As a child, Juan Carlos Ozuna Rosado (San Juan, Puerto Rico, 31 years old) wanted to be a basketball player. “The size and the music didn’t let me,” he says smiling in a luxurious Madrid hotel. Without a doubt, he came out on top. Since he rose to fame in 2016, Ozuna has become one of the most popular reggaeton artists, the genre that dominates half the planet’s charts. In 2018 he was the most listened to musician on YouTube, where he holds the record for video views: seven billion. Enough achievements to buy a team in his country’s basketball league. “It’s called the Manatee Bears and my brother plays in it. I did it to help him and other kids”, he says proudly.
Ozuna has been on tour since July through Europe (Paris, Milan, Barcelona…) and there are still stops at various Spanish festivals (this Friday, August 4, in Cádiz; on Saturday in Nigrán, Galicia, and on Sunday in Torrevieja). In October he published Ozutochi, his fifth album in six years, he is preparing an EP and among his many collaborations he has sung with Rosalía —me x you, you x me it earned them a latin grammy — or with Shakira in Monotony, the song that opened the public hostilities against his ex, Gerard Piqué. This gift of ubiquity has turned Ozuna into a well-oiled machine to generate money, something palpable in the environment. He arrives an hour late for the appointment with the press in Madrid (last May), accompanied by an entourage that does not separate from him. Star ways that dissipate when he sits down to speak and displays, with a permanent smile, a speech reminiscent of some professional athletes.
“I grew up with reggaeton in my subconscious from day one, from a very young age I was listening to Baby Rasta & Gringo, later Wisin y Yandel, Don Omar, Daddy Yankee…”, he lists. Ozuna represents a generation of artists who came after the pioneers who paved the way. His father, who was assassinated when he was only three years old, was one of the dancers of another legend of the genre, Vico C. Despite this tragedy, Ozuna defines his childhood as “very cool.” “I grew up with my grandmother, my mother and my uncle, between Santurce [barrio de San Juan] and Río Piedras, playing all sports. He even played chess. My grandmother, thank God, she was always with me. She taught me that if you spend a peso you have to think about what you spend it on, value what it costs. That car you bought, for example, keep it to last you.
Perhaps due to these origins, in his speech he uses the “we” more than the “I”, something atypical in the context paid to the ego of urban genres related to rap. “My family always supported me in music,” she clarifies. “If I wanted to set up a studio, my uncle helped me with the sound card, my grandmother bought me the microphone… everyone contributed something. They never told me ‘don’t do that’, and now look where we are”. Where we are, to be more exact, 12 Latin Grammy Awards later. A trajectory that, like the aspiring athlete that he was, he attributes to the effort: “All the colleagues in urban music have worked so hard that they have managed to keep ours at the top of the genre for 25 or 30 years.”
Constant record-tour-record-tour work is the norm: “The moment a song hits and you have a chance for the world to hear you, you take advantage of that chance. If you don’t release songs in three months, you think the world is going to forget about you, even if you already have 200 songs out”.
Despite the fact that Ozuna strictly complies with the aesthetic codes of the urban music star (jewelry, designer clothes and sports cars), at the slightest opportunity he tries to enhance his image as a family man. “For me, luxury is investing time in them. What does happen is that sometimes you reward yourself. You say: ‘I worked a lot this month’, and you buy that car that you love, but I don’t see it as a whim, but rather as a way of rewarding yourself for your work”, he argues. Married since 2012 and with two children, he breaks with the usual papichulo image in the alpha males of the gender. “It’s not about giving an image, but about being real with yourself,” he defends. “If you live the life of a rockstar, Perfect, it doesn’t matter, but I have a commitment from before I was famous that I can’t break. Maybe people wonder why Ozuna doesn’t let go and go out every day, but that’s not me. It’s not my rhythm, it’s not my style.”
That soft posture, opposed to that of his generation colleagues more attached to the street and its codes, such as his friend and collaborator Anuel AA, is also what has made him the perfect collaborator for pop stars who seek to get closer to the sounds current latinos. From Selena Gomez to the Black Eyed Peas to Chayanne, his phone always rings when someone wants to ensure success in the era of reggaeton domination. However, his career is not without its controversial moments: in 2017, his car was found near the place where drug trafficker Carlos Báez Rosa was shot to death in San Juan, although the subsequent investigation found no indication that he was related to the crime.
More complex was another episode that dates back to 2011, the year in which he recorded a sex tape before achieving fame. The story came to light in 2017 after the murder of Kevin Fret, the first openly gay Puerto Rican trap artist. Supposedly, Fret had been blackmailing Ozuna by threatening to spread the recording. In this case, he was not legally accused either, but he had to come out by acknowledging the existence of the video, which he described as a “mistake from the past.” The mere mention of the incident momentarily breaks the harmony. His manager intervenes: “That question, no.” Ozuna pulls at the waist: “Everyone has their own opinion and I have to respect it, but 100% of the things that people say about artists are not real. Not only from me, but from others. It has even happened to me with other artists, and the image I had of them after meeting them has changed”. The controversy in general, so taken advantage of by other generation colleagues, seems like a bad partner for Ozuna’s business.
He and his team prefer not to close doors. “I put a bit of everything into my music, you have to try to capture all audiences. Versatility is important.” Also because the exhausting pace of the current industry cannot be continued forever: “Later on I see myself producing, in other businesses, working in sports in Puerto Rico… But for now I am only 31 years old, so I think we will be five or six more years doing the job.”
All the culture that goes with you awaits you here.
subscribe
babelia
The literary novelties analyzed by the best critics in our weekly bulletin
RECEIVE IT
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
#Ozuna #grew #reggaeton #subconscious