It took many years for the UK’s urban music scene to be taken seriously by the industry. But the success of the likes of Stormzy, Dave, Wiley and AJ Tracey, and the explosion of homegrown black music into the mainstream, was not only inevitable, but a game changer. With Latin beats now ruling the world, the two visionaries at Warner music who helped UK grime and drill break through, when it was still being ignored, have their sights set on broader horizons. For Austin Daboh, Executive Vice President of Atlantic Records and Trenton Harrison-Lewis, Senior Vice President of Warner Music UK, the future of music is staring them in the face: the UK’s very own global Latin stars.

While up till now the spotlight has been on Latin stars made in Miami, Austin saw something that was nowhere near the radar of most in the UK music industry “The Latin music scene in the UK is growing incredibly quickly, and we’re excited to make history by becoming the first UK frontline label to partner with a UK based Latino label.” 

Indeed last month Warner announced the signing of a partnership between Atlantic Records UK, Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA), Warner Music Group’s multi-award-winning label services division and UK-Latin based label Candela Records.

Daboh, who sold the idea to Atlantic and engineered the deal, said that when he mentioned the idea of finding and nurturing UK-Latin talent, “everyone at Atlantic and ADA got excited about shining a spotlight on this incredibly vibrant music scene and to finding the Latino superstars of the future.”

“We think it’s incredibly important that we help serve what we believe is an under-served community in the UK. Together we will find incredible new talent that will shine on the global stage,” added Harrison-Lewis.  

Trenton Harrison-Lewis
  
Behind Candela Records, which is at the heart of this agreement, are two figures who have been working on the London music scene for many years: Luciano Santana Pinto and José Luis Seijas, Candela Records co-founders. 

In Seijas and Pinto, Trenton Harrison-Lewis affirms that Atlantic found what it was looking for in its quest to build a UK Latin music brand.  “The team at Candela Records have their fingers on the pulse of Latin culture in the UK.”

Indeed, Caracas-born Seijas established himself as one of Europe's leading Latin DJs and events promoters during the last two decades. He pioneered the urban Latin movement in Europe in the early noughties with its largest reggaetón club night, La Bomba at the Ministry of Sound, taking it Europe in what would become the very first reggaetón residency in Pacha, Ibiza. Luciano Santana Pinto, born in London to Chilean parents, was one of the founding members of Rumba FM, the UK's pioneering Latino pirate station, reflecting the tastes of the new UK-Latin generation. Currently his platform @latinoshaderoom is the UK's most popular Latino social media channel and has positioned Luciano as one of the most influential young Latinos in Britain.

Not only the Uk's first urbal Latin music label, but also the UK's first ever urban Latin festival stage!

The newly established Candela Records aims to develop the Latino sounds of London, which fuse the city's unique urban beats with the sound of the Latin Caribbean and bring this unique hybrid to the global stage. The special partnership will give Atlantic Records UK and ADA elements to help the Candela Records team sign and develop new artists and distribute their current roster, including Angelo Flow and Esko, globally.

Seijas is confident that the time is ripe for artists from the UK Latin Music scene to breakthrough: “Our community has gone through a transition similar to what British black music went through, which used to be heavily influenced by US hip hop and R&B but is now all about its own unique sound and beats. British-Latino kids today are no longer just importing Latin music and playing it here, they are making new music born of their influences growing up as Latinos in London.”

‘The label was not luck, just work’

Candela Records is the product a culture bubbling under the surface for many years, insists Jose Luis. “Candela Records is happening because there has been a lot of people working for a long time towards this. There are many Djs, promoters, curators, music people and fans that wanted this for many years. It’s not luck, but years of blood, sweat, tears and passion.” His own experience, skills and ambition found a match in Luciano’s with the launching of Candela, and it took the better part of a year to forge the deal with Atlantic Records and ADA. 

But in these things there is always an element of luck. Luciano was the first to be contacted by “a really cool guy” at an event, where he was managing a hip-hop group. “I was a social media guy, sending out invites all day, when I got a hit  from a guy called Austin Daboh. I decided to invite him to be my contact. He gave me really good feedback which provided a blueprint that catapulted me forward and that's when I started taking the Latino schedule much more seriously. I felt that if Austin could see me doing this, so could I.” 

When Austin Daboh became the Vice President of one of the biggest record labels in the world, he invited Luciano in for a meeting, leading to various other meetings until the deal was struck. 

Luciano and Jose Luis agree that “now is the time for a massive shift…a lot of people might see this deal as a big achievement. But for us this is just the beginning, and a responsibility. The game is just starting now”.

From Venezuela to Chile via London

Sitting in the offices at Warner UK, the diverse Latin London experiences of Jose Luis and Luciano converge. Born to Chilean parents, Luciano is the epitome of a Latino made in London. He admits that he got into trouble as a kid because he felt like an outsider. “At home only Spanish was spoken and we only listened to Latin music, but at school I was the only person in my class that spoke Spanish. I grew up with Africans, Jamaicans, Arabs, Muslims but I wasn't able to reconcile my Latino identity outside of the home in those first early years of my life. I struggled a lot with identity and feeling like I belonged.”

“There wasn’t any high-profile Latinos in the media or music here, my big influences were American rappers, like Big Pun and Fat Joe. Then one of my African friends said “hey he’s Latino as well’. That was really empowering for me because it was like this guy from New York rapping in English and at the top of the game and he was Latino as well. That was the first time I could identify with someone properly and then I started to do my research and found out about Cyprus Hill and all the other great Latino rappers at the time.”

Later, when Luciano was only 13 years old, his elder brothers introduced him into the world of pirate radio, where he started as DJ. Around 2003 Luciano met Jose Luis at the Latin Splash Festival in Clapham Common and from that moment their paths began to cross in London’s burgeoning reggaetón scene.

Jose Luis’ story began with his migration to the UK in the late 90s at the age of 18. “I dived right into London life. I just loved this city from the start and I still think it’s phenomenal,” he says. “I felt right at home in the salsa clubs. One of the nicest things about Latin culture is how open we are. You could find people from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East all in one place, sharing their passion for Latin music.”

Jose Luis soon followed his own passion, which was Latin music’s new street expression: reggaetón. He started travelling to Puerto Rico and bringing over DJs to his club nights at MoS, taking the likes of Daddy Yankee sightseeing before they were superstars. But he particularly saw how reggaetón inspired a whole generation of Latinos, like Luciano, born in the UK. He began nurturing young rappers and is still seen as a godfather by many of those kids who came to his parties. “Yup, Luciano was one of those kids,” Jose Luis laughs, “and now we’re partners!”