Keeping A Promise To Students & Fans In Their Native Puerto Rico With A Social Media Invitation/Call To Arms…
Calle 13 Attracts Over 50,000 Fans To The Streets Of San Juan For A First of its Kind Free Concert At The University of Puerto Rico – To Celebrate Their New Album “Multi_Viral” And Rally For Affordable Higher Education
“Education is the new revolution’ is one of the favorite expressions of René Pérez , leader of the Puerto Rican band Calle 13. So the decision to perform a free concert last night outside the educational center of the country , the University of Puerto Rico , made sense. From Río Piedras, Resident demanded that college tuition is not increased , expressed solidarity with residents of Caño Martín Peña and requested the cessation of violence in Venezuela and in Puerto Rico. This free show emerged as a spontaneous idea of the band leader to his followers through the social network Twitter- about the possibility of a meeting before the official start of the band’s international “’Multi_Viral tour March 1 at Ferro Stadium in Buenos Aires , Argentina .” –El Nuevo Dia
- WATCH VIDEO COVERAGE HERE - (High Resolution Images Available By Request)
“Multi_Viral” – The Highly-Anticipated New Album From DOUBLE GRAMMY / NINETEEN-TIME LATIN GRAMMY Winners CALLE 13 Is Set To Be Digitally Released Worldwide This Coming Saturday, March 1.
“Calle 13 are comrades in arms at the barricades. One of the hallmarks of their career is weaving their convictions into their kick-ass music…The first thing is that the track has to be slamming. No one is showing up for a political lecture with beats. What pulls the bowstring taut of the politics is the art, and they have that in spades, and their enormous global popularity speaks to that.” – Tom Morello
Below, please find an inside look into the creation of Multi_Viral from The Sunday New York Times, and details on the album’s recently released lead single “El Aguante”:
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“Calle 13] is a group that’s networked every which way: technologically, culturally, musically, socially, politically…‘Multi_Viral,’ Calle 13’s fifth album, is the work of a duo reckoning with both its global perspective and its contentious artistic impulses, determined to maintain a rebellious spirit even as maturity looms. Mr. Pérez described his new lyrics as “more existential” than previous Calle 13 efforts ‘I thought, maybe I can do something bigger than politics.’ ..From its debut album in 2005, Calle 13 has spurned genres. It dabbled in the Puerto Rican hip-hop called reggaeton but refused to be bound by it. Since then the duo has constantly expanded its music, drawing on the folkloric, the electronic and the orchestral, mixing from a world of sources… Calle 13 has won 19 Latin Grammys, more than any other act, and it has rallied international audiences with songs that hold messages of solidarity, sympathy for the hard-working poor and demands for freedom and individuality…’I think every musician has a responsibility when they are making music,’ Mr. Pérez said. ‘Sometimes people are hard on you because you say things. But I prefer that, rather than to be an artist that does not say anything and that’s why people like you. It’s almost like you’re invisible. There is a lot of music going on that for me is invisible.”
Also Listen To the Special New York Times Popcast: Calle 13 Goes ‘Multi_Viral’
“One of the great things about Calle 13 is the way they weave things together, it’s not just slogans, it’s not just bragging, it’s not just observation – but it’s all these things bouncing off each other. From the beginning they didn’t want to be one specific entity. They wanted to be the conscience of their community and their crazy, artistic selves .. They do it all… They want people to upload the album and have it go multi-viral.. In a way, they are like Public Enemy and really want to be heard.. On this album, Residente is thinking about bigger things then just politics, which is metaphysics and the cycle of life… deciding that the things that are most immortal are great ideas. They are curious.. follow their muse.. and they do their own thing sonically [The new album has rock, funk, Irish, orchestral arrangements, even a hip-hop waltz. …They have Silvio Rodriguez on a ballad… They have renowned Uruguayan novelist Eduardo Galeano doing the intro to the album] The fact that they can do all this, continually delights and amazes me” –Jon Pareles
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Calle 13 releases “El Aguante”: first official single from their new album “MultiViral”
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RleII4X_qQs –
Less than two weeks before starting the Latin America tour, Calle 13 opened the doors to its 5th production, “MultiViral”, releasing their official first single “El aguante” (to endure/resist) on February the 18th. The song, written and performed by René Pérez Joglar (a/k/a “Residente”), was composed, directed and produced by Eduardo Cabra Martínez. The single was recorded by John Blais, Sound Engineer of Visitante’s recording studio “Música Satánica” in English, Satanic Music) in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
During four minutes and 27 seconds “El aguante” transports us to different regions and colors, through a song that will show its flag within a universal space. The Celtic/Balkan influence is a remarkable reference where the flute, the sound of the violin and its rhythmic accents mark-off an Irish-Scottish influence that, no doubt, has been instrumental in the birth of genres such as bluegrass and country.
Explaining what motivated him to write this, Residente says: “The lyrics (“El Aguante) were born thanks to the Celtic-Irish influence. Ireland is known as a country full of pubs, where people are happy, hard workers, and hard drinking folks. But also, identified with resistance. Based upon this, I established the analogy with all that we have endured, all that we are holding on to and what we need to go through as human beings”.
In his lyrics, Residente threads skillfully a series of events, circumstances and topics that cover various ways in which mankind endures, allows, molds, struggles, and overcome the diversity of impacts that all of us must handle: from resistance to survival, from tolerance to adaptation, from permissiveness to the unacceptable.
Verse after verse “El Aguante” talks about science, anatomy, famine, wars, social repression, racism, the ravages of nature, astral phenomena, economic models and social-political orders, the atomic bombings, abuse of power, dictatorships and executions. In spite of this, C-13 manages to find a spark of humor and turn these daily loads into something bearable, recreating during the song the atmosphere of an Irish bar, cheering with optimism:
For what was
for what is
for what will be
Slainte! * ( In English, slon-chaw )
* Phonetically “slohn-chaw”
Once more, the duo Calle 13 challenges itself to improve their previous work. Definitely, in constant an unstoppable evolution, aiming to mutate day by day, and unwittingly becoming a standard. Simultaneously, they have been creating an entirely new Mise-en-scène that will be seen for the first time next 1st of March 2014 in Buenos Aires’ Estadio Ferro.
Calle 13 has worked for over a year on the album MultiViral, their 5th and most recent work –the first under their own label El Abismo- taking care of every single detail of this production. For “El Aguante”, recruited renowned mixer Rich Costey, famous for his work with leading figures such as Sigur Rós, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Foo Fighters and Audioslave, among many others.
Calle 13’s Latin America tour, which is part of what they call the First Phase, will be realized in partnership with Transistor, the leading independent promoter of concerts and festivals installed in Santiago de Chile, known for its festivals Maquinaria and Frontera. The band will perform around 18 countries, including 10 Latin American capitals and major cities of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
THE SUNDAY NEW YORK TIMES’ Special “Spring Preview” And Weekly “Popcast” Profiles & Heralds CALLE 13 and Their New Album “Multi_Viral”
Set For Global Digital Release On Saturday, March 1 – Calle 13 Will First Unveil The Album To 30,000+ Fans With A Free Concert This Tuesday At San Juan University In Puerto Rico
“Calle 13] is a group that’s networked every which way: technologically, culturally, musically, socially, politically…‘Multi_Viral,’ Calle 13’s fifth album, is the work of a duo reckoning with both its global perspective and its contentious artistic impulses, determined to maintain a rebellious spirit even as maturity looms. Mr. Pérez described his new lyrics as “more existential” than previous Calle 13 efforts- ‘I thought, maybe I can do something bigger than politics.’ ..From its debut album, Calle 13 has spurned genres. It dabbled in the Puerto Rican hip-hop called reggaeton but refused to be bound by it. Since then the duo has constantly expanded its music, drawing on the folkloric, the electronic and the orchestral, mixing from a world of sources… Calle 13 has won 19 Latin Grammys, more than any other act, and it has rallied international audiences with songs that hold messages of solidarity, sympathy for the hard-working poor and demands for freedom and individuality…’I think every musician has a responsibility when they are making music,’ Mr. Pérez said. ‘Sometimes people are hard on you because you say things. But I prefer that, rather than to be an artist that does not say anything and that’s why people like you. It’s almost like you’re invisible. There is a lot of music going on that for me is invisible.”
…When Mr. Perez contacted [Tom] Morello to ask him to play on [Multi_Viral], ‘he had me at Julian Assange,’ Mr. Morello said by telephone from Sydney, Australia, where he was on tour with Bruce Springsteen. Mr. Morello described Calle 13 as ‘comrades in arms at the barricades. One of the hallmarks of their career is weaving their convictions into their kick-ass music, and that’s something I’ve endeavored to do in my career as well,” he added. “The first thing is that the track has to be slamming. No one is showing up for a political lecture with beats. What pulls the bowstring taut of the politics is the art, and they have that in spades, and their enormous global popularity speaks to that.” (See The Full Article Below)
“One of the great things about Calle 13 is the way they weave things together, it’s not just slogans, it’s not just bragging, it’s not just observation – but it’s all these things bouncing off each other. From the beginning they didn’t want to be one specific entity. They wanted to be the conscience of their community and their crazy, artistic selves .. They do it all… They want people to upload the album and have it go multi-viral.. In a way, they are like Public Enemy and really want to be heard.. On this album, Residente is thinking about bigger things then just politics, which is metaphysics and the cycle of life… deciding that the things that are most immortal are great ideas. They are curious.. follow their muse.. and they do their own thing sonically [The new album has rock, funk, Irish, orchestral arrangements, even a hip-hop waltz. …They have Silvio Rodriguez on a ballad… They have renowned Uruguayan novelist Eduardo Galeano doing the intro to the album] The fact that they can do all this, continually delights and amazes me” –Jon Pareles