C
omb through any era of J Balvin’s decades-long career and you’ll find some impressive accolade or bit of Latin-music history sitting in plain sight: Start early on, when he’d just shot out of Medellín’s music scenes, there’s all the massive achievements he set for songs like 2015’s “Ginza”; he even scored a Guinness World Record for longest consecutive run at Number One on the U.S. Hot Latin Songs chart.
His 2018 album, Vibras, which featured a young Rosalía when she was just breaking out of Spain, shattered streaming records in its first week, and included the global smash “Mi Gente,” the first fully Spanish-language song to reach Number One on Spotify’s Global Top 50 chart. He hit the Coachella main stage when he popped in for Beyoncé’s headlining set and followed that by teaming up with rising peer Bad Bunny, who joined him for the joint album Oasis.
Tons more has followed: His experimental album Colores, his personal turn Jose, his genre-bending Rayo. And yet Balvin, as he recounts all of those stories, is quick to point out that none of it was as easy or as straightforward as it looked. “It feels fast, but it wasn’t,” he admits. “It took me, I mean, 20 years.” And he’s weathered a lot: Mental health issues, controversies, feuds. But one of Balvin’s strengths has been his staying power — and his ability to build a career that’s been focused on longevity.
