RAUW ALEJANDRO
The 29-year-old Puerto Rican singer and rapper is not called the “king of modern reggaeton” for nothing.
His second album, Vice Versa, debuted at the top of Billboard’s Latin American charts last year, and there’s no stopping him.
Rauw is best known for his megahits Todo de ti; Cambia el Paso with Jennifer Lopez; and Te felicito with Shakira, which is booming on music channels and charts.
The music video has been viewed more than 241 million times on YouTube and the track has been listened to more than 184 million times on Spotify.
He is not the only musician in his family. His father, Raúl Ocasio, is a guitarist and his mother, María Ruiz, a singer.
“My family always worked hard. My father moved to Florida when I was 10 and worked there. My mother [in Puerto Rico] had three jobs at the same time. We were a middle-class family, but we always had everything we needed thanks to my mother,” he says.
“I was mostly raised by my mother, grandmother and sister and was always surrounded by women.”
With his first big salary as a musician, he paid off all his mother’s debts. “She’s living the good life now. She is my queen. She deserves it.” He wanted to be a soccer star and even had his eye on the semipro league in the US before a knee injury at 20 cut short his dream.
He turned his focus to his hobby, music, and now he enjoys star status. He was recently nominated for four awards at the Billboard Music Awards, including best Latin American artist and best Latin American album for Vice Versa.
Rauw has been in a relationship with the Spanish singer Rosalía (29) since last year. The couple frequently chat with fans on social media and he likes to hang out with her when they’re not working – but he’s not a fan of flying.
“I’m an artist and I fly a lot, but I hate planes. My mom gives me Dramamine to help me sleep on the plane. I meditate two hours before the flight, I drink hot tea, I pray. I try to sleep so I don’t hear the sound when we take off.”