- Welcome, everyone.
We're here in the studio with Luis Fonsi,
the day of the release of his new album, Vida.
Welcome, Luis, to Billboard.
- Thank you, thank you for having me.
- This is the longest-growing baby ever, right?
- It's like a 500-pound baby by this time.
- It is a 500-pound.
When Despacito was having this huge, huge success,
I kept think, "Luis is gonna release that album now.
"Luis is gonna release that album now."
Why didn't you?
- I don't know.
That's a good question because, in the beginning,
I wanted to, I really wanted to release the album
because the album was ready,
but then I realized, I was like,
"You know what, maybe let's just kind of show people,
"little by little, a little bit
"of my quote unquote new sound."
I hate using that expression,
but so much time has passed
since my last album that the world has changed,
and music and pop has changed.
It's not like my new sound.
It's just, it's a new time.
So much time has passed.
It's evolution, it's normal, it's life.
I wanted to just, little by little,
show people what the new album was gonna sound like.
I just felt like going little by little
made it a little bit more suspenseful.
I really don't know,
but at the end of the day, two years later, here we are.
The album is out, and exciting.
- It's a beautiful album,
congratulations. - Thank you.
- I loved it.
It was surprising for me to hear it,
because you do have Despacito,
you have a couple of up tempo tracks.
You have a very dance track as well.
You have the track with Ozuna,
but then, there's a lot of big Luis Fonsi ballads.
There's a lot of R&B.
Is this a side of you that you think,
maybe, the Latin fans know,
but maybe your mainstream fans didn't know?
- It's me.
When people say, "What does this album sound like?"
it's me, it's really always been me.
I've always been like this.
Obviously, earlier in my career,
the songs that were promoted
and that had more success were more ballad-driven,
but that didn't mean that I didn't do the R&B songs,
or that I didn't do the up tempo songs,
because I did them.
They were just in the album.
They were tucked in there,
and I would do them for the live shows,
but I haven't really changed my way
of writing a song or performing it.
It's always been me.
I always say, I'm way too hyperactive
to just do ballads, and I'm way too romantic
to just do up tempos.
- I love it when you do R&B.
It goes so well with your voice.
- Yeah, I mean, that's really my biggest influence.
R&B is really where I start from.
From there, I go into, whether it's more
of a romantic classic ballad,
or more into a urban-driven Latin song,
but really, R&B is what I listen to the most.
- Now, the album was done when Despacito came out,
but in these two ensuing years,
are there any new tracks?
I mean, I know Calypso and Echame La Culpa were new,
or maybe they weren't.
- Echame La Culpa wasn't, but Demi was new.
What happened was, Echame La Culpa was written,
but after Justin Bieber did the remix for Despacito,
and we learned, and we figured out
that there is sort of a connection
with the world and Latin music,
and doing a song bilingual,
I said, "Let's keep this going."
Then that's when I said,
"Let's get a powerful female vocalist
"to do Echame La Culpa,"
which was a perfect story to be told
between a couple or two voices.
That's when I called Demi,
and she was just amazing, and she recorded it.
That was post-Despacito adding into the album.
- But everything else was already there?
Are any of the ballads, any of the slower,
mid-temp songs new?
- I think maybe there's one song called Poco A Poco
that we did quite recently with Andres and Mauricio,
the producers of the album, the two geniuses.
- From Colombia, of course.
- Yeah, yeah, I can't say enough about them.
I could be here and talk
the whole interview about those two.
It's the best thing that's ever happened to me.
They're the real deal, real musicians,
smart kids, they listen to all kinds of music,
and we're sort of in that same bicultural background
that we love, and we absolutely love
and respect our culture and our language,
but we also listen to all kinds of music.
We just kind of put a little bit into it,
and we wrote most of the album together.
They produced it, all of it.
Poco A Poco was the last song that popped up,
which is a little bit of a mid-tempo,
kind of a fresh ballad-y mid-tempo.
I don't know.
- I know a lot of people have been asking you this,
but let me ask it in case our viewers don't know.
There is a song here for your (speaks in foreign language)
Rocco.
- Yeah, my baby boy.
Yeah, there's a song called Ahi Estas Tu,
which we wrote when he was born.
The guys, Andres, Mauricio, and I,
they flew down here to Miami,
and they spent a lot of time here
in my house, in my studio, just writing, working.
They actually lived all of this with me,
my wife's pregnancy, and all the craziness.
"Ah, we gotta run to the hospital."
Then, obviously, his birth and everything.
We were all sort of very emotional,
and positively inspired by his birth.
We're songwriters, so it's like,
how can you not write a song about this,
you know what I'm saying?
- You love to write with friends, don't you?
- I do.
- It kind of feeds your creative energy.
- It's like therapy for me, you know?
I write a lot by myself too,
but there's nothing better
than just grabbing a friend or two friends,
and grabbing a guitar, a piano.
- [Leila] And some drinks.
- Usually, there's some drinks involved,
and just vibing, and just jamming,
and all of the sudden, just a simple idea turns
into a song in a matter of minutes.
That, to me, is so powerful.
It's so powerful to create a song from nothing,
and in an hour, have a full on lyric melody,
and sometimes, full on production
in a matter of hours.
- We asked your fans to send us questions,
and they wanted to know when the video
of Sola was coming out,
because Sola is actually the only song
of the new songs that's in English in this album.
Tell us about that.
- Yeah, Sola, which is the new single,
when we first did it, a lot of people said,
"It sounds so Anglo.
"It sounds so international.
"Because of the R&B influence, it sounds so international.
"This would be a perfect song to do in English."
I was like, "You know what, that's a good idea."
Pretty much, the next day,
we had an English lyric.
I left (speaks in foreign language).
- You wrote the lyrics in English?
- We got another great songwriter involved,
and we just flipped it.
I left the (speaks in foreign language).
It says, "You don't have to be,"
(speaks in foreign language),
you don't have to be here alone.
- Sing us a snippet.
♪ You don't have to be (sings in foreign language) ♪
♪ You don't have to be here alone ♪
- It's pretty much the same thing, but in English.
Then we decided to add it to the album
'cause it just felt right.
It was a natural translation.
You know how it goes, sometimes,
there are songs that don't want to translate.
Obviously, there are some songs,
Despacito has a little bit of English,
Echame La Culpa has a little bit of English,
but it's obviously mainly a Spanish album.
The video, which was your question,
sorry to interrupt, the video for Sola in English
is a completely different video than Sola in Spanish.
- Oh my gosh, I love it.
- Check it out, it's gonna be out
in the next couple of days.
- Now, tell me about this tattoo of yours
here on your arm.
- You only see a little bit of it,
but my shoulder is 12/20.
12/20, both of my kids were born
December 20th, five years apart.
- [Leila] Really?
You timed that, right?
- I wish I could tell you I was that accurate.
- That was a strategic move.
- But I am not that accurate in life.
That's just life.
It was natural birth,
it wasn't C-section, it wasn't planned.
12/20 is obviously a day I will never forget.
Then the other part of the tattoo is,
you can see the guitar,
which is an Emmylou Harris, it's a Gibson,
similar to this one that we have here.
- Fabulous.
- Which is my guitar, my go-to guitar,
where I write all of my songs.
Then, underneath that, you can't see it,
but it's a record player with my kids' names,
and then there's some dates,
and a Puerto Rico one here.
- And Despacito here right.
- I'm waiting to do that in my face.
Right here, sort of like the Post Malone-style face tats.
No, that is not gonna happen any time soon.
- How does it feel when you look
at everything people write, and everything people say,
me included, and you read post--
I like to write a lot post-Despacito, pre-Despacito,
and really, it's a song that defined the course
of Latin music where we are right now.
How do you feel to be the face of that?
Sometimes, do you sit down and say,
"This is surreal, I can't believe I am that person,
"I am Despacito"?
- I mean, I don't look at myself,
and say, "I am Despacito."
I think there's a lot of people behind Despacito.
- Yeah, but you are the face of Despacito, really.
It's your song.
- I'm grateful.
You know, that's what I feel, I'm grateful.
I think one song doesn't define a career,
but I do definitely think
that Despacito is obviously a before and an after,
and I realize that, and I'm proud of that,
and I'll always be proud of that,
and I'll always be happy to sing it.
It'll always bring me back to a really special time,
because I think it was good, not only for me,
not only for everybody involved,
Daddy Yankee, Justin Bieber, the producers,
Erika Ender, but just for Latin music in general
because the world got together singing a Spanish song.
At the end of the day, that's what I celebrate the most,
but having said that, one song does not define a career,
especially a 20-year career.
I celebrate it, and pre, post, I'm all good with it,
and it's always gonna be a part of me.
My job now is just to keep giving the world great songs.
I can't compete with that.
That's always gonna be there,
and I'm always gonna celebrate it,
but I just want to keep on giving different songs,
quality songs, great shows, great production,
and having everybody stay connected with me.
- It's very hard for anyone to compete with Despacito.
I don't think anyone can.
It's ironic, because you had a great song before
called No Me Doy Por Vencido
which broke records on the Billboard charts too.
- Back then, it was the pre-No Me Doy Por Vencido, post.
It was the Billboard song of the decade,
and I thought, back then, this was 2008,
I thought, "Hey, I'm never going to be able
"to reach 22, 23 weeks number one on Billboard
"with No Me Doy Por Vencido and a bunch of awards,"
and here we are 10 years later,
and we definitely shattered that.
- You definitely did.
Now, there are so many Despacito parodies.
- I love them all.
- Some are great, right?
Which one's your favorite?
- My favorite will always be the first Italian one.
- Isn't that hilarious?
I can watch that all day long.
- They did two.
I did a cameo in the second one,
but that first one, that, to me,
was just the most creative one,
and it was just so genius 'cause it was true.
I mean, at this point,
people were a little bit tired of the song.
- And the song wasn't even number one
on the hot 100 at that point, actually.
- Yeah, but remember, the song started
really powerful in Europe before the remix.
Europe was, and especially Italy,
day one, it was like, phew,
it just went right up.
It was kind of like, I hate it, but I love it.
I hate the fact that I love it so much,
and I love that.
Listen, I think it's funny
because it happens to me with other songs.
It's like, "Really, they're playing this song again?"
Then you just start vibing to it,
and you can't stop it.
It was so natural.
Those guys are geniuses.
- I know we don't have much time,
but in the new album, which song,
aside from the song you wrote for Rocco,
which song is really, you think,
would you say is emblematic of this album,
and emblematic of who you are,
and you would want everybody to hear?
Of course, we want them to hear the whole album.
- That's a very hard question.
I mean, taking out the five singles,
which are Despacito, Echame La Culpa,
Calypso, Imposible, and now Sola, taking those out--
- I like Imposible at lot.
- Yeah, Imposible's a great track,
'cause it's a ballad.
Imposible's a ballad that just has
a reggaeton beat underneath it,
but it's really--
(sings in foreign language)
It's a ballad.
There's a strong ballad called Le Pido Al Cielo,
which I really like.
It has a little bit
of that old school Fonsi ballad vibe to it,
but produced in our world now.
There's another really powerful, powerful ballad
called Dime Que No Te Iras,
which I wrote with Claudia Brant.
It's one of those churchy anthem kind of--
- Yeah, I have written anthemic.
- Yeah, very strong ballads.
I don't know.
It's tough.
The album just came out today,
so everything's still so new.
Now, I have to get people's vibes,
and find out what song people connect to,
so I'm actually now asking, "What did you like?
"What did you like?"
That's, eventually, going to make me re-fall in love
with these songs again.
- You've done quite a bit of stuff
since Despacito came out for Puerto Rico,
and you actually did a whole tourism campaign.
What's happening with that,
and with the rebuilding?
'Cause you've been so involved,
give us a little update.
- Yeah, I've been working nonstop with Puerto Rico.
I opened up my own foundation last year,
Luis Fonsi Foundation.
- [Leila] What does the Luis Fonsi Foundation do?
- We're basically building houses.
I'm working very close with La Perla,
which is where we shot Despacito.
We've already built a few houses there,
and before the building, we did the cleaning process,
and getting goods to Puerto Rico, medicine,
generators, and all that stuff.
Now, it's more of making sure,
I'm working with a lot of small privately-owned hospitals,
see if they need any kind of equipment,
and stuff like that, and just doing different events.
I just started literally six months ago
with this foundation, so it's really exciting.
Very young, but it's really exciting
to be able to give back.
Puerto Rico, in a few hours,
I'm gonna be on a plane there.
I'm gonna personally go and celebrate this album there.
- You're gonna do record signing, right?
- Yeah, and we're doing a free concert,
we're doing a bunch of stuff,
because that's where it all started.
It's my way of saying thank you.
- With all the Despacito success,
what did you do, or what did you buy,
or where did you go that you would have never done before?
- I haven't got any money,
so need to speak with my manager
and my record label about that.
- Your manager has everything.
- No, I haven't done anything.
- Was there one big indulgence?
- I haven't done anything.
I haven't had time.
Leila, I haven't had time to do anything.
No, no, honestly, to be honest,
no, there hasn't been anything crazy.
- Nothing that you said,
"This is what I always wanted to do,
"and damn it, now I'm gonna do it"?
- I mean, maybe, but I don't promote those things.
- No, but tell us.
- I bought a house, I bought a house.
- I love it.
- Yeah, I bought a house.
- Here in Miami?
When are we going?
- Do you want me to tell the address, everything?
Visit me, it's 5--
Yes, yes, I bought a house,
which is being built, and that's it.
I'm kinda chill.
I'm not too extravagant. - I know you are.
I know you are.
Thank you, Luis, and just to wrap up,
of all the new stuff that's coming out,
besides Vida, obviously, which we love,
what do you have in your playlist?
What new song are you excited about?
- I don't know, what should I listen to?
I just listen to the same stuff everybody listens to.
- Which is, what, Despacito?
- No, no, I don't listen to my own stuff.
I'm really stuck on salsa lately.
Not stuck, stuck is a negative word.
I'm happily stuck on old school salsa,
now more than ever.
I just don't want to get out of those salsa playlists.
- I love it.
It's gonna come back.
That's what everyone says. - I hope so, I hope so.
- Thank you, thank you, Luis Fonsi.
- Thank you, thank you, billboard.com.
Thank you so much for the support.
I hope you enjoy my new album, Vida.
Enjoy every single song.
Let me know what you think.
Write me, call me, visit me at my new house.
Thank you for the support.
(man sings in foreign language)