El siete de mayo/May 7th
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| Photo from GQ Magazine, July 2017, in an article about Balvin's pop-up store in the Paris boutique Colette. Click HERE. |
A musician from Medellín, Colombia whose breakthrough came in 2012 with the song Yo te lo dije, an international hit, Balvin has been composing and performing music since he learned to play the guitar at age 12. Though he is known now as a reggaeton star, he started as a grunge rocker obsessed with Metallica and Nirvana (he has a Nirvana tattoo on his knee). He credits Daddy Yankee for inspiring him to go into reggaeton, though he also acknowledges Héctor Lavoe and Snoop Dogg as influential. At this point, he has collaborated with numerous artists on a variety of projects, including Beyoncé (and her daughter Blue Ivy) for a remix of his hit single Mi Gente in 2017 (click HERE for more on that). The original Mi Gente video on YouTube now has more than 1.7 billion views (Blue Ivy is apparently a fan, which is how Beyoncé's collaboration came to be). Balvin's song Ginza, from the 2016 album Energía, broke a Guinness World Record for the longest stay at the number one spot on the U.S. Hot Latin Songs charts (click HERE for the Rolling Stone article/interview about that). Balvin, who is also passionate about fashion and was an ambassador during the 2017 New York Fashion Week, grew up in Colombia in a middle-class family (his father was an economist and businessman). When he was a teenager, though, his father lost the business and the family moved to a poorer neighborhood, which Balvin credits with helping him learn to "move between worlds." After studying English in Oklahoma as part of an exchange program and living with his aunt for a bit in New York City at the age of 17, Balvin returned to Colombia and performed in various urban clubs in Medellín while studying international business at EAFIT University. That's when he adopted the stage name J. Balvin "El Negocio" (The Business) and began pursuing a career in music in earnest. The rest, as they say, is history. Balvin still lives in Medellín, in a beautiful home on the outskirts of the city, which is where this interview (in Spanish), with Maria Elena Salinas of Aquí y Ahora, takes place.
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| A 1948 poster of Evita. Image from Wikipedia. |
Other May 7th birthdays of note:
Eva Perón (1919-1952): The first lady of Argentina (1946-1952), she fought for workers' and women's rights (and was portrayed by Madonna in the 1996 film Evita, based on the 1978 musical by Andrew Lloyd Weber). She married Juan Perón in 1945 after the two met at an event for victims of an earthquake. She inspired passionate devotion from her followers around all of Latin America.
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