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 that shows their brotherly friendship.
“Canción bonita”, written by the Puerto Rican and Colombian superstars with Mauricio Rengifo, Andrés Torres and Rafa Arcaute, debuts Tuesday at 7pm in New York with a colorful video filmed between Old San Juan, Piñones (Loíza) and the iconic El Batey -bar.
We’ve known each other since we were kids, since he lived in Puerto Rico. We walked those streets of San Juan and left two or three markers there, we laughed a lot, we drank two or three little songs of rum and good things for those streets, ”Martin enthusiastically told an interview via Zoom from his home in Los Angeles, with Vives connected from Santa Marta, Colombia.
For Vives, who laughingly said, “Ricky is to blame for this entire pod,” the partnership allowed him to pay tribute to the country that welcomed him as a soap actor for many years, where he signed his first record deal and where he saw also the birth of his two older children.
“There is a very beautiful story with San Juan in our lives, in our careers, so I thank Ricky who wanted to make this song and who gave me the opportunity to give back to him as that dedication, that gratitude with the island but with San Juan, a special city, ”he said.
The song combines the characteristic sounds of the bomba and Plena from Puerto Rico and what Vives described as ‘our tropical pop’.
The video, directed by Carlos Pérez (the same creator of the clip “Despacito”), was filmed in February with all the usual 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 were busy before the pandemic were practically empty.
“We are talking about streets that are very lively, not just at parties,” said Vives. So to see ourselves out there in those streets as lonely, but we know they’re streets full of culture, music, people, history – San Sebastián Street, over there El Batey where we go out, all those places – it’s curious to be like This, and it’s like calling again for all this to happen It’s like going out and putting the drums on the drums, shouting so that the people meet again, so that the people dance, so that San Juan is already stuff. “.
Recalling that the island was going through major vicissitudes before the pandemic, including Hurricane Maria, Vives asked permission to ask Martin a question:
“Ricky, what hasn’t Puerto Rico given up on that? What have Puerto Rico and its people in mind that nothing can be said about that joie de vivre?”
“It’s a mixture of water with rice and beans,” replied Martin, making his friend laugh. “There is a tremendous danger that in Puerto Rico – look, my family has traveled from Stockholm, my husband’s family and my two sisters-in-law have gotten pregnant! I mean, there is a magic it has that I don’t know, it is a bummer. “
More seriously, the singer and activist added, “What can I tell you, in Puerto Rico we’ve had our ups and downs … (But) we need to strengthen ourselves and make people understand that we have an identity. and let the world know what we are made of and yes, we are Puerto Rico, we are Latinos, we have this in our blood and we want to take it to all parts of the world. ”
Vives pointed out that everyone has that place they would like to return to, and emphasized what his is by singing the chorus of “Canción bonita”: “And if I have to choose, I’ll stay, I’ll stay with you / En if I go back to San Juan, I’ll die, I’ll die with you “.
Martin meanwhile said that “as Carlos flies with Puerto Rico, I fly with Colombia”.
“It’s a matter of joining forces,” he added. “And in a moment as strong as the moment we’re all alive, I think this is what we want to hear … an optimistic side to life.”
On Thursday, they will both present the new song at the 6th annual Latin American Music Awards, which airs on Telemundo from 7pm (11pm GMT).