Latin Music Week 2026: Mau y Ricky & Carlos Rivera Discuss What Defines Latin Pop Music Today
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Mau y Ricky, Carlos Rivera and producer Na’vi discussed what defines Latin pop during a 30-minute panel at Billboard Latin Music Week. They described pop as a broad, accessible category that can include regional, urban and ballad influences, while stressing that trust between artists and producers helps them take creative risks.
Ricky said artists can remain classified as pop across very different sounds, while Rivera linked the genre’s reach to music that listeners across countries can relate to. The speakers also reflected on personal songwriting and artistic identity: Mau said it took 13 years for him and Ricky to find their blend of pop and urban music. The week coincides with the 2026 Billboard Latin Music Awards, set to air on 22 October from Miami.
- Latin pop spans styles and influences.
- Trust can help artists take creative risks.
- The awards air on 22 October from Miami.
Full account
Mau y Ricky, Carlos Rivera and producer Na’vi opened Billboard Latin Music Week’s first artist panel on Wednesday 21 October with a discussion of what Latin pop means today. In the 30-minute session, titled ‘The Many Faces of Latin Pop’, they described a category broad enough to include ballads, urban rhythms and influences from regional Mexican music. Their answers suggested that an artist’s place in pop may depend as much on how audiences recognise their work as on the sound of any individual song.
Ricky traced the word ‘pop’ to ‘popular’ and said it still serves as a broad label. Mau y Ricky, he explained, are identified as pop artists even when they record a dembow track with Arcángel or draw on other traditions. Rivera placed more emphasis on accessibility: he described pop as music that can connect with listeners across countries without relying heavily on one country’s regional conventions. For him, the international reach of Latin pop in the 1990s illustrated that appeal.
The conversation also turned to the relationships behind the recordings. Na’vi said a producer needs to understand an artist personally before working on songs, so that the artist feels able to show both talent and vulnerability. Mau agreed that trust makes it easier to experiment and take creative risks. Ricky offered a more intimate example in ‘Las Flores’, a song he wrote for Mau. He said writing alone about such deep feelings brought anxiety, but that some experiences are personal enough that the person living them must find the words.
Family history and musical inheritance formed another part of the discussion. Mau said growing up as the sons of singer Ricardo Montaner exposed the brothers to his demanding approach to lyrics, while finding their own identity took years. He linked that eventual sense of direction to their blend of pop and urban music. Rivera, reflecting on his own position as a ballad singer, placed Montaner among successive generations of Latin balladeers and identified Sin Bandera as a turning point in Latin pop. The available account ends partway through Rivera’s remarks, so it does not establish how he developed that point.
Where outlets differ
The supplied reports cover different panels rather than offering competing accounts of this discussion. Source 1 reports the Wednesday Latin pop panel with Mau y Ricky, Rivera and Na’vi. Source 2 covers a Tuesday women’s panel focused on artistic identity, resilience and career development; it provides no account of what the Latin pop panellists said.