Music Crush Monday: Karol G
Karol G carved out a top spot for herself in the male dominated genre of Reggeton and she’s not done conquering glass ceilings. Her latest jam “Sejodioto” is a slow mix Reggeton that we can all vibe to.
2020 was supposed to be Karol G’s year, the year we all sang her praises from rootops as her music became a household staple, but as you can imagine, the pandemic hit hard with lockdown, shutting artist’s hardwork down. A real set back for a new rising face and voice in the music scene. As 2020 hit Karol G was still riding the high of “Tusa,” a triumphant team-up with Nicki Minaj that marked a number of milestones. It was the first Latin song with all women artists to reach a billion streams on Spotify, and it was also the first song with a female lead artist to debut atop Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart since 2016. Yes, 2020 was off to a great start for Karol G — she was regularly collaborating with stars both within Latin music (J Balvin, Ozuna, Anuel AA) and well beyond it (Jonas Brothers, Damian Marley), seemingly destined for crossover success and mainstream fame. And then… well, you know COVID-19 hit. As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down parts of the music business, along with the rest of the world, the artist born Carolina Giraldo Navarro started to worry she had lost momentum. “I was feeling all this pressure because I thought, ‘I will never be able to top ‘Tusa.’ I feel blocked,’ ” She said to Billboard in their 2021 artist spotlights.
Where can you catch Karol G now? Well, in March, she released her ambitious, genre-hopping third album, KG0516, which debuted at No. 1 on the Top Latin Albums chart — dethroning Bad Bunny’s El Último Tour del Mundo and earning the biggest debut week by a female Latin act since Shakira’s El Dorado in 2017. In October, she’ll embark on her first headlining North American tour, which includes two sold-out shows at the Coliseo in San Juan, Puerto Rico — one of the most important venues for reggaetón acts to play — then perform back-to-back stadium shows in December at Medellín’s Estadio Atanasio Girardot. It’s all a dream come true for an artist who has been plotting a path to stardom since she was a teenager.
