We Speak Latin
Danny Ocean Brings the Latin Fire to Ayra Starr’s “Hot Body (Remix)”
Danny Ocean is having a cross-continental moment. The Venezuelan singer and songwriter is the featured voice on Ayra Starr’s “Hot Body (Remix),” which landed this week, October 29, pairing one of Afrobeats’ brightest stars with one of Latin pop’s most reliable hitmakers. The record takes Ayra’s slow-wine groove and lets Danny slide in with a Spanish-language verse that turns the song into a genuine two-world conversation, Caribbean rhythm on one side and Latin melody on the other.
The remix closes out Ayra Starr’s third studio album, Starrgirl, where it sits as the sixteenth and final track, with Danny credited as a songwriter alongside Ayra and producers Ragee and The Elements. Giving the song a standalone push now is a smart play: “Hot Body” was already one of the album’s most talked-about records, and Danny’s verse gives it a second life in Spanish-language markets where his voice is instantly recognizable.
That voice has been on a serious run. Danny Ocean, born Daniel Alejandro Morales Reyes in Caracas, broke through globally with “Me Rehúso” and never really slowed down. His 2025 album Babylon Club produced “Imagínate” with Kapo, a Latin Airplay chart-topper, and “Corazón” followed it to No. 1 as well. This year alone he has contributed “Partidazo” to the official FIFA World Cup 2026 album, teamed with Empire of the Sun on “Llego,” and released the Babylona Blue EP in June.
What makes the Ayra Starr collaboration land is fit. Both artists build songs around rhythm first and let the melody ride on top, and both have audiences that stretch far past their home regions. Danny pulls around 20 million monthly listeners, and his live show keeps growing with the music, from festival stages in Europe to Montreux this summer.
For Danny Ocean, the remix is one more door opened in a year full of them. For listeners, it is simply a great record: Lagos and Caracas on the same beat, and neither side giving an inch.
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Thirty years into his career, Jorge Drexler went home, and home answered. The Uruguayan singer-songwriter has earned seven nominations at the 27th Annual Latin Grammy Awards for Taracá, the album he recorded in Uruguay for the first time in two decades. He is also set to perform when the ceremony airs live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on November 12.
Taracá competes for Album of the Year and Best Singer-Songwriter Album, while “¿Cómo Se Ama?” is nominated for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year. “Las Palabras” is up for Best Singer-Songwriter Song, and “El Tambor Chico,” recorded with Rueda de Candombe, is in the Best Roots Song field, alongside a Best Alternative Song nomination that rounds out the seven.
The album, released March 13 on Sony Music Spain, is built on candombe, the Afro-Uruguayan drumming tradition carried by three drums: piano, chico and repique. Its title is the sound of the smallest of them, the tambor chico, and a play on “estar acá,” to be here. Drexler, who has lived in Spain for three decades, made the record after losing his parents, working with young producers and with Rueda de Candombe, who appear on three tracks. Young Miko sings with him on the ballad “Te Llevo Tatuada,” and the album closes with “Las Palabras,” a murga farewell featuring Murga Falta y Resto that Drexler dedicated to his father.
The Taracá tour has carried the experiment around the world this year, from Buenos Aires’ Movistar Arena in April to Costa Rica in September, with Drexler performing the candombe-rooted songs alongside the catalog that made him one of Latin music’s most decorated writers: an Academy Award winner for “Al Otro Lado del Río” and a thirteen-time Latin Grammy winner before this year’s nominations were even announced.
His last album, Tinta y Tiempo, won seven Latin Grammys. Taracá now has the chance to match it. Whatever happens on November 12, the homecoming already ranks as one of the year’s great stories: a master songwriter, a drum pattern from the streets of Montevideo, and seven nominations to show for listening to both.
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