Los Angeles (USA), August 20 (EFE).- Neither critics nor the general public agree that Puerto Rican Álvaro Díaz is a reggaeton singer, a rapper or a ‘trapero’, but they all agree that his album “Felicilandia” (2021) catapulted him as one of the most promising figures of the Spanish urban scene.

Now, after a successful tour in Spain and having sold more than six thousand tickets for one of his concerts in September in Mexico City, he announces that he will start 2023 by creating a new album called “Sayonara”.

“I feel very confident in the projects I work on. I keep renewing myself, searching for sounds and challenging myself musically,” Alvarito, as he is popularly known, said in an interview with Efe.

At 31, Díaz has gradually risen to prominence in the Puerto Rican music scene, which is to say throughout Latin America and Spain, due to the inevitable impact that each song that goes viral has on this. archipelago and home to Hispanic music. talents. .

His career dates back more than a decade, when he became one of the promoters of ‘trap’ beats in Puerto Rico through the now disused SoundCloud platform, before moving on to other genres and moving in Los Angeles (California, USA).

Gone is also an adolescence in which he found inspiration in the film “8 Mile”, starring Eminem, his afternoons in the streets of Hato Rey (San Juan, Puerto Rico) linked to rap battles and his first experiments with a bass in the hands imitating one of his favorite pop-punk bands: Blink-182.

For this reason, already recognized artists such as C Tangana, Rosalía or Myke Towers showed admiration for his compositions and showed him their respect.

The honeys of reaching more followers came to him in 2022, but Díaz has always avoided reporting his number of hits to his music to truly reach his fans.

“Numbers don’t always make sense in real life. There are a lot of artists with millions of hits who don’t connect with their audience,” he explained.

The Puerto Rican seeks to be himself, to continue to develop “his own style” to build a solid base of listeners willing to explore each step of his creative process with him.

“What made the great geniuses of any field, from Picasso to Warhol, is, in addition to their talent, their history. The process of becoming what they have become,” continued the singer, who draws inspiration from various art forms for his songs.

In addition to music, a taste for fashion and design is felt in his projects, which manifests itself in the aesthetics of his video clips or in the way he dresses, making him an all-terrain artist who openly confesses to wanting to be something like “the new Frank Ocean”.

Díaz is able to mix classic reggaeton rhythms, futuristic punk sounds and synthesizers or opt for more melodic versions without any complex.

In fact, he released earlier this month “Ramona Flowers”, a single that will be part of the album “Sayonara” and in which he pays homage to the character of Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the film “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” -based on the comic strip “Scott Pilgrim”, by Canadian Bryan Lee O’Malley.

“SAYONARA”, A LITTLE DARKER VISION BY ÁLVARO DÍAZ

Given Díaz’s various inspirations, it’s unpredictable where the Puerto Rican artist will point with “Sayonara”, but he already anticipates that “the labels” of an urban genre historically stereotyped by the most snobbish critics will fall.

“If ‘Felicilandia’ was something colorful, ‘Sayonara’ is going to be a bit darker, more industrial,” the singer briefly said, who didn’t want to reveal too many details just yet.

Regarding future collaborations in this record work, Díaz hinted that “it’s possible” that a theme he recently worked on with Spanish pop artist Sen Senra will enter.

Feid, Tainy, Sebastián Yatra or Rauw Alejandro, whose joint song “Problemón” was nominated for the MTV MIAW awards in the “viral anthem” category, were some of the “featurings” chosen by Díaz in “Felicilandia”.

Other more well-known names, such as Karol G or Nathy Peluso, have been repeatedly highlighted by Álvaro Díaz as collaborations that motivate him to perform at some point.

It remains to be seen whether they will finally be able to join the “Sayonara” repertoire, but Díaz will have a great challenge ahead of him to match the success obtained with “Felicilandia”.

Guillaume Azabal