walking upstream…
María Becerra
María Becerra grew up in Quilmes, on the edge of Buenos Aires, taking singing and dance classes at Valeria Lynch's academy as a kid before finding her real audience on YouTube — comedy sketches and cover songs that made her one of Argentina's earliest homegrown video influencers. She walked away from that in 2019 to release the EP '222,' and the single 'High' proved the hinge: a moody, self-possessed slice of urban pop that made her, within a year, the first Latin artist signed to the indie label 300 Entertainment. The albums 'Animal' (2021) and 'La Nena de Argentina' (2022) cemented her as a leading voice of Argentina's trap-pop wave, fluent in reggaeton, R&B, and cumbia alike, and by 2024 she'd become the first Argentine woman to headline Buenos Aires's Estadio Monumental on her own.
the sound in question
2021
¿Qué Más Pues?María Becerra
walk the tributaries ↓
Ariana Grande2010s · Pop / R&B / Dance-pop
In a Billboard interview, Becerra said her 'biggest inspirations have always been the great women in music,' listing Ariana Grande alongside Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse, and explained she gravitates to 'women with big voices, with incredible stage presence, with vocal strength' — the same qualities she chased as a teenager posting cover videos of Grande's songs. It surfaces as a taste for airy, multi-tracked ad-libs stacked behind a plain lead melody, with the voice occasionally opening up before receding back into the stack.
listen: upstream & here
2018
thank u, nextAriana Grande
2022
AutomáticoMaría Becerra
listen forPlay 'thank u, next' against 'Automático' — both keep the main vocal conversational and understated, then layer soft harmony stacks and ad-libs underneath so the performance feels bigger than the melody alone would suggest.
Rihanna2010s · Pop / R&B / Dancehall
Becerra has named Rihanna among the artists she 'especially loves and admires,' calling her one of her 'very important role models,' and before she was a recording artist herself she built her early YouTube following partly on covers of Rihanna songs. The trait that carries over isn't vocal imitation but attitude: a willingness to let a beat go nearly bare and cold so a plainly delivered, unshowy vocal has to carry the whole room.
listen: upstream & here
2007
UmbrellaRihanna
2019
HighMaría Becerra
listen forSet 'Umbrella' next to 'High' — both drop the arrangement down to almost nothing under the hook, trusting a flat, confident vocal line rather than a big run to hold the track together.
Shakira2000s · Latin pop / Pop rock / Dance-pop / Worldbeat
Shakira is one of the few Latin artists on the short list of 'great women in music' Becerra named as her biggest inspirations in that same Billboard interview — a career precedent for an Argentine woman moving fluidly between Latin pop, rock, and global crossover pop without settling into just one lane. The influence reads less as a specific sound than as a template: build a persona charismatic enough to carry material across genres.
listen: upstream & here
2006
Hips Don't LieShakira
2023
Corazón VacíoMaría Becerra
listen forCompare 'Hips Don't Lie' with 'Corazón Vacío' — both put a confident, rhythmically alert vocal performance out front of a Latin-inflected groove, leaning on charisma and delivery rather than vocal acrobatics to sell the hook.