Latin music style known as Regional Mexican marks another milestone in its popularity

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

The Latin music style known as Regional Mexican, is having a moment. This week, the chart-topping artist known as Peso Pluma visited Argentina's influential producer Bizzarap, and they almost broke the internet. Here's Alt.Latino co-host Anamaria Sayre.

ANAMARIA SAYRE, BYLINE: OK. So two key players here. Peso Pluma is a 23-year-old super-popular new artist coming out of Guadalajara in Mexico. He's part of a movement that is reimagining a classic Mexican genre with a modern twist. Basically, he's taking our grandparents music and adding some hip-hop sensibilities to it.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

PESO PLUMA: (Singing in Spanish).

SAYRE: Now, Bizzarap is this young producer from Argentina who invites Latin artists to come join him in his studio for a collaborative session that he publishes on his incredibly popular YouTube channel. And let me tell you, these sessions do numbers. He did one with Shakira recently, and it's already hit 557 million views. So the performance of this super-popular young dude from Guadalajara on what may be the single most influential music platform in Latin America right now blew up almost instantaneously. It dropped on Wednesday night, and 19 hours later, it had 17 million views.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BIZZARAP: (Singing in Spanish).

SAYRE: What makes this a huge deal is that Peso Pluma is the first Regional artist to join Bizzarap for one of his sessions, and the track's instant reach all across Latin America shows just how influential the genre has become. In this case, Bizzarap is sitting in his producer's studio chair down there in the Southern Cone, watching his own platform be elevated by a genre that was once only popular along the U.S.-Mexico border. It's a fascinating musical development that also happens to be fun to dance to.

FADEL: That's Anamaria Sayre with NPR's Alt.Latino. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.