Meet Paopao, one of the Talented Puerto Rican Women Artists Shaking the Genre

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Working behind the scenes in the industry makes you learn all you need to know to take the spotlight when you’re ready to. And that’s the case of successful Grammy-winning singer-songwriter paopao. Born Paola Nicole Marrero Rodríguez (Bayamón, 1996), she’s one of those rising Latina stars that come from the Puerto Rican scene and are now changing the game.

With a groundbreaking style described as a mix of Reggaeton and Alternative pop, paopao has achieved the biggest recognizement in the industry for Chiqui’s song “Ticket de Salida,” and has achieved to work with some of the well-known names in the industry, like Mora, Omar Courtz or Villano Antillano, among others. She recently made a star appearance in Tainy’s “La Baby” music video, a song featured by Feid, Daddy Yankee and Sech, from his latest work DATA.

A Dream with Constant Dedication

We know that making it in the music industry is anything but easy. Many talented artists fall by the wayside, because to tackle this world you have to have several qualities: knowing how and where to move. And paopao has mastered both.

The Puerto Rican first studied at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, where she obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. However, it was not so clear to me from the beginning.

«In college, my dreams of being an artist were knocked down because the professors I had didn’t make it, so I graduated and didn’t know what to do,» the artist declared in an interview.

But she finally found the way: the Puerto Rican did internships at various music studios and publishers, managing to start working in 2019 as an A&R and Label Manager at several independent Latin music labels, where she remained throughout 2020.

Without straying from her dream of being an artist and songwriter, she worked late into the night, composing songs for other artists, and developing her own musical identity. In early 2021, Paopao signed her first record and publishing contract with the independent Latin music label, RichMusic, later releasing her debut single «pal sex» in September 2021, garnering over 254,000 views on YouTube and paving her way towards a promising music career.

Girl Power & New Generation of Puerto Rican Female Artists

The Puerto Rican wanted to bring flow and female representation to the genre but she didn’t want to do it just any other way, she wanted to polish the essence, to bring a real nuance, something new.

«The record labels were seeking stereotypes and formulas of female empowerment. These were sessions written by men, where they included women just for the sake of being able to say they had a woman involved,» the artist revealed (…) Empowerment is great, but they were executing it poorly. It was as if there was a list of trendy concepts or words: ‘I pay my own way. (…) I don’t need you’,» she affirms.

Shortly after and during Women’s History Month, her empowering hembrismo (2022) would come (meaning «hembrism,» a concept referring to the superiority of the female gender). A title that perfectly reflects the content of her first EP, since it’s a release that features exclusively female voices of artists like La Gabi, Villano Antillano, Aria Vega and Cami Da Baby. hembrismo already surpasses more than 3,1 million streams on Spotify.

This musical success earned Paopao her first nomination at the 2022 Premios Juventud in the «Girl Power» category with her single «roce.» She later drop her second EP and first solo work diamantes y espinas, her first solo work after two successful collaborative EPs. A launch with an unprecedented increase in her audience (gaining more than 4.6 million streams on Spotify) after Bad Bunny supported her work on his social media.

She has already teamed up with numerous outstanding artists in the scene like Mora in their popular collab “algo así remix,” or Argentine FMK and Mexican Ingratax in «cuenta remix,» among many others.

paopao belongs to a new generation of Latina artists that are bringing different styles and visions to the urban genre, taking it to another level. In the Puerto Rican scene, there are many other voices shaking the game, like the iconic Villano Antillano, Young Miko or the talented singer-songwriter Elena Rose, among others.