Balvin’s duet with Willy William, “Mi Gente,” was one of last summer’s biggest hits, and rocketed into the mainstream when Beyoncé jumped on the remix, prompted by her 6-year-old daughter’s love for the song.
They freak beats with roots in flamenco (”Brillo”), toy with some Afrobeat influence (”En Mi,” “Tu Verdad”), and even somehow to flip a dembow beat into a romantic ballad with a little twinge of guitar (”No Es Justo”). Much of it is produced by Alejandro “Sky” Ramirez and Marco “Tainy” Masis, the former a frequent Balvin collaborator and the latter a Puerto Rican production powerhouse who broke out with Luny Tunes’ Mas Flow: Los Benjamins. Even for an American audience, it’s hard to classify this as global music when it often feels strangely familiar. If the words are less important than the vibe, then why should the language matter? While Vibras is rooted in reggaetón, the beats are draped in dancehall and a dash of trap production techniques, with nods to salsa, bachata, and Afrobeat. This aligns well with J Balvin’s plans for world domination. Can you ride the beat? Can you nail the melody and make people move? If you can, it really doesn’t matter what words are said. If it’s no longer important for rappers to be skilled lyricists, then the vibe rules supreme. Vibras, or “vibes” in Spanish, is defiantly Latin, but it is also in direct conversation with what’s happening in American pop-especially the pop that draws its direct ancestry from hip-hop. And on his latest album, Vibras, we’re finally getting a clear picture of what that sounds like. But the 33-year-old Balvin has his sights set higher than just being the supreme reggaetonero romántico.
The scene there has helped bring the genre back into the mainstream, often by taking a more suave approach to a traditionally explicit and misogynist aesthetic, not unlike his contemporary Maluma. The reggaetonero’s global success has dovetailed with the surge of reggaetón’s popularity in his home of Medellin, Colombia.
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