JUANES 'La Vida... Es Un Ratico' was iTunes Top-Selling Latin Album Of The Year!
As A Special Year-End Thank You To Fans In His Native City, And Once Again To Rally For The Release Of Hostages Still Held Throughout Colombia. JUANES Plans To Give A Free Holiday Concert in Medellin on December 19. The Special Event Is Expected To Attract Hundreds of Thousands of Fans.
About Juanes: Ten years ago, Juanes was marking time in a heavy-metal band in his home town, Medellin, in Colombia. He left for America with a demo cassette, and today is fêted as the world’s leading Latin music star, a singer-songwriter and guitarist whose four solo albums have sold more than 11m copies. His mix of soulful rock and Colombian folk, together with emotionally transparent and politically charged lyrics, have won him recognition as the Latin Bono or Bruce Springsteen, as well as 12 Latin Grammys and a French knighthood. For the producer Quincy Jones, who nominated him as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influen-tial people, Juanes embodies “music’s ability to speak to everyone”. Tickets go on sale on Friday for a gig at the Hammer-smith Apollo on June 2. Best book early: a gig at the Shepherds Bush Empire two years ago sold out within an hour.
Juanes’s success is all the more remarkable for his singing entirely in Spanish. He bucks the trend for crossover stars, such as the Puerto Rican Ricky Martin and fellow Colombian Shakira, to record albums in English. Living in Miami as well as Medellin, he says: “I think and live in Spanish, and I want to be honest.” A lifelong fan of Anglo-American rock, he jokes: “I prefer to play guitar in English and sing in Spanish. It’s nothing against my friends who sing in English, but Madonna or Robbie Williams singing in Spanish is not cool.”
Juanes (a contraction of Juan Esteban Aristizabal) is 35, and has forsaken long hair for a spiky crop. In a Kensington hotel, wearing a simple grey sweater, he appears more open and vulnerable than his rockero image might suggest – more boy next door than Desperado. But his sincerity is part of his appeal. He has songs about landmines and the kidnappings that, along with cocaine, have bankrolled Colombia’s 40-year war – and led to the murder of one of his cousins “after the family paid the ransom”. He used to be told he’d never get played on radio with such lyrics, but says, “I’d never remove that from my music, because that’s who I am. I care for my country.”
His latest album, La Vida . . . Es Un Ratico (Life Is Short) was released last autumn in 77 countries – unprecedented for a Spanish-language artist. Alongside the landmine protest song, Minas Piedras, are more intimate lyrics about loss and confusion, reflecting a period of very public separation from his wife, Karen Martinez, a former Colombian actress, with whom he has two daughters: Luna, four, and Paloma, two.
For Juanes, the album is about “facing fear, and about how difficult, but important, relationships are. If you talk about love, you have to know what hate means – like peace and war. Growing up in Colombia, I have stories about violence, but also a passion for being in love. Maybe feeling death so close makes us appreciate life.” The couple were reconciled after his “year off” from the incessant touring he believes provoked the split. “It was my mistake when I decided to finish it. But my wife helped me build our relationship again.” He is starting a US tour in March, but says: “We’ll take it easier. We want to travel more together.”
He loves the “melancholy of Latin music – not just the summer dance stuff. People think in stereotypes, but it’s so diverse”, and sees this, his fourth solo album, as more balanced between rock and folk.
“This is what I’m looking for all these years,” he says. “To mix elements, my essence.”
Juanes has his own Mi Sangre Foundation in Medellin
Born in Medellin in 1972, he learnt to sing and play guitar, aged seven, from his father, who owned a cattle ranch, and three brothers. His music is influenced by the sounds of rural Antioquia, including tango, and those from Colombia’s coastal meld of African, Iberian and Amerindian cultures. He imbibed the jaunty rhythms and mournful lyrics of vallenato, played on accordion, conga and the scraped-percussion guacharaca, and sultry, off-beat cumbia.
At 13, however, he got “crazy with metal music”, and started a band, Ekhymosis, who signed to a local label in 1988. “Music was our refuge,” he says of the metal and punk underground. “Medellin in the 1980s was very violent, with a stupid war between the cartels and the government, and bombs every day. Through music, I saw what was happening to our country. We found a way to take the anger out.” Some anger remains. “It’s hard for Colombians,” he says. “Every time you’re in an airport, they think you’re a narco-trafficker. Young Colombians are asking for legalisation, to destroy the mafias and guerrillas.”
While making contacts in Medellin’s famous music business, Juanes studied industrial design at university. Yet “I was always missing something.” Partly influenced by Carlos Vives, a 1990s pioneer La Vida... Es Un Ratico is now out on Wrasse; the single Me Enamora is released on February 4 of vallenato-pop, he started “to accept who I was and search my roots”. Moving to Los Angeles, he was eventually signed to the Surco label (Universal) by the Argentinian Gustavo Santaolalla, still his co-producer after eight years.
His first solo album, 2000’s Fijate Bien (Look Closely), reflected both the violent reality he had left and personal transition. “I left everything, family and friends, to start from scratch. I was depressed; the album shows the darker side of my soul.” By his second, 2002’s Un Dia Normal (A Normal Day), he had met his wife (“I discovered love”) and had a hit with A Dios le Pido (I Ask God), a prayer for peace – though he says, wagging his finger, “I don’t follow the church”. By his third, 2004’s Mi Sangre (My Blood), he was “coming back to reality”. The love song La Camisa Negra (The Black Shirt) was a hit across western Europe, despite being espoused by Italian neo-fascists. “I was laughing, then scared; it was nothing to do with fascism,” he says.
Juanes rocks Medellin, December 19th.
Juanes has his own Mi Sangre Foundation in Medellin, for landmine survivors in Colombia – the worst afflicted country, where three people die each day. He has performed at the Nobel peace prize concert and in the EU parliament chamber. Last month, the Juanes Park of Peace in Medellin was opened in his name. He sees it as part of a transformation of the city from the worst violence of the 1980s. Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, has praised him as the country’s “greatest ambassador”. “I’m not in any political team,” Juanes says, “but for the moment he’s the right president. There’s less violence and kidnapping.” Last year, he sang at a Medellin demo, as 1m Colombians marched to free remaining hostages.
In the spring, Juanes is to launch his own label for Colombian talent on Universal, called 4Js (after the first initials of his father and three brothers). Being a middleman makes him uncomfortable, but he feels an obligation towards Colombia’s thriving music scene. “We get information from everywhere – the Atlantic and Pacific coasts,” he says. “And the young, because of our reality, are curious and have lots to say. We’re not waiting for time to pass us by.”
The most important urban sports adventure race in South America.
• From December 5th through the 8th '7 Cerros Medellín' will be held, the urban sports adventure race organized by Medellin´s Mayor´s Office and the Inder. • Teams from Spain, France, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have confirmed. • Athletes can compete in teams or individually. • There are 4 days of competition, 450 kilometers of race course and around 60 million pesos in prizes. • The race is free for competitors who compete in the individual category, all the necessary information and even the registration can be done on line at www.7cerrosmedellin2008.com
7 Cerros Medellin is an urban sports adventure race, which this year for the third consecutive year will be held from December 5th through 8th in the city of Medellin.
This sports competition includes unconventional disciplines and has as its base orienteering.
The main purpose of 7 Cerros Medellin is to promote Medellin’s topography as proof that each time the city is more prepared to live an international scale sports event and that it brings together sports and that passion for adventure. As well as hoping to foment the interchange of culture among athletes from different parts of the world.
El Volador, Nutibara, Tres Cruces, Asomadera, Pan de Azúcar, Santo Domingo and Picacho are the 7 main Cerros (Hills) from which Medellín is divided.
For the third year in a row, the route will be mapped out with a clear intention. The idea is fair play, to get a feel for this city full of contrasts. To make a great adventure out of culture, guided by our minds and spirits and pushing on solely through our physical and psychological strength.
Each year local, national and international media take charge of making sure people know everything going on during and throughout the days of the competition, taking down not just the events and occurrences of the race, but as well the interaction with the city, its people and culture.
With this third edition of the race we hope to add up approximately 1,400 kilometers of racing route. But beyond these kilometers, what’s important is the interaction with the fascinating nature that Medellin provides for us and that each day it surprises us with its landscapes, routes and climate which has brought it to be known as the City of Eternal Spring.
Service to slum revitalizes community. Latin American - Herald Tribune. By Albert Sallord
MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA -- The Medellin Metrocable, an aerial tramway system regarded as a model of urban integration for other mountainous Latin American metropolises, is providing a better life for marginalized populations of this Andean city who previously lacked easy access to downtown and other economically vibrant areas.
The opening a year ago of a second Metrocable line to service the Comuna 13 slum has enabled the inhabitants of that overcrowded, scarcely-paved community high in the hills west of downtown to feel a part of Medellin, Colombia's business hub and second-largest city.
Comuna 13 barrio in Medellin
Cities like Rio de Janeiro and Caracas where millions of inhabitants of hillside slums are poorly integrated into the rest of the metropolis have already shown an interest in the Medellin system, which was built with French technology at a very low cost.
The Comuna 13 line spans a distance of 2.7 kilometers (1.7 miles) and is capable of transporting some 25,000 people per hour along the 11-minute route.
Several support pilings, which rise from steep mountainsides, support the steel cables on which 90 eight-seat cabins move at an average speed of 16 kilometers (10 miles) per hour.
At the foot of the mountain, the Metrocable links to the Medellin Metro, enabling commuters to work downtown and avoid interminable climbs up or down the mountainside of as many as 600 steps.
The municipality, under then-Mayor Sergio Fajardo, invested close to $45 million to build the second Metrocable project, which followed on the heels of the first successful line that serviced Santo Domingo Savio, a marginalized community in northeastern Medellin.
The Medellin municipal government plans to spend a total of $361 million to remodel Comuna 13, taking advantage of the Metrocable's impact.
Thus far, a modern library, public parks, sporting complexes and health facilities have all been built, while some of the rundown public schools in that sector have been renovated.
"I've lived here for 25 years and this was a totally inhospitable place. The access routes were roads. There was a lot of violence up until Operation Orion, when the state came in and began investing in these very marginalized neighborhoods," Luz Marina Giraldo, a local community leader, told Efe.
Metrocable Line J serves residents in Comuna 13
Comuna 13 "now has more dignity and the quality of life has improved. Before there was practically no hope; for me this is a miracle," she added.
Medellin currently is planning to install two new lines with the aim of incorporating more marginalized community into the life of the city.
The Metrocable, a system that can be set up in different places around the world thanks to its low cost and structural versatility, has gained recognition as a valid model of social and urban integration.
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"The Teddy Bears are purchased in the U.S. and are then distributed to the children in Medellin, Colombia.
Send a small gift to a child in South America, spread the joy."
