We all know that Despacito took the world by storm in 2017. The Luis Fonsi song featuring Daddy Yankee recently crossed 4 billion views on YouTube making it the most viewed music video in the history of the world. Last month, I overheard two people at the airport debating the thrust behind the song’s mega success. One person believed it was all due to the Justin Bieber vocals in the song. The other was making the case that Latin music had the kind of global appeal that few English language artists could match. No question that Bieber’s presence added to the novelty of the song, but if Bieber is solely responsible for the song’s success, how do you explain Despacito being more than twice as successful as any Bieber song has ever been? YouTube recently released its top 10 videos for 2017, and 7 out of 10 were either in Spanish or featured a Latino artist (FYI – Bruno Mars is Puerto Rican). Something big is happening in music and it’s being driven by what we call the new mainstream economy. The YouTube Top 10 can be viewed here.