J Balvin is the hot Latino artist currently and he scorched the perpetually dancing crowd at the Spark Arena tonight.
Jose Alvaro Osorio Balvin was born in Medellin, Colombia, from parents who both came from Adelaide, Australia.
He is considered one of the premier Reggaeton style artists and has broken into mainstream music in recent times. The first Latino artist to be a headline act at festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza.
What is Reggaeton? It arose in Panama in the late Eighties and took off with a host of Puerto Rican musicians through the Nineties and the early part of this century.
Originated in Dancehall music, and incorporating Hip-Hop and Rap vocals equally as much as toasting. There is the Jamaican link.
It pulls in Electronica, R’n’B, and of course the plethora of Latino beats like salsa and merengue.
A musical gumbo sung predominantly in Spanish. A reductionist view would be modern Dance Rap with Latin Soul and R’n’B.
The number of artists playing in this style has exploded across South America. Balvin is one of the most successful in crossing over to mainstream ears.
He grew up as a big fan of Metallica and Nirvana. Then listened to a lot of the Gangsta Rappers and beyond. Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, Wu-Tang Clan, Notorious B.I.G.
An early Sunday evening hold-up on the Southern motorway meant I got inside the Arena just as Sofi Tukker were starting.
Sophie Hawley-Weld was born in Frankfurt, Germany, grew up in Canada and Atlanta, Georgia, and is currently based in New York City.
She went to college in Italy, learnt Portuguese from her love of Brazilian culture and eventually went to live there for several years.
Tucker Halpern was raised in Massachusetts. He was a big-league University basketball player and was leading the team at Brown University. Illness forced him out of sport, and he looked to switch his path by DJing.
Brown University was where he met Sophie, and their partnership as Sofi Tukker began.
Essentially Electronic Dance Music with Latin rhythms incorporated, especially when Sophie sings in Portuguese.
This show has brought out the young Latino women (who outnumber the men), dressed to kill and determined to dance. Shake their booty and do it all night long.
It is one of the most good-natured big shows that I can recall.
Heavy on the House music from the start. Big screen computer graphics displayed as an endless vertigo-inducing tracking shot.
Throw Some Ass and Sophie has a seriously sweet honey of a voice, which she accompanies on the electric guitar.
Tucker gets to man the DJ desk and often sings with vocals treated.
Throw some ass, free the mind!
They have a troupe of a half dozen hot dancers, as well as those generated on the screen.
Sensuous dancing accompanies graphics of exotic mushrooms which remind be of the Hipgnosis album art designers from the Seventies.
Woof is one of several songs sung in Portuguese.
Purple Hat raises the dance temperature. The rhythms are metronomic. Treated vocals from Tucker.
Drinkee is typical heavy beats of a good dance club in New York City. The city is possibly the headquarters of Latino rhythms, even above Miami and East Side Los Angeles.
The half hour intermission is a show it itself. Most of the floor-standing patrons and up into the stands, are having a continuous Dance-a-thon.
J Balvin enters the big stage, atop a massive cube which sits middle.
He greets the crowd in Spanish, which raises a huge cheer. There is some English, mainly how are you Auckland!?
It doesn’t matter as all his songs are in Spanish.
Six dancers immediately appear, to the soft toasting vocals. This heralds the night of Carnivale. More dancers appear later.
The vocal pitch is generally flat. It is the beat that jumps and raises the intensity. The lyrics are delivered at a medium pace.
J Balvin is regarded as the important artist in the second wave of Reggaeton. At its origin, it was faster and related to edgy and aggressive Rap.
His main influence here was Ramon Daddy Yankee Rodriguez.
Fourth song in is a Reggaeton anthem seemingly dedicated to Balvin. Neo-Soul Rap and the crowd in the stands shake the seats by stamping in unison.
Audience gets wild after Balvin says he is bringing the good energy to Auckland tonight.
Then he continues in Spanish. Melodic Rap which is smooth and deadpan. Rhythm is the king here. The dancers help him bust out a few Michael Jackson moves.
When he hits his Soul groove, he can sing in seductive fashion, approaching the sexual healing style of say, Marvin Gaye.
This is what makes him so appealing to the mainstream, as is demonstrated tonight.
It is a huge theatrical show with a large troupe of dancers, who go through numerous costume changes.
Highly theatrical like recent American Rap concerts, only more so. The J. Balvin show is rehearsed and all precision down to the last second.
He has appeared in a Super Bowl half time show in recent years.
A large part of the show has him dressed in a Nudie suit mirror ball costume.
Dancers don silver on a number which approaches the sound of hard Gospel.
Towards the end we see giant spidery hands crawl out from backstage and make a move to mingle in the crowd before pulling back. And remain in frozen position until the show is over.
Heralded when the dancers all don ET (the extra-terrestrial) costume masks for the final extended number.
Love is in the air! Many couples are signalling the horizontal mambo to come.
J Balvin gives a benediction to everyone. I love that you all came with your best energy tonight!
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
J Balvin
Sofi Tukker
