Soccer superstar, Ronaldo and singer/actress, Selena Gomez top the list of Instagram followers with 144.6M and 144.4M followers respectively. Granted Insta followers is only one metric, but it further demonstrates how Latinos and stars from the Iberian Peninsula are continuing to exert their influence on the mainstream sports and entertainment world. Many music experts are saying the success of songs like Despacito are not a fluke but rather a trend for which there is no end in sight. One streaming music service believes that in five years 40% of all pop music in America will be Latin. An interesting article and list of the Latin music power players appeared in Billboard magazine last month. You can check it out here. With L’ATTITUDE 2.0 only ten months away, Sol Trujillo and I are traveling to Miami to meet with a couple of the music moguls on this list. I’ll keep you posted!
“Boomerang” was a different kind of film. It was a movie about friendship, loyalty, and romance set in NYC at a medium-sized Black-led company that sold beauty products. Boomerang had an all-black cast and a plot that had nothing to do with being Black. While that was unheard of at the time, Murphy was such a big star that it didn’t seem like a big deal.
About a year ago, I was convinced by some of my closest friends that I should do a podcast. Today it seems like everyone has a podcast, and frankly, 99% of them aren’t very good. I wasn’t sure I could do much better, but I realized I do have some ideas that some people have found interesting in the past.
The decision to invite President Barack Obama to the NAHREP Policy Conference last Spring was a decision I made with the NAHREP National Board. Anytime we have a political figure of that stature at one of our events, we know it will stimulate a lot of buzz among our members and stakeholders.