Meet the salsa world champion and influencer from the Costa del Sol who shares 3million followers

Antonio López and his wife Solange Janssens who live in Almuñécar on Granada province’s Costa Tropical have reached almost 2.5 million followers on Instagram and TikTok for their salsa dancing videos.

In March 2020, just days before the Covid-19 pandemic led to a global lockdown, Antonio, now 33, was proclaimed individual salsa world champion in Paris. However, like everyone else, the lockdown completely disrupted his plans to continue dancing. It was then that he and his then partner and now wife, Solange Janssens, 31, who is also a dancer and dance teacher, decided to embark on the adventure of social media.

Although they already had profiles, they were not very active. At the beginning “it was like entertainment, a way to pass the time, dancing,” recalls López, who just four years later has achieved, along with his wife if you add the four official profiles that they have between them on Instagram and TikTok (@antoniolopzz8 and @solange_janssens), a whopping 2,496,700 followers.

The couple also run two dance academies, one in Nerja, which is where Antonio is from, and the other in the neighbouring town of Almuñécar in Granada province, which is home to Janssens, whose father is Belgian and has lived on the Costa Tropical for several decades and whose mother is from Granada. Janssens also finished in the top 10 in Paris in 2020.

Between them their videos have accumulated more than 60 million 'likes' on TikTok. Not only do they show their dancing but also homelife with their son Júnior, who will be three in August. The couple is expecting their second child, who will also be a boy, and for whom they have not yet agreed on a name, as they say in some of the videos they have recently posted.

“We always try to make very natural videos,” they explain and Antonio admits that he wakes up thinking about the things he is going to record for Instagram and TikTok. “Luckily, we are getting more and more interest from commercial brands, with whom we sign agreements to promote products and services,” says López, who acknowledges that life has become “more complicated” since Junior’s arrival, who “occupies much of my time’.

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López goes on to say, “My life has changed a little in terms of popularity, we go down the street and many people recognise us, these are things that didn't happen to me before, and that has changed.” But he adds, “We are still the same, what happens is that now we are dedicated to this, it is another job we have, but we are keeping our two dance academies, because they are our life, what we most like to do.”

Asked how they see themselves in five or ten years, the young dancer and influencer says, “More or less the same, we will continue with this world of social media, we really enjoy making videos and we will continue dancing and giving classes, because it is what we have always liked.”

Regarding the impact of their profiles on social media, the brands they work with and the travelling all over Spain, López says that they are “very grateful” that they can dedicate time to “this world of social media”.