The great winner of the Los40 Music Awards, with up to three awards, soon returned to the hotel after the ceremony held last Friday, November 3 in Madrid. “I was tired and I went to sleep. I didn’t go to despues de or anything like that, I stayed still,” confirms days later Manuel Turizo (Montería, Colombia, 23 years old), the singer who has dominated Latin music with an iron melody in the last year. He may sound contradictory, but he is responsible for soundtracking party nights with global hits, such as The bachata either The meringue, is one of those that is collected with caution and in the company of only its own. “There are people who like to go out in every city and be on the street, but I prefer to be quiet with my friends and my girlfriend,” he adds, almost apologetically. Disconnecting after taking a crowd bath in front of thousands of people is not easy. “There are times when it hits,” he concedes during the interview with EL PAÍS. But he gets used to it: “I start composing or having a beer with the team because if you arrive with a lot of energy, and you stay there looking at the ceiling, your head talks a lot. The crazy person in your head never stays silent and can contaminate you. “We have to control it.”
At first glance, Turizo checks all the boxes of the young music star archetype. Clothes a couple of sizes too big, Louis Vuitton sneakers, dazzling rings and pendants, XL dial watch, sunglasses with tinted lenses, mesh cap… He receives with a handshake and an affectionate “how’s everything, bro?” in a suite room with panoramic views of the southwest of the capital and Take advantage to check your networks while waiting for the lens to aim at one of the hottest faces in the industry. Once settled in set Prepared for the occasion, the aesthetic artifice pales before his shy smile and a reflective speech about his artistic impulse. “Everyone is happy to be awarded, but I don’t make music thinking about that. I do it because I love it and if one day people don’t want to listen to me anymore, I’m going to continue doing it. My mind thinks about songs, lyrics and sounds all the time.”
The vocation was born soon. He did it in the family apartment in Montería, a city with a cattle tradition in northern Colombia where becoming an international artist seemed like an unrealizable dream. The room of pelaíto, As they knew him then, he was the one in the middle and his walls were decorated with guitars, equestrian accessories – horses are his other great passion – and a violin that he asked for for Christmas and never learned to play. Although her father is also a musician, the soundtrack was marked by her mother’s tastes. “When she woke me up every morning, she already had the radio on. She really likes the music that she dances to: salsa, vallenato, merengue…”, she evokes her predicament due to the mixture of genres that is now one of her hallmarks as a performer of hers. . “If I like many types of music, why should I limit myself to just one? You can try doing them all and see if it works.” Her next album, which she will present in Madrid at the Christmas by Starlite festival in December, will be called 201, in tribute to the apartment number that has marked him so much.
Today, the 32 million monthly listeners he accumulates on Spotify alone corroborate an aspiration on which he bet his future. Pursuing the dream of success, he went to Medellín as a child with his brother Julian, composer of several of his hits. “My parents gave me the obligation that I couldn’t leave school, but my mind only thought about music. I remember looking on the Instagram of producers or record companies to see if they had the email address listed and I could write to them so they would open the door for me. I searched and searched for whatever it was,” he recalls. No one offered him the opportunity he desired. At the age of 16, Manuel found a digital platform that allowed songs to be hosted for only nine dollars. “But I didn’t have a credit card to pay for it, so I had to ask my cousin because they did have money,” he remembers with a laugh. The song, halfway between reggaeton and pop ballad, was called A lady like you (2016). Within months, he was a hit indisputable on both sides of the Atlantic and Turizo’s passport to stardom. Did she ever return the nine dollars to his cousin? “No, interest continues to accumulate there.”
Despite his early success, the path to his current status has not followed a straight line. “If it were easy to maintain a career, believe me everyone would do it. For this industry there is no manual, you only learn by doing and making mistakes.” At this point in the conversation, he has already taken off his glasses and does not take his eyes off his interlocutor. Unlike other artists of his generation, he defends that there is no difference between the person and the character, that Manuel Turizo is one and authentic, although he deliberately hides the less pleasant episodes of his routine. “The public only sees the good side because our job is to make them have a good time with our songs. Every person has their problems, why are you going to load them with more negativity? ”He asks himself. Above all, in times as turbulent as these: “Music and dance are therapy, everyone needs their escape.”
![The singer Manuel Turizo gives a speech of thanks after receiving an award at the Los40 Music Awards, on November 3 in Madrid.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/3MIyyUjp545b1WtrzoNCW7N_g3A=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/OEJXEBACQFDZVLRWPWCHZC5DI4.png)
The singer tries to lead by example. If in full monopoly of urban rhythms he stands out by betting on merengue or bachata, he also swims against the current by fleeing from controversial statements, clashes with other artists or publicizing his intimate life. Don’t look for photos of your girlfriend or parents on your networks, you won’t find them. “I have always thought that the people around me don’t have to be exposed. They have not decided to have that visibility and it affects me to see them in a bad light for any comment they may make about me.” And he continues: “I know that this is not just music and that we work in entertainment that consists, literally, of creating a novel of your life. But I always wanted to put my focus on my music.” And despite the meteoric rise of him, he is committed to keeping his feet on the ground. “I can’t say that a year from now I’m going to be the biggest artist in the world because I don’t know a damn if that’s going to be possible. Nobody controls that,” he concludes. For now, the pelaíto He prefers to continue livening up the mornings of those who, like his mother, wake up every day with the radio on.
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