New plane. A baby. Presence in video games … Everything is happening to J Balvin in the middle of the release of “José”, a 24-song album that emphasizes his personal essence.
“It’s an album based on Josep, in person, just as I am as I am … With mistakes, good, bad, regular things, bacanas, not so bacanas, just me,” said the urban music star his real name is José Álvaro Osorio Balvin, in a recent video call interview from New York.
Released on Friday under the Latin Universal Music label, “Josep” is Balvin’s fifth studio album. It includes hit singles like “In Da Gheto” with DJ Skrillex, “What Else So?” with Maria Becerra and “Quina bogeria”, and new songs like “Una nota” with Sech, a romantic theme in which they invite a girl to dance and have fun.
Balvin said that thanks to his quarantine he managed to finish the song with Sech after he had started a long time ago.
The subject that follows to him in the disc, and that continues with the same subject, is “You remember me” with Yandel, based on the original song of Yandel and Tego Calderon “To the natural one” of 2004, of which they go take your characteristic “oh, ah, oh, ah, I want you on the dance floor.”
“The heart of the song next to Sec is a classic chorus of a Yandel song,” Balvin said. “I said ‘wow, how good it would be to bring Yandel to finish validating the song for us.'”
Another new track is “Baby You Look Good” with Feid, an urban romantic song that he described as a kind of “bolero 2021”.
Among the previously released tracks, one of his favorites judging by his Instagram posts is “In Da Gheto,” created from 1994’s “In De Ghetto” by Puerto Rican DJ Dave Morales with Delta Bennett, who also has a ’96 version with Delta Bennett and Crystal Waters.
Balvin, who has a sampling of Corona’s “The Rhythm Of The Night” on “Rhythm (Bad Boys For Life)” with the Black Eyed Peas, said he’s a “100%” fan of 90’s dance music.
“It just so happens that I didn’t know (Morales) was Latin at the time with Crystal Waters. It’s cool!” He said. “I was always a fan of this song. I said ‘How can I raise it?’ Here I talked to Srkillex and we found him, we turned him around and here we are. “
Also “art fan”, Balvin appears in the “What Madness” video released in August as a mixed-technique work in a contemporary art gallery. The theme also shows us a different band of his music, more leisurely and towards the electronic.
“I think that’s what the ‘Jose’ album is all about, diversity and versatility,” said the artist, who will be touring the United States and Canada in April and May this year. next.
There is also a lot of female presence on the album: she sings “Bitch” with the Dominican draper Tokischa, “Poblat” with his countrywoman Karol G, “What else then?” with the Argentine Maria Becerra and “One Day” with the English Dua Lipa.
“It’s that there’s no difference working with a man or women,” Balvin said. “We are all equal.”
Balvin, who has a Transformers doll named J Balvintron, recently joined a list of musicians that includes Marshmello, Ariana Grande and Travis Scott with their own “skin” (look) in the popular video game “Fortnite”.
“I love it and I still can’t get over it, that it can be seen with my colored hair and my Jordan sneakers, with my tattoos … in Fortnite. Being the first Latin (here) for me is surreal.” he said. “I’m not going to take off. Every time I have free time I’m going to be playing with J Balvin. Joseph was playing with J Balvin.”
He also posted on Instagram his journey that route of asking the aventón to his friends to get to their concerts to have their own plane, the third actually. For him it is not ostentation but a message of overcoming to show that ordinary people can do great things.
“The message is what it says, sacrifice and that I am equal, I am worth the same without it,” he said. “If I’m what I have, the day I don’t have it then it’s worthless? … It’s a message of inspiration.”
This year he participated in Metallica’s tribute album “The Metallica Blacklist”, in which he performed a version of “Wherever I May Roam”. Proceeds from the album, released on Friday, will go to various charities and Balvin chose to make his own at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the All Within My Hands organization.
“It was obviously controversial for these metal purists, but I’m a Metallica fan, for me it was an honor,” Balvin said of some rock lovers ’criticism of his involvement. “They (Metallica) were the ones who chose which artist was going to sing.”
But perhaps his biggest achievement this year is having become a father with his partner, the Argentine model Valentina Ferrer.
His son Riu was born in late June and he dedicates “Dear River” to him, a song in which you can hear the heartbeat of his little one and in which he sings verses such as: “You came to give me light / I dreamed of you a long time ago “and” I don’t know if it meets the requirements / But I promise you it won’t miss a beautiful love “.
“It’s been a lot of blessings and learning,” said Balvin, who has the word family tattooed on his chest, about his new facet as a father. “Anything that affects helps the mind and heart,” he added about the positive impact it has had on his life.