Darlene Lopez helps artists sell out without selling out. As a first-generation Peruvian-American, Darlene’s career goal has been to thrive at the intersection of culture and technology. So what does that look like in this digital age? Latin music.

With close to 10 years working in entertainment, Darlene has championed the latest wave of Latin music at tech titans Apple and TikTok. She led the Latin music business for TikTok, successfully advocating for the globalization of Mexican Music with artists like Fuerza Regida, Eslabon Armado, and Peso Pluma.

Prior to TikTok, Darlene spent five years at Apple Music overseeing Latin music business partnerships and building out the global strategy for the genre. There, she helped launch Apple’s first artist-led playlist, ¡Dale Play! with Bad Bunny and Drake, as well as project managing Bad Bunny’s Artist of the Year campaign in 2022, among other global campaigns with artists like KAROL G and Rauw Alejandro.

Now, Darlene has followed in her parents’ footsteps and started her own small business: a digital marketing agency named Evoke Creative. Here’s where the work really begins: how do we harness the power of live stream shopping for Latin artists to promote their music and sell out their catalog?

In this week’s episode, Darlene shares her experience working in the industry and how she eventually was inspired to start her own company. Darlene was sometimes one of the only Latinas in the room advocating for Latin music, but that didn’t stop her from making sure that black and brown artists were represented fairly and accurately. Tune in to hear why representation is so important to her, her family’s immigration story, and why she decided to leave the corporate world to start her own company. 

Keep up with Darlene on her Instagram @instadar  and her website www.evokeculture.com. 

For all Hella Latin@ updates, follow @hellalatinopodcast on Instagram and connect on LinkedIn. More at odalysjasmine.com.

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Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST.

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