Luis Fonsi: "Despacito 'made me lose my son's first times"

What joined an elevator that no one separates. This is how Luis Fonsi (San Juan de Puerto Rico, 43 years old) must have thought, when he coincided in an elevator with fellow Puerto Rican Mike Towers during a Billboard Awards gala, where both received awards. It was Fonsi himself who asked him to work together and a year later

Bésame

arrives

, a song that fuses bachata and reggaeton that in just 10 days since its launch has already accumulated more than 10 million views on YouTube and is on its way to becoming the song of the summer. Something that should not be strange for the creator of

Despacito

, the song he released with Daddy Yankee in 2017 and which ended up being the musical phenomenon of the decade.

Four years and several successes later, Fonsi's eyes continue to light up when he remembers what

Despacito

meant

for your career and for your life. “It is a blessing, a gift from God. As long as people don't get tired and keep asking me for it, I'll sing it ”, he answers sincerely without showing an iota of boredom for continuing to talk about the song that reached the top of the music charts in 47 countries and became the first song in Spanish in stay at number one in America for 16 weeks. On the other hand, he says that he wrote it “as one more, just like the rest”: “I composed it in the same way, with the same guitar, in the same studio and with the same doubts and emotions as with any other song”. And he recognizes that he associates it with a restart in his profession, since he arrived at a new stage in his career. “It had been three years since my previous album, which was very different because it was more organic, recorded in London with a very British essence.The music had changed a lot, I changed the sounds, the production companies and for the first time I started to do a collaboration with the urban artist par excellence, ”he says about his compatriot Daddy Yankee, despite the gossip about the bad relationship that arose between them. after success.

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Although all were joys - "thanks to her I took my music and my language to Asia, Australia, Russia ... I met many people and many other cultures" -

Despacito

also brought some inconvenience to his personal life.

Only a few weeks before its launch, his son Rocco was born, the youngest of the two he has with his wife, the Spanish model Águeda López.

"They were strange feelings because I needed to be at the top professionally but, at the same time, I was missing my child's first times, his first steps ... That cost me a lot," he explains and jokes that his son knew how to give it back to him.

"He was the culprit," laughs about the nursery rhyme

Baby Shark

unseating

Despacito

as the most viewed tune on YouTube.

The pandemic has allowed him to enjoy his own, but he acknowledges that this stoppage due to the health crisis has made him value his profession much more: “Latin music is at a very important time globally.

It is a very beautiful vice and in the last year and a half I have realized that I need it and how difficult it is not to have it ”.

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But in addition to dedicating himself to his family and working from his home studio in Miami on his new album, which he plans to release later this year, the Puerto Rican artist has become more involved in politics than ever. Although he defines himself as "anti-political," the concern of the interpreter of

I do not give up

in the face of inequality and the political division that American society has experienced in recent months has influenced his decision to speak out for Latinos. And he has done so knowingly. “I have suffered

bullying

, racism… and there are still people who say that, since I speak Spanish, I am not American. I take that very personally, it boils me inside ”, he recognizes with passion.

Having experienced that contempt in the first person made him decide to turn to Democrat Joe Biden during the campaign and last September he presented the candidate at a rally in Florida in commemoration of Hispanic History Month, where the singer Ricky Martin and the actress also participated. Eva Longoria. "My father always taught me that politics is a delicate subject and that everyone must be respected, so when they invited me I thought about it a lot, because it was a very big responsibility, but I felt that it was necessary to talk," he explains about the need to act as a speaker to many compatriots. “I did not agree at all with [Donald] Trump's way of governing, especially with how he treated the people of Puerto Rico. He made fun of us, he despised us, and I took it very personal ”,He explains without hiding his disappointment to many of the former president's policies: “[Biden] will not be a perfect president and he will make mistakes, but at least we have improved respect for human rights. We no longer have that daily circus as there used to be ”.

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Without wanting to delve further into the subject, Fonsi now sets his sights on what is to come.

More than two decades in music later, he admits that he still has that same tingling in his stomach and those nerves about going up on stage again.

Something that will not arrive until 2022. Before, the public will be able to follow in his footsteps in the new edition of

La Voz

, which is already finishing the recordings as a

coach

with Alejandro Sanz, Malú and Pablo Alborán.

And it also announces new themes that will surprise you.

With five Latin Grammys, 12 Billboard Awards and two American Music Awards, the musician warns: "The best songs have not yet been written."

Word of Fonsi.