Antonio Vazquez, Head of U.S. Latin Editorial at Spotify, is the mastermind behind Fuego. For the Record chatted with Antonio to be taught extra concerning the playlist and this game-changing alternative for collaboration.
What does it imply for Spotify to open the expertise to followers and introduce a brand new sort of collaboration?
Creating area for playlist innovation is Fuego’s final mission. Last yr, we set our minds to interrupt the mildew of a conventional playlist by introducing Fuego Mixtapes, the weekly pulse of Latinx youth tradition.
This time, we’re launching the following step within the evolution of Fuego: interactivity. We consider it performs a giant position in how individuals expertise music, and having them really feel a part of Fuego is one thing that’s vital to us.
There is a rising want for self-expression, particularly amongst youthful audiences, so we needed Fuego to be the place the place they might have a voice and discover their creativity and taste-making skills.
Ultimately, we’re trying to construct the primary neighborhood playlist, the place followers, cultural influencers, and Spotify editors can speak to one another, take part, and share a standard curiosity—all powered by Fuego.
How do you strategy the method of curating the Fuego playlist?
We observe a easy Fuego recipe, which can also be one thing we’ve requested our customers to have in mind when submitting their mixtapes on the microsite.
It consists of:
- A brief and digestible tracklist (20-25 songs)
- Quite a lot of artists—new and outdated, traditional and contemporary
- Diverse Latin genres, from reggaeton to digital and entice—we’re all the time showcasing Latin music’s vary
- Vision—tying the curation along with a theme
We use this recipe each week, ensuring we get to one thing distinctive and totally different each time to shock and delight our listeners.
Can you share a number of the elements that go into retaining the mixtapes contemporary?
The concept of refreshing the playlist in its entirety comes from the perception that there are millions of customers who come again to their favourite editorial playlists each week. We needed to reward that loyalty with an expertise the place they might uncover a very new set of songs each time, blended with curated picks so good they gained’t wish to miss them.
Latin music’s richness lets us play with totally different genres and themes each week. While the vast majority of the mixtapes have a rhythmic and urbano-leaning part, we now have additionally explored fusions with Latin digital, indie, and most not too long ago, Musica Mexicana. The reception has been nice on these.
Keeping up to date on new releases and nice music is a crucial a part of your job. What position do followers play on this?
As music editors, it’s our position to remain on high of the most recent tendencies in Latin tradition. We’re not solely sifting by a excessive quantity of recent releases each week, but additionally rediscovering catalog music that resurfaces and creates new connections with music followers.
Since launching the Fuego Mixtapes marketing campaign and microsite a few weeks in the past, there’s been an amazing response, with 1000’s of submissions. This has allowed us to find songs and rising artists we had by no means heard of earlier than. Hence the significance of bringing customers into the dialog—there are some unimaginable tastemakers on the market!
What initially impressed Fuego? We hear gaming performed a job?
We needed to create a playlist model that allowed Spotify to innovate and suppose exterior the field. That’s why we regarded to infuse our curation with some dynamism by concepts like a shorter format, weekly updates, and archival content material customers can return to. We additionally needed so as to add new layers of interactivity (person and visitor curators).
Those within the gaming trade are absolute professionals in constructing communities of a number of the most passionate followers. The manner they maximize their IP and ship steady content material updates for his or her video games was an enormous inspiration for Fuego, from the creation of our flamy Fuego character to the best way we’ve been rolling out new options and content material on the playlist.
What alternatives can Fuego supply manufacturers that different sorts of playlists could not?
Fuego has resonated closely with younger Gen Z audiences, which is a phase that many manufacturers are continuously attempting to determine. The playlist model and positioning lends itself to be unpredictable as we attempt to supply novel experiences.
We’re not afraid of failing if one thing doesn’t go the best way we needed since that’s how we proceed pushing the boundaries of what playlists can turn out to be sooner or later. Brands can faucet into Fuego for any cool concepts that different, extra inflexible and established playlists usually are not capable of entertain.
Check out the Fuego playlist, and hold an eye fixed out for brand new takeovers debuting every week.