The Corridos Study

01Introduction

Corridos is one of the most interesting stories in music right now as a niche genre that is growing at a rate most mainstream genres can’t match. Built on a centuries-old Mexican storytelling tradition and modernized through the trap-influenced corridos tumbados subgenre, it has produced the first #1 on the Spotify Global Top 50 from a Mexican artist (Xavi's "La Diabla") and is the third fastest-growing genre in the world by superstar growth rate. And what's most impressive - nearly the entirety of this growth has been driven by independent artists.

This study draws on Duetti’s proprietary industry and revenue data and Chartmetric’s career-stage and audience data across 19,655 corridos artists to examine how the genre is growing and what that growth means for independent artists within it.

02A Niche Genre Growing at an Incredible Rate

According to data from Duetti, corridos is estimated to account for roughly 3.0% of global streams. By that measure, it is still a niche genre, but that number has doubled from 1.5% in 2020 in a streaming market that itself has grown substantially over the same period. Measured by growth rate rather than absolute size, corridos is one of the fastest-growing genres on the planet.

The growth at the artist level mirrors the streaming numbers. Based on Chartmetric data, 12.8k artists are currently tagged as “corridos” while 9.5k artists are tagged as the modernized subgenre “corridos tumbados,” a 71% (7,466 → 12,771) and 360% (2,063 → 9,488) increase since the beginning of 2021, respectively.

Charmetric’s superstar tier, defined as roughly the top 2,600 artists across all genres in the world, now includes 53 corridos artists, which is up from just 10 in 2021. Corridos tumbados has grown even faster: from 2 superstars to 28 over the same period, a 14× increase. Artists that were developing or not even in our data a few years ago, including Chino Pacas, Xavi, and Gabito Ballesteros, all now rank as superstars. Among all niche genres gaining representation in the superstar tier, corridos now ranks third.

Growth Outside of Mexico

Duetti’s data shows that this market share growth is not only fueled by the genre’s home country, but is happening around the globe. What’s more, both independent corridos artists (which Chartmetric defines as those not signed to a label) and signed artists are growing their market share across most major markets, signaling that the genre's expansion is benefitting a broader group of artists around the world.

And while the genre is growing outside Mexico and the US, it still has significant room for expansion, as no single international market has yet crossed 5% of listener share. According to Chartmetric, the largest international listener markets are Colombia (3.5% of listeners), Guatemala (2.1%), Ecuador (1.7%), Argentina (1.5%), and Spain (1.3%). Notably, corridos' international audience is almost entirely within the Spanish-speaking world.