INTERSCOPE'S XAVI KICKS OFF 2024 WITH GLOBAL #1

As holiday tunes swarmed the charts over the last six weeks, 19-year-old música Mexicana newcomer Xavi—signed to the Nir Seroussi-led Miami division of John Janick’s Interscope—took off at DSPs and on 1/1 posted the first new Spotify global #1 of 2024, "La Diabla."

Xavi’s streaming romp, it should be noted, is not based on a single song or a viral moment; the Arizona singer-songwriter has two tracks on the Spotify global Top 10 and four total on Spotify’s Top 200. And unlike some of his peers, Xavi hasn’t relied on high-profile collaborations to generate big numbers—“La Diabla” and “La Victima” (#10 global) are both solo tracks.

“La Diabla” is #13 at Spotify U.S. and #9 at Apple Music U.S.

In Mexico, meanwhile, "La Diabla" and "La Victima" sit at #1 and #2, respectively. Their daily stream counts are regularly besting the top two songs on the U.S. chart.

It’s also noteworthy that there was no signing contest for the fledgling artist; Xavi was an unknown 16-year-old when he became Seroussi’s first música Mexicana recruit at IGA three years ago.

“I’ve been working with música Mexicana artists for the last 20 years. I wasn’t chasing a trend when we discovered Xavi,” Seroussi told HITS. “[IGA A&R exec] Emerson Redd sent me a link on a whim. We eventually got Xavi to come to Miami, and he immediately whipped out his guitar and then performed original music for us for an hour. It was clear he had that ‘it’ factor.”

Xavi’s hot 2024 start follows a very busy 2023 for Seroussi, which included signing Latin stars KAROL G, Ivan Cornejo, Gabito Ballesteros and Natanael Cano’s Los CT to Interscope.

Listen to "La Diabla" below.