Everything Wrong with Casting Billie Eilish and Rosalía as “Latinx”

On Jan. 21, Billie Eilish and Rosalía finally released a song two years in the making, “Lo Vas a Olvidar.” Created for the television show “Euphoria,” the track is powerful and full of emotion. Despite the song’s minimal production, it is easy to get lost in the beauty of each individual sound layer. But the problem arose in how it was promoted. Spotify placed this song in their ¡Viva Latino! playlist, even though neither Billie Eilish nor Rosalía are Latinx. Spotify putting “Lo Vas a Olvidar” in their ¡Viva Latino! playlist is problematic on many levels. Rosalía is from Barcelona, Spain, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from Latin America; Eilish is an American singer of Irish and Scottish descent. Whether this was a marketing strategy or a fault on Spotify’s part is difficult to decipher.

This choice fits within a pattern of colonialism. White people continue to colonize cultures and languages that do not belong to them. First, it was Justin Bieber mocking the Spanish language in a club and singing the wrong lyrics from his collaboration with Luis Fonsi, “Despacito,” on Instagram Live. Now, we get Billie Eilish similarly clueless as to what she is singing.

It is exhausting to constantly hear Americans like Eilish attempt to expand their audience by singing in Spanish when they are not respecting the language and culture, not even understanding the meaning of what they are singing and its contextual significance. We do not need another “I don’t know the words so I say Dorito.” It is insensitive to mock a language that a large portion of your fanbase speaks on a daily basis. Still, Eilish is less at fault here because she actually worked on “‘Lo Vas a Olvidar” with Rosalía for months, asking if she was singing and pronouncing the words correctly. While she may not particularly understand the words she is singing, she is at least putting in the effort to present a work that closely resembles the native tongue.

Nonetheless, it is crystal clear that neither of these singers are Latinx — so why put the song on a playlist meant to celebrate Latinx musicians?

Spotify put this shoe in a box that it didn’t fit in and there’s a lot to unpack. It makes sense to want this song to be advertised in a way that will attract as many listeners as possible, but this is not the way. We now have Billie Eilish in a playlist alongside classic Latinx artists like Daddy Yankee and Bad Bunny. This just does not sit well, according to the many unhappy with the decision. The song could have been branded as a “Euphoria” tracklist highlight or honestly just as a brand new collaboration between two thriving artists. There was no need to categorize the track as something it is not.

This is a recurring issue with both Spotify and Apple Music and their attempts to put labels on certain artists or songs. It is 2021; we are well past the need to confine music to specific genres now that we are able to browse endless archives within these streaming platforms.

“Lo Vas A Olvidar” is a dynamic duet full of raw emotion and deserves recognition. It’s a good song, but it doesn’t belong in the ¡Viva Latino! playlist. The algorithm of music genre classification needs to change as soon as possible, because it is getting old seeing white people infiltrate Latinx charts and playlists. Artist exploration should be encouraged, but the results should never be labelled as something they are not.