Indie-pop singer Sophie Castillo on British Latinas: ‘Yes, we exist'

Los Angeles Times

21-03-2025

When I meet Sophie Castillo on a scorching, 93-degree afternoon in Austin, Texas, she takes a seat by the pool at the Fairmont hotel in a long leather blazer — and tells me she's keeping it on.
'We went seven consecutive days without sunshine last month,' says the London-born singer-songwriter, who performed at the city's annual South by Southwest Music Festival (SXSW). 'I need to soak up the sun!'
The daughter of a Colombian mother and a Cuban father, Castillo, 26, is on a mission to amplify the Latin American diaspora in the U.K., primarily through her music: an elegant mélange of balmy electronic textures and Latin American heritage sounds like salsa, bachata and reggaeton. She hopes these genres can take off in the U.K., as did Afrobeats, ska, bhangra and other musical styles that immigrant communities helped integrate into British popular music.
'British people [don't] get enough credit as to how open-minded they are,' she says. 'Whenever I've seen people react to Latin music in the U.K., they're excited. They're not like, 'Oh, I don't want to listen to that because it's in Spanish.' They're like, 'This is cool, tell me more!''
During the Amigo showcase at Rozco's on the night of March 12, Castillo, decked in a cowboy hat and a red velvet ensemble, introduced her new single, 'The Betrayal.' A cut from her upcoming EP, due in April, 'The Betrayal' is a sultry baile funk song that simmers with righteous indignation.
'I love Brazilian music, so I wanted to try out a funk fusion,' explains Castillo. 'It all came together with this Shakira-esque Arabic scale. The drama was there, cinematic element was there, which is what I love.'
Beyond Latinidad, music runs in Castillo's blood. Her father, renowned salsa dancer and DJ Nelson Batista, studied dance at the Casa de Cultura in Havana before immigrating to London in the 1980s. He became the first known salsa instructor in the U.K. Sparks flew between him and Castillo's mother, a salsa dancer who immigrated from Colombia.
Castillo's uncles, Eddie and Lee, took young Sophie to see musicals as a child. And when she was old enough, they encouraged her to attend an after-school theater program. She then supplemented her musical education by learning how to produce songs using GarageBand at home.
'My uncle Eddie dropped off a CD of mine at Universal when I was 13,' she says. 'It was so funny. I didn't know anyone in the music industry, nor the Latin music industry. How do you make noise?'
Castillo built her audience organically on TikTok, where she test drove clips of her songs among fans of the Marías and Kali Uchis — two U.S.-based acts that were essential in her own development as a Latina artist between cultures. 'I always wanted to sing in Spanish, but I was just a little bit shy,' says Castillo. 'But Kali Uchis really laid out the path for the indie Latina by making English-language music with a bit of Spanish. I really have so much love and respect for that.'
In 2022, Castillo released the song, 'Call Me By Your Name' — a dream-pop bachata tune sung in English. 'POV: you're listening to an indie bachata by a British Latina,' read the caption of her video. It was a viral sensation. 'Americans were like, 'What, you guys are over there?'' Castillo recalls. 'They'd say, 'I can't believe [a] U.K. Latino is a thing!''
While there exist demographic categories for Caribbean people from former U.K. colonies, an accurate count of the Latin American population is hard to find. In 2013, the census reported at least 250,000 Latin Americans living in the U.K. Yet according to a 2024 report, the population of Latin Americans increased by 406% in London and by 395% in England and Wales from 2001 to 2021.
Castillo performed small open-mic nights at restaurants and clubs in Brixton, often with the Latin alternative artist Desta French, who is Colombian and Italian. But Castillo landed her biggest gig in the summer of 2024, when she got an email from J Balvin's team — inviting her to open for the Colombian superstar during his June 5 concert at the O2 Arena in London. She became the first U.K. Latina to perform at the venue.
'It's amazing, you know — TikTok is like such a powerful tool,' she says of her experience. 'I've been able to like be a completely independent artist and like have all the freedom and control to do whatever I wanted.'