but pop…
