Metamorphosis The father of reggaeton denied his music for being the work of "Satan"
Success The surprising family life of Daddy Yankee, creator of the hit 'Despacito' with Luis Fonsi
The figures currently managed by
Nicky Jam
tell us about an incontestable professional success story: some of his most listened to songs -on platforms such as Spotify or YouTube- accumulate reproductions that far exceed
1,000 million clicks
(in the case of
Travesuras
) or that they even double those numbers if we look specifically at his great hit,
X
, which he
recorded with J Balvin
and which has already been heard by more than
2,000 million fans
and curious Latin pop tasters.
Therefore, Jam is today
one of the most popular figures of reggaeton
and trap in the Hispanic world, enjoying a moment of celebrity more than sweet and his
accumulated
heritage
in recent years, from the moment he relaunched his career in 2014, has not stopped growing.
Today he is one of the Latino artists
with the highest cache
and
highest
professional returns, his bank account is estimated to no longer fall below
six million dollars
- and it would have grown more if it had not been for the pandemic - so, to About to turn 41, he gives off the perceptible halo of an achiever.
However, Nicky Jam's life hasn't exactly been a success story.
In fact, his story is a concatenation of three different episodes in which the
artist born in Pennsylvania,
and currently a Colombian national,
has known uprooting, vital sinking, professional disaster
and, finally, resurgence.
He was born in Lawrence, a small town on the east coast of the United States, with the name of Nick Rivera, and in his first 10 years of life he had little connection with his Puerto Rican and Dominican roots, and did
not even speak Spanish in the neighborhood
or in the school.
But at that age,
his family returned to Puerto Rico.
The official story explains that life in the United States was difficult and there was nostalgia for the homeland, but in reality it was a problem with the law: Nicky Jam's father had had
a drug affair
and fled the United States to avoid a long stint in jail.
Once in Puerto Rico, in his early teens,
Jam came into contact with local music,
specifically reggaeton which, at that time - around 1995 - was beginning to emerge in San Juan under names such as molasses or
underground
, a music primarily based on
hard, broken
beats
from
Jamaican
dancehall
without vocal accompaniment.
He was one of the first vocalists to improvise lyrics on the
dembow
rhythmic scheme
, which in practice places him among that first generation of artists - Vico C, El General, Daddy Yankee - who pushed the genre forward.
See this post on Instagram
In fact,
his first artistic project
was the duo Los Cangris, which he formed in 1997 together with Daddy Yankee, and which has a pre-eminent place in the prehistory of reggaeton.
The duo broke up in 2004 for different reasons.
The main one was that Nicky Jam, from his early teenage years, had begun to develop an unstable personality: he
tried cocaine for the first time when he was 14 years old, he
also began to drink, and his
irascible character
led him to antagonize Daddy Yankee - who also He had a recognized solo profile, first as a companion to the pioneer of reggaeton, DJ Playero, and later as a promoter of reggaeton pop with his hit
Gasolina
-.
Just as Yankee took off,
Nicky Jam sank.
In fact, the early years of reggaeton in the 2000s, when the genre began to spread globally, were not good for Nicky Jam.
His downward spiral
led him to increase his use of cocaine and alcohol, and also his weight.
By 2010, as he has explained many times, he was an
erratic
human being
, destroyed, with financial, professional and emotional problems,
who had developed an addiction to white powder.
He had
his first two children
in 2002 - a total of four children - without being able to start a family.
When he felt that he had hit rock bottom, that was when he decided to change his life completely, and that implied
uprooting himself a second time.
So, he moved to Medellín.
See this post on Instagram
In Colombia, Nicky Jam
changed his habits: he
gave up alcohol and cocaine, and began to eat wisely and exercise.
His point of no return was an
overdose that he suffered in 2010
that made him understand that he only had two paths: that of the grave or that of rehabilitation.
In 2014, when he published his first single from his current artistic stage,
Mischief
, the change was already noticeable at all levels: in the video he was partially tattooed - he decided to decorate his arms, neck and part of his face as a symbol of rebirth, a new stage in life-, and although he was perceived as deep, he was no longer in the
nearly 140 kilos that he weighed
at his worst.
Nicky Jam, the pioneer of reggaeton, was back.
When he released his album in 2017, with which he went back and reached the status of a great world star, he decided to call it
Fénix
.
It was still a stroke of luck, but Nicky Jam's personal resurgence coincided with the years of development of Latin trap and reggaeton as one of the most claimed scenes on the new global pop map.
And now that he is at his weight,
takes care of himself and has stopped drugs,
everything in his life is dedication to the business: recording, communicating, solidifying his brand, taking care of his appearance with his characteristic beard trimmed to the limit, like Aznar's mustache.
In the only thing, however, in which he
does not seem to be lucky, is in love:
in 2017 he married his Colombian girlfriend, Angélica Cruz, but they divorced a year later.
With his last partner, Cydney Moureau, he also
left him just a couple of weeks ago,
after a year of relationship.
It seems that, in his case, the saying is true that the lucky ones in the game - and he played it to succeed in music when all was lost - are unlucky in love.
It will be seen in the next few years if this is true, or just a passing sentimental slump.
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