On a late October evening last 12 months in Puerto Rico, Rafa Pabön felt the sudden urge to produce a new song.
All-around midnight, the 27-12 months-outdated singer/songwriter experienced completed rehearsing with his band. Most people else was prepared to connect with it a working day, but Pabön persuaded a quantity of co-conspirators — which include acclaimed Cuban vocalist Daymé Arocena and A-listing reggaetón producer Mr. NaisGai — to reconvene at his house studio. There, he started to improvise a vocal line established to a nimble, Afrobeats rhythm.
“I seldom go into my studio in the center of the night time,” Pabön remembers all through a short keep in Miami for a concert and recording sessions. “But my guitarist agreed to be a part of us, reluctantly, and the phrase ‘aiwo’ appeared in my brain out of nowhere. I stored singing it, scrambling to include a different segment to the tune, when Daymé instructed me to stop. ‘You have your chorus, Rafa,’ she stated. ‘The song is already there.’”
A number of weeks afterwards, Pabön traveled to Uganda and brought a camera with him. The “Aiwo” demo however in his intellect, he enlisted community dance troupe Ghetto Young children for a tunes online video that connects the dots involving Afro new music and Pabön’s Spanish-talking Puerto Rican heritage.
Launched in February to moderate streaming figures but resounding critical success, “Aiwo” reaffirmed Pabön as just one of the most radical and unique artists working in Latin tunes right now — a globally minded songwriter who generates esoteric combos of variations although staying grounded to the pop zeitgeist. As it turns out, “Aiwo” also grew to become the stepping stone for Pabön’s subsequent album, an epic undertaking in the earning motivated by African audio.
Rafa Pabön posing with children from an African village in entrance of a Puerto Rican flag.
(Courtesy of Rafa Pabön)
“Aiwo” shines equally as a catchy urbano hit and an arty gem. Its spacey bass line, Afro qualifications vocals and delicate melodic consequences are complemented by Pabön’s rapping. He twists the accents of Spanish terms, breaking down syllables to produce witty percussive results. And what are the lyrics about? In total top rated-10 method, he rhapsodizes about conference a lady like no other, seeking to ponder just about every solitary dawn with her.
“I do not do it on goal, but I do have an being familiar with of how the new music enterprise operates,” he explained. “I discovered to be a hybrid. I can do a get together tune due to the fact I’m young — I like to go out and have exciting and get drunk. But I also teach myself and was elevated with the idea that there is a intent to my existence, a duty.”
“Rafa’s musical vision is unbelievably open up,” states Daymé Arocena, whose the latest album “Alkemi” contains a duet with Pabön and is previously a contender for ideal Latin album of 2024. “I know artists who are afraid of adhering to their individual muse. Rafa is by no means scared of that — he is trustworthy about his feelings. Correct now he’s immersed in a journey into the essence of his own roots. This connection with the earth — the epicenter, the Blackness — provides a diverse colour to his music.”
Pabön’s major hits so much have been substantial-profile collaborations with straight-in advance reggaetón artists. 2019 was the 12 months when men and women started recognizing his identify. He appears to be like affable and charismatic on the visible for “Jangueo,” a music with Alex Rose which offers over 350 million streams on Spotify. All-around that time, he guested on a slick remix of Brytiago’s “La Mentira” with Myke Towers, Sech and other urbano stars.
Artistically, even so, he caught the focus of tastemakers in 2023 with “Galería” — his 3rd album — a sprawling Afro-Caribbean mosaic of monumental ambition. The aristocratic cadre of company spans from previous Los Van Van singer Mario “Mayito” Rivera to urbano celebrity Rauw Alejandro and neo-flamenco goddess Buika. However, the most stunning element of the album is its maker’s cosmopolitan soul. He zigzags gracefully from the reggae really like paean “Manifestación de Amor,” with boricua band Gomba Jahbari, to the bossa tinged “Besos de Invierno.” The album’s closing minimize, “Rosa,” is a classic merengue that Pabön turned into a psychedelic experiment with the addition of Indian sitar.
“I make it a position to delight in earning each solitary song,” he states when requested about his penchant for reckless experimentation. With ‘Rosa,’ I preferred to create a merengue harking back to the essence of [Dominican master] Juan Luis Guerra, but I desired an additional element that would completely separate it from the norm. I have carried out quite a few strange music. They may possibly turn out to be world wide hits, or potentially people today will loathe them, but the system of curation is anchored on a deep respect for all musical formats.”
Anybody who’s marginally common with Latin audio will notify you how rigid and conservative its aesthetic parameters tend to be. An imaginary line is drawn in order to assure that the business hitmakers — typically youthful artists in the reggaetón, pop and música mexicana fields — are saved properly absent from the poetic creations of icons these kinds of as Rubén Blades and Jorge Drexler. Pabön’s audio operates in an altogether different universe, had been such distinctions are thought of a squander of time.
“Rafa’s songs basically defies categorization,” states Buika, who extra her smoky vocalizing to “Ay Amor,” a subtle, nevertheless visceral relationship of flamenco and reggaetón. “He has established his very own style, embracing numerous unique cultures and appears. Rafa is a universal artist, and a very brave youthful man — the variety of person worthy of preventing for.”
“There are no dichotomies in his environment,” Arocena explained. “The urbano vibe comes normal to him, but so does the poetic songwriting. Within his head, there is no conflict in between the two worlds. Rafa appeared in my life to instruct me a lesson: He demolished my preconceived notion that an urbano artist was intended to be superficial and eradicated from his roots.”
“I grew up listening to Calle 13, Don Omar and Tego Calderón — but also to artists like [nueva trova legend] Silvio Rodríguez, Víctor Jara and Los Van Van,” Pabön clarifies. “My mothers and fathers listened to a large amount of Cuban timba when I was rising up. I refuse to label my have seem. Let us just say that I’m an artist. Tomorrow I may possibly report a regional Mexican song, and the day following it could be trova — just as prolonged as I wake up with the want to enjoy trova.”
Now, the “Aiwo” experiment has turned into an album that will discover him traveling by way of Africa and exploring its musical roots. This thirty day period he will be flying to Nigeria, with Ghana and Cameroon as his upcoming stops. Pabön options to launch the new challenge — coupled with a documentary — upcoming year.
“Africa is the area the place we all come from,” he states. “I want to go deep into the incredibly foundation, and display persons that new music does not have to have to be mechanical. It’s not all about making it large with a viral one. We can also make art just for the pleasure of creating it. Much more than a musical project, this is now a lifetime job for me.”
