AJ Balvin’s back hurts. Just by saying it, the Antioquian artist causes worried faces in his crew. Five men look at him from the other side of an elegant marble bar inside an exclusive villa in the Californian desert. The five dress in the uniform of the urban music tribe: loose white cotton t-shirts and shorts like those used in the NBA in the nineties. Gestures become intentions. They offer him to go get medicine. Another offers him a massage.
It’s no surprise that one of pop’s global stars suffers from low back pain. José Álvaro Osorio Balvin (Medellín, Colombia, 1985) carries a lot of weight on his shoulders. He is preparing the release of a new album and is back with a tour that will take him through 17 European countries. The rest of the year he will sing in Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia. Balvin does not consider them visits, but rather territories to conquer. “There is still a lot to unlock: China, as it should be, India, Asia in general. There is a very mission cool over there. Australia started unlocking it three years ago. The mission now is to fill the first reggaeton stadium there,” he says in the voice of the CEO of his company.
In June 2021, he became a father for the first time with his partner, the Argentine actress Valentina Ferrer. Fatherhood and mental health have forced him to slow down, but they have also given him perspective for the future. “I feel like a new artist, even though my back hurts. Since my son was born I thought to myself: how can I ensure that when he is 10 years old all of his friends are still listening to my music?
The seventh album of his career was ready to be released in the fall of 2023. The as-yet-unnamed album originated in Miami and ended up being recorded at Abbey Road and London’s RAK studios. It has not seen the light, according to the artist, because “everything has a strategy, a timing and a purpose.” Soon it will surprise with the release date. This will be a return to its essence. “When you start making music and think about satisfying the public, you are fooling yourself. Music is for you to enjoy it, for you to enjoy it,” he says, digesting some of the ideas that the famous producer Rick Rubin captured in his book The act of creating (2023).
Before revealing his new work, he needed to remind the world what he is capable of doing. And she chose to do it at Coachella.
A creative vision
This afternoon, the eve of his long-awaited return to the music festival, there is a certain relaxed atmosphere in the town. A huge television shows the results of Mario Kart, where Balvin made his entourage bite the dust.
– Who is your favorite character?
— Yoshi, always. We have to bring out the child inside us.
The musician seems relaxed, but no detail is lost. He controls everything that happens around him. He squints his eyes and looks for the spot where he will pose for the promotional photos. He wants the image to show how the desert sun filters through a palm tree. Minutes later, he goes to his room and brings the limited edition t-shirt that was sold to attendees of the world’s largest music festival. “Touch the fabric, feel the quality,” he tells his friend as he throws the garment at her. This one has the enormous face of an alien printed on the chest. “I get into everything creative. My vision is in all those details. “It has a story and a purpose.” On the table is a pair of black sneakers that he also designed from scratch. They are the Rio (the name of his first-born son), the second collaboration he has done for Nike and Air Jordan 3. The artist would wear them the following night on stage at Coachella, several days before they were released on the market with a 250 price tag. Dollars.
—What do you do when a door is closed on you?
—I go through the window. Or another plant—he says laughing.
Balvin perceives himself as a creative force that transcends music. His house in Medellín, built from his drawings and material recommendations, has reached magazines specialized in interior design. These highlight his sobriety and the Zen atmosphere of his spaces: “I love architecture. “I want to make a signature of houses designed by J Balvin.”
Out of this world
It’s been 12 years since I told you became his first hit and the album The family He joined the construction of reggaeton as a global phenomenon. Today, Balvin is almost 40 years old and is far from being a young voice of the genre making his way through the popularity charts. He has sold 35 million records, accumulates tens of millions of hours listened to monthly on streaming and counts 18 singles within the Billboard Hot 100. The most recent was in April 2022 by the British Ed Sheeran with Go on. Today he seeks to stay hungry.
“I like to ask myself when was the last time I did something for the first time,” he says. There is confidence in her voice because she has an ace up her sleeve. The next night she would surprise Coachella with a spectacular concert that had science fiction as its main axis. A UFO hovered above the stage and a group of dancers dressed as aliens danced alongside a robot named Enzo, in honor of the artist’s recently deceased dog. Balvin appeared dressed by the cult brand Vetements and, in one of the most viral moments of his performance, he sang the theme of the film with Will Smith Men in Black.
The show sent a message. “Even though I have taken a year and a half off, I’m still here”, he announces. “As a Latino I had to demonstrate again why we are here,” he added in reference to his 2019 appearance at Coachella, unanimously considered by critics as one of the shows history of the festival.
The Mexican regional
A lot has happened since then in an industry where fashions are devoured at breakneck speed. Balvin took a pause while the world was barely digesting the Latin rhythms of reggaeton. He has returned during the great wave of the Mexican regional, with artists like Peso Pluma, Grupo Frontera and Carin León singing in Spanish and filling stadiums in North America. There is something of this phenomenon in the look of the Colombian. He wears a white T-shirt from Guess, the brand that sponsors and hosts him at the festival. But he also wears a cowboy hat and wears white boots with a barcode embroidered on the instep.
“I make every effort to do very well for them, so that it is great for everyone. If they look good, we all look good. The Mexican regional is recovering its audience. Reggaeton never focused on taking away anyone’s sound, it only focused on providing music and there are many artists who can cover the market, although suddenly many people felt threatened by the genre,” he points out.
J Balvin watched Bizarrap’s big Coachella number online, which he said he enjoyed. The Argentine producer used in his set just a couple of bars from the session in which the Puerto Rican Residente skins the Colombian reggaeton singer for eight minutes. Despite having a beef with René Pérez Joglar since 2019 over an alleged boycott of the Grammys, Balvin did not pick up the gauntlet or fuel the tirade within the genre. A figure who has spoken publicly about vulnerability, depression and anxiety, makes a judgment about the times: “People like to see the world burn, but they don’t want it to be their turn. Watching war movies from the outside is very comfortable. When they are there it is something else, but almost no one has the pants to go and go where the bombs are falling.”
Balvin has become more cautious because he believes that we live in a fragile world with “a glass society.” “There is a very high sensitivity. We want to attack for the sake of attacking, although I sometimes see it as wanting to fuck. When you analyze the scandals of some artists you can’t believe that they are getting screwed for that. What is it that offends you so much?”
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