New York- More than three decades after walking the streets of San Juan together, Ricky Martin and Carlos Vives return to Puerto Rico with a love letter to the island in which their fraternal friendship is evidenced.
“Cançó bonica”, co-written by the Puerto Rican and Colombian superstars alongside Maurici Rengifo, Andrés Torres and Rafa Arcaute, debuts on Tuesday at 7:00 pm in New York with a colorful video filmed between Old San Juan, Pinyons (Loíza) and l ’emblematic bar the Batey.
“We’ve known each other since we were Chamacos, since he lived in Puerto Rico. We walked these streets of San Juan and left two or three marks here, we laughed a lot, we drank two or three cantacitos of rum and good things. through these streets, ”Martin explained enthusiastically in an interview via Zoom from home in Los Angeles, with Vives connected from Santa Marta, Colombia.
For Vives, who said with a laugh that “Ricky is to blame for all this shit,” the collaboration allowed him to pay homage to the land that hosted him for years as a soap opera actor, where he signed the his first record deal and where he also saw the birth of his two eldest children.
“There’s a really beautiful story with St. John in our lives, in our careers, so I thank Ricky for wanting to do this song and for giving me the opportunity to come back as this commitment, this gratitude with the island but with San Juan, which is an out-of-the-ordinary city, “he said.
The theme combines the characteristic bomb and full sounds of Puerto Rico and what Vives described as “our tropical pop.”
The video, directed by Carlos Pérez (the same director of the clip of “Little by little”), was filmed in February with all the common precautions in these times of coronavirus, and combines beautiful images of children on the beach, drums , music and joy. But this time the streets that used to be crowded until before the pandemic were virtually empty.
“We’re talking about streets that are very lively, not just at parties,” Vives said. “Then to see us here in these streets as lonely, but that we know that they are streets full of culture, music, people, history – San Sebastian street, here El Batey where we went out, all these places – is curious to be like that, and it’s like shouting again for all this to happen, it’s like going out and putting the drums to the drums screaming bread for people to meet again, bread for people to dance, bread for people to dance. John give all his things. “
Vives recalled that before the pandemic, the island went through great vicissitudes including Hurricane Maria and asked permission to ask Martin a question:
“Ricky, what does Puerto Rico have that doesn’t give up? What does Puerto Rico and its people have in mind that there’s nothing you can about this joy of living?”
“It’s a mixture of water and rice and beans,” Martin replied, making his friend laugh. “There is a terrible danger that in Puerto Rico – look, my family traveled from Stockholm, my husband’s family, and my two sisters-in-law got pregnant! I mean, there’s a magic that has to do with me. I don’t know, it’s a roll. “
More seriously, the singer and activist added: “What can I tell you, in Puerto Rico we have had our highs, we have had our lows … (But) we have to strengthen ourselves and let people understand that we have a That’s why we go out and let the world know what we’re made of and yes, we’re Puerto Rican, we’re Latinos, we have that in our blood and we want to take it all over the world. “
Vives noted that everyone has this place they would like to return to, and stressed that their singer is the heart of “Beautiful Song”: “And if I have to choose, I’ll stay, I’ll stay with you / And if I go back to Saint John, I die, I die with you “.
Martin, meanwhile, said that “just as Carlos flies with Puerto Rico I fly with Colombia.”
“It’s a matter of joining forces,” he added. “And at a time as strong as the one we’re all living in I think that’s what we want to hear … an optimistic side of life.”
On Thursday, both will present the new song at the 6th annual Latin American Music Awards, which will air on Telemundo from 7:00 pm (2300 GMT).