Two years ago, the remix of Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” featuring Justin Bieber became one of the defining pop songs of the decade, spending 16 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and radically shifting how Spanish-language pop moved in the American mainstream. Reggaeton and its many offshoots were outrageously popular in Spanish-speaking markets, and the success of “Despacito” suggested that English-speaking audiences were finally open to it as well.

What has followed since then is a steady stream of collaborations between English- and Spanish-speaking artists — some that sound natural, many more that sound forced. Reggaeton and Latin pop artists like Ozuna, Bad Bunny, Maluma, CNCO and many others have teamed with American artists as varied as Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry and Meghan Trainor.

Are these collaborations being released out of genuine cultural connection or record-business expediency? And what happened with this year’s Latin Grammy nominations, leading to a brewing backlash from the reggaeton community about the genre’s exclusion from the upper reaches of the awards?

On the Popcast: