Nicky Jam is savouring his second chance
Reggaeton star’s comeback takes him to the ACC stage, but he’s jealous of ‘Despacito’
Everyone loves a comeback story.
Nicky Jam’s comes swinging on a Reggaeton beat, and his headlining date at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday will let his Toronto fans see him perform songs from his aptly named Fenix album.
“I’m not going to lie, I never thought in a million years that I would be in the position that I am now,” Jam says in an interview this week.
“I thought actually I would settle down and do low-budget shows and sing my classic songs that I came out with in the past.”
Jam, born Nick Rivera Caminero, 36, is two years into grabbing hold of stardom that he knows he almost let slip away. Born in Massachusetts, his family moved to Puerto Rico, where he was signed at 14 because he was noticed freestyling in a grocery store. He was an artist on the rise for a decade, creating hits with his friend and mentor, Daddy Yankee. Then, drugs and alcohol took over his life and he had a falling out with Daddy Yankee — Jam wrote a diss track about him, but the target responded with “Gasolina,” which became a worldwide hit.
Desperate for work, he moved to Medellin, Colombia, where he worked as a lounge singer. Treated like a star, he quit drugs and alcohol, started working on his music, got back into shape, and had a string of regional hits there.
From there, the seeds of his return have only grown.
“I fell in love in with Colombia. I fell in love with the culture. I fell in love with the country and I decided I was going to make it here, and if I had a national song, I could go pretty good and probably bounce from here to the world,” he says.
“So the country fell in love with me, and adopted me and gave me so much love, that they made me feel that I can conquer the world.”
Now 36, Nicky Jam is well on his way. He reconciled with Daddy Yan- kee, counts Vin Diesel as a close friend (and appeared with him in XXX: the Return of Xander Cage) and released Fenix, which has had a string of hits, including “Hasta el Amanecer,” “El Amante” and “El Perdon” — which, in part courtesy of an English version, topped the charts in places ranging from Mexico to Switzerland and Romania. The album won him six Latin Grammys earlier this year; Sony recently signed him to a massive global marketing deal; he has just launched his charitable organization; Telemundo is working on a TV series on his life, called El Ganador (“The Winner”), that he is going to appear in (it will air in 2018). Oh, and he got married in February.
Jam has always been a lover man with his lyrics and singing style, and the album does walk through a lot of the styles burbling in the heady catch-all of Latin music.
“It has a little bit of everything. It has that dancehall vibe, it has that Reggaeton vibe, it has that R&B influence. Everything that is Nicky Jam,” he says.
Meanwhile, a song he had no hand in might be helping him out. The incredible success of “Despacito” is being heralded as a breakthrough moment for Latin music and Jam can only speak in glowing terms, mixed with a bit of jealousy, about how it is lifting all boats.
“I think it’s awesome, man. I hate I’m not in there, bro. That’s the best thing that happened to us, the best thing that happened to our music.
“We’re trying to work and make it bigger and bigger every day. I wish I could do another ‘Despacito,’ I want to do a hit that’s just like that, or even bigger,” he says.
“I am so proud of Luis Fonsi, so proud of Daddy Yankee, so proud of Justin Bieber and so proud of the Latino movement.”
After having almost lost it all, Jam is savouring this moment and making the most of his opportunities, of which there is currently no shortage.
“(The comeback) feels awesome. It feels incredible, and it feels like I have to maintain it and treasure it. Not everybody has a second chance in their career, and now I’m even bigger than I was when I was first out,” he says.
In terms of future projects, he says he’s constantly working on music and will likely take some more acting gigs.
“Right now, we’re working on the series about my life . . . And they want me for (Netflix series) Narcos, and I’m studying that, because that’s a big commitment to shoot for six months.
“And apart from that, me and Vin Diesel are doing a song actually, and it’s coming out in a few months. He wanted to have fun and show Latino people some love and we made him sing in Spanish. I think this is going to be something crazy. People are going to love it.”