8 To Watch at Estéreo Picnic 2026

By Marco Pisciotti 21 March, 2026

Bogotá’s Festival Estéreo Picnic has always thrived on contrast, but in recent years that tension has started to feel more intentional. Beyond the predictable pull of global headliners, the festival has been quietly carving out space for something looser and more rooted: an ecosystem where local scenes, diasporic sounds, and left-field approaches to pop and club music can coexist on their own terms. Stages like Lago and Páramo, partially stepping away from the usual corporate naming logic, signal that shift: less branding, more breathing room for artists whose work doesn’t always fit neatly into festival algorithms.

Within that shift, what emerges isn’t just a lineup, but a conversation between Bogotá’s indie chroniclers, Medellín’s next-wave reggaetón voices, São Paulo’s club experimentalists, and projects that carry entire regional histories within them. It’s in that in-between of infrastructure and independence, global circuits and hyperlocal stories, where this year’s most compelling sets are likely to unfold.

Here are our must-watch picks for the current edition of the festival:

Nicolás y los Fumadores

Bogotá has produced its fair share of alternative rock bands over the years, but Nicolás y los Fumadores carved out their own lane by turning everyday city life into sharp, tragicomic storytelling. Formed in 2016 by Nicolás Correa, Juan Carlos Sánchez, Santiago García Lozada, and later bassist Luis Felipe Torres, the band quickly became a cult favorite for songs that speak the language of Bogotá’s streets — awkward romances, bad luck, existential dread, and the strange humor that comes with navigating it all.

Their 2018 debut Como Pez en el Hielo introduced that voice to the national scene, while follow-ups like Dios y la Mata de Lulo o ¿Qué hacer en caso de que haya perdido la luz? expanded their audience far beyond Bogotá, even taking the band on tour through Mexico.

Musically, the group sits somewhere between grunge haze, lo-fi rock, and the melodic sensibility of classic Argentine rock, though they’ve always preferred to describe their own sound more casually as “rocksito suave”. It’s a fitting label for songs that feel loose, conversational, and unmistakably local.

Now returning to Festival Estéreo Picnic after previous appearances in 2019 and 2023, the band arrives with fresh momentum following the release of their third album Nochenegra in 2025, a record that culminated in their biggest headline show yet at Bogotá’s Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo. For longtime fans of the city’s indie underground, their Picnic set promises something familiar: sharp lyrics, scruffy guitars, and the kind of humor that only makes sense if you’ve spent enough time navigating Bogotá’s daily chaos.

Elniko Arias

In a city where reggaetón often revolves around luxury, nightlife, and aspiration, Elniko Arias is part of a younger generation trying to pull the genre back toward something more grounded. Born Juan Nicolás Madiedo Arias and raised in Medellín’s 12 de Octubre neighborhood, his music grows directly from the everyday realities of the barrio — not the fantasy that usually dominates the charts.

Arias first drew attention through freestyle sessions and rap performances circulating online, where his flow and direct storytelling caught the attention of Alex Sánchez, better known as El Kb, a longtime industry figure who had previously worked with groups like Golpe a Golpe and the influential video production company 36 Grados. Through Descomunal, a Medellín-based platform created to educate and mentor emerging artists, Sánchez began working closely with Arias to help shape a career built around authenticity rather than imitation.

That process meant unlearning some of the formulas that dominate the city’s reggaetón ecosystem. Like many young artists, Arias initially tried to replicate the sounds that dominate playlists: the styles associated with global figures like J Balvin, Karol G, or Feid. But through Descomunal’s mentorship, he gradually leaned back into his own instincts: a hybrid of rap and reggaetón that reflects the streets he grew up in, the relationships around him, and the small details of daily life.

The result is a catalog that moves between sharp rap verses, romantic reggaetón, and neighborhood storytelling. Collaborations with Medellín figures like Mañas Rufino, Ultrajala, El Tito (of Caña Brava), and Tomate’s Combo have helped him build credibility within the city’s underground circuit, while his audience has steadily grown across streaming platforms.

That search for a more grounded sound has also connected Arias with some unexpected collaborators. Among them is Juancho Valencia, one of the most respected and adventurous figures in contemporary Colombian music. A composer, arranger, and producer known for his irreverent approach to sound, Valencia has built a career blending neotropical rhythms, Colombian jazz, orchestral textures, and experimental ideas that constantly push genre boundaries. A Latin Grammy winner in 2016 and 2018 in the classical music category, he is also the composer behind the original score for Netflix’s adaptation of Cien Años de Soledad. His involvement in Arias’ music adds another layer to the young artist’s sound — connecting the raw storytelling of Medellín’s streets with the creative lineage of one of the country’s most innovative composers.

Still early in his career and currently working toward his debut album, Elniko Arias has been featured on platforms such as BIME Bogotá, and he represents a different thread within Medellín’s musical ecosystem: one that sees reggaetón not just as an export industry, but as a language capable of carrying the everyday realities of the city that refined it.

31 Minutos

What began in 2003 as a low-budget puppet parody of a Chilean news program has, over time, become something far more unlikely: one of the most beloved and culturally unifying projects in Latin American pop history.

Created by Álvaro Díaz and Pedro Peirano under the Aplaplac banner, 31 Minutos was initially conceived as a children’s show that didn’t talk down to its audience. Its format—a dysfunctional newsroom led by the vain and clueless Tulio Triviño—allowed it to oscillate freely between satire, absurdist humor, and genuinely sharp social commentary. The result was a show that worked on multiple frequencies at once: playful and chaotic on the surface, but deeply observant underneath.

That duality explains its longevity. While its original run (2003–2006) quickly turned it into a regional phenomenon—boosted by Nickelodeon broadcasts and a string of wildly successful albums—the real story is how it refused to stay fixed in time. 31 Minutos evolved into a touring band, a theatrical project, and an inter-generational language, with songs and characters that continue to circulate as cultural shorthand across Latin America.

Which is why their recent Tiny Desk Concert didn’t just “go viral”—it resonated. For a generation raised somewhere between cable TV and early YouTube, 31 Minutos is less a show than a shared memory system: a set of references, jokes, and melodies that travel seamlessly across borders. Few projects have achieved that level of regional resonance, arguably not since El Chavo del Ocho.

But the performance also made something else clear. Beneath the humor, there has always been a quiet political intelligence to 31 Minutos: an ability to gesture toward bigger ideas—media absurdity, social inequality, environmental anxiety—without ever becoming didactic. In the Tiny Desk setting, that translated into something even more pointed: a subtle but unmistakable reflection on migration, cultural belonging, and the creative force of Latin American communities abroad.

They didn’t frame it as a statement. They didn’t need to. Instead, they did what they’ve always done best: arrive with songs, jokes, and a kind of joyful precision that disarms before it reveals its depth.

More than two decades on, 31 Minutos remains a rare thing. Not just a successful children’s program, but a living cultural artifact. One that continues to expand, mutate, and resonate, proving that intelligence, humor, and musicality were never mutually exclusive.

Badsista

Few artists channel the pulse of São Paulo’s underground with as much force and clarity as Badsista. A central figure in Brazil’s contemporary club landscape, the DJ and producer has built a sound that moves seamlessly between baile funk, house, bass music, and techno. The result is less a fusion than a constant state of motion between scenes, tempos, and cultural contexts.

Emerging from the city’s peripheral circuits, Badsista’s approach is rooted in rhythm as propulsion. Their sets are dense, physical, and meticulously constructed, pulling from pounding techno, jackin’ house basslines, and the syncopated swing of funk carioca, all threaded together with a sharp sense of tension and release. It’s music designed for impact. Club tracks that don’t just play, but push.

That versatility extends into the studio. Beyond their own releases, including the wide-ranging debut album Gueto Elegance, Badsista has worked across a broad spectrum of artists, from Brazilian innovators like Linn da Quebrada, Jup do Bairro, Jaloo, and Pitty to international names like Kelela. Each collaboration reflects an ability to adapt without losing identity, navigating pop, experimental, and club spaces with equal confidence.

Their trajectory has long since outgrown local scenes. With performances spanning Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, including festivals like Dekmantel, Primavera Sound, and DGTL, as well as Boiler Room appearances, Badsista has become a global reference point for a new wave of club music rooted in the Global South.

But that global reach hasn’t diluted the core of the project. If anything, it’s sharpened it. Whether moving through baile funk, drill, techno, or something harder to categorize, Badsista’s sound carries the intensity and inventiveness of São Paulo’s underground into every space it enters: polychromatic, percussive, and built for the dancefloor.

DJ Babatr

Long before Latin club music became a global conversation, DJ Babatr was building something raw and hyperlocal in the streets of Caracas. As the originator of the Raptor House movement, his work sits at the intersection of electronic experimentation and barrio energy: a sound forged in late ‘90s Venezuela that still feels urgent decades later.

Emerging from neighborhoods like Catia, Petare, and La Cota, Raptor House wasn’t just a genre as much a movement. Built on relentless percussion, looping structures, and a kind of controlled intensity, it found its natural habitat in daytime matinées—massive parties where the line between rave and street gathering blurred. Babatr stood at the center of that ecosystem, not just as a DJ, but as the architect of a sound that translated local rhythms into something distinctly electronic.

Musically, his productions pull from hard techno, tribal, and house, but always grounded in Afro-Venezuelan and Caribbean rhythmic traditions. The result is music that feels physical above all else. Percussive, hypnotic, and designed for movement rather than spectacle. It’s a language built collectively, shaped as much by the communities around him as by any individual influence.

In recent years, that legacy has begun to resurface. A new compilation of material recorded between 2001 and 2005 (arguably the peak of the raptor house era) has reintroduced Babatr’s work to a new generation, alongside a remix from Miami-based producer Nick León, one of the key figures in today’s Latin club renaissance. Hearing those tracks now, what stands out isn’t nostalgia, but how current they still feel.

On stage, Babatr carries that same continuity. His sets aren’t about reinvention as much as they are about transmission, channeling a sound that was born in specific places and moments, and bringing it into new contexts without losing its core intensity.

At a time when global club music increasingly looks to Latin America for inspiration, DJ Babatr stands as a reminder that some of those futures were already being built decades ago: loud, fast, and deep in the barrios of Caracas.

Antopiko3

In a city like Bogotá, where scenes tend to fragment into niches, AntoPiko3 moves in the opposite direction—pulling everything into her orbit at once. The 21-year-old artist, born María Antonia Broderick, has quickly positioned herself as one of the most unpredictable voices in Colombia’s new underground: a space where Latin core mutations, trap, guaracha, and post-reggaetón collide without much concern for purity.

Her breakout single “Regañada” (2022) already hinted at that impulse. Built on a volatile mix of textures and tempos, the track felt less like a debut and more like a statement of intent—restless, maximalist, and deliberately hard to pin down. That same instinct carried into Enkryptada (2023), a project that landed on multiple year-end lists and established her as part of a broader wave of artists reshaping the edges of Colombia’s club and pop landscapes.

But Anto’s music doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Raised in a deeply musical environment—her father, DJ and producer Dani Boom, being a key figure in projects like Systema Solar—she grew up surrounded by a wide spectrum of sounds, from techno and rap to cumbia and popular music. Rather than settling into any one lineage, she’s treated that exposure as raw material, building a language that feels as informed by Bogotá’s electronic underground as it does by reggaetón, neoperreo, or even gabber.

That background has also placed her at the center of a familiar conversation in Latin American music: access, privilege, and the ever-present label of “nepobaby”. It’s a critique she hasn’t tried to sidestep so much as absorb, acknowledging the doors that proximity can open while insisting on the work required to stay in the room. In her case, the output backs it up: a catalog that leans more toward risk than comfort, and a live presence that thrives on unpredictability.

What makes Anto<3 particularly compelling isn’t just her sound, but her sense of intent. There’s a constant push toward disruption—of genre, of expectations, of the roles assigned to women in the urban and electronic spaces she inhabits. Whether through abrasive production choices, hyper-coquettish lyricism, or visual worlds that feel deliberately “off,” her work resists easy consumption.

Now, with a growing international profile—recently signing to 5020 Records and earning “Artist to Watch” recognition at Premios Lo Nuestro—she’s entering a different phase. New releases and a European tour suggest an artist on the verge of scaling up, but without fully smoothing out the edges that made her stand out in the first place.

If anything, Anto<3 represents a broader shift happening in Colombia: a generation less interested in fitting into existing lanes, and more focused on breaking them open entirely.

Macario Martinez

Sometimes a song doesn’t just break through because of how it sounds, but because of when (and how) it finds its audience. For Macario Martínez, that moment came in early 2025, when a stripped-back performance of “sueña lindo, corazón” recorded from the back of a sanitation truck in Mexico City turned him from an unknown into one of the most talked-about new voices in Latin music.

Born Macario Eli Martínez Jiménez in 2001, the Mexico City singer-songwriter had been building toward that moment for years. He studied music at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, explored photography and film-making, and spent time playing small shows and releasing DIY recordings, often made with minimal equipment and limited resources. His early work, including EPs like Cuando fuimos felices and Lagunas brillantes de la memoria, already hinted at the emotional directness that would later define his breakout.

Musically, Martínez operates in a space where traditional Mexican forms meet contemporary indie sensibilities. Drawing from huapango, son jarocho, and folk, his songs are minimal but evocative—built around acoustic textures, soft melodies, and lyrics that lean into vulnerability without over-complicating it. It’s a style that feels closer to artists like Ed Maverick or Kevin Kaarl, but with a rawness that remains distinctly his own.

That rawness is precisely what made “sueña lindo, corazón” resonate. The song itself is simple: a tender, folk-leaning ballad. But its impact was amplified by context. In an ecosystem where polish is often mistaken for substance, Martínez’s unfiltered delivery and everyday reality cut through. Within days, the track had amassed millions of views, leading to a surge in streaming numbers and a wave of industry attention that quickly translated into festival bookings, media appearances, and a rapidly expanding audience.

Since then, his rise has been as fast as it has been visible. From first-time festival slots at Vive Latino and Tecate Pa’l Norte to collaborations with artists across Mexico’s alternative spectrum, Martínez has moved from viral moment to sustained momentum. His debut album Si mañana ya no estoy further expands that foundation, weaving together themes of love, memory, and uncertainty through a sound that blends traditional instrumentation with a contemporary, intimate lens.

Still, what sets him apart isn’t just the speed of his ascent, but what it represents. In a landscape increasingly shaped by algorithms, Macario Martínez stands as a reminder that connection still outweighs perfection. His music doesn’t aim to impress as much as it aims to feel real—and for now, that’s proving to be more than enough.

Aria Vega

In a Colombian pop landscape increasingly shaped by Caribbean rhythms, few artists are navigating that shift with as much intention as Aria Vega. Born Mariana Padilla in Barranquilla, her music moves fluidly between pop, afrobeats, dancehall, and reggaetón, building a sound that feels both globally aware and deeply rooted in the textures of the coast.

That balance didn’t come overnight. Long before her recent run of singles—“AY MAMA (mi tiburón)”, “AGUA E’PANELA (cule_nota)”, or the Ryan Castro-assisted “CHÉVERE (premium_remix)”—Aria had already spent years shaping her artistic identity. Raised around vallenato, salsa, and porro, and later influenced by everything from flamenco and theater to Kanye West and Lana Del Rey, her approach to music has always leaned toward collage: a space where references collide rather than neatly resolve.

Her first real brush with the industry came early, reaching the final stages of Idol Colombia at 17. What followed was a more complicated path—balancing university, studio sessions, and eventually a major label deal that, while opening doors, also imposed creative constraints. Early releases hinted at her potential, but it wasn’t until she stepped away from that system and moved toward independence that her music began to fully reflect her instincts.

Projects like MAKIA mark that turning point. Here, Aria leans into a more defined voice—both sonically and lyrically—where glossy pop structures coexist with champeta textures, dembow rhythms, and a distinctly costeño way of writing and phrasing. There’s a deliberate looseness to it, but nothing feels accidental. Even at its most playful, her music carries a sense of authorship that resists the “assembly line” feel of mainstream pop.

Lyrically, that autonomy extends into how she approaches themes like desire, identity, and gender. Whether through flirtatious, self-aware club tracks or more pointed songs like “LA SALSA”, her work often pushes against the expectations placed on women in the genre—choosing control, perspective, and contradiction over easy narratives.

Now, with a rapidly growing audience and a string of increasingly visible releases, Aria Vega sits at an interesting intersection: not quite mainstream, but actively shaping where it’s headed. In a moment where afrobeats and Caribbean influences dominate Colombia’s sonic landscape, her project offers something more specific—a version of that sound filtered through Barranquilla, through personal history, and through a clear sense of self.

Taken together, these acts point to something larger than a weekend lineup. They map out a version of Latin American music that resists flattening: one of barrio narratives sitting alongside experimental club mutations, legacy projects carrying as much weight as emerging disruptors, and the underground as not just an aesthetic, a set of practices and communities.

In that sense, the importance of alternative spaces parallel to the big stage, goes beyond optics. They offer a reminder—however partial—that festivals can still function as sites of discovery rather than just consumption. Not fully outside the machinery, but not entirely defined by it either. And in a circuit increasingly driven by scale and sponsorship, that kind of ambiguity—messy, imperfect, but real—might be exactly what keeps Estéreo Picnic worth paying attention to.

You can find info on tickets and more here, and if you’re heading there, don’t hesitate to hit us up and let us know who you’re most excited to see!

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