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J Balvin & Willy William

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

J Balvin & Willy William · J Balvin and Willy William made the worldwide hit Mi Gente together in 2017. J Balvin is a top Colombian artist in Latin pop and reggaeton. Willy William is a French DJ, producer and rapper, born in 1981 in Fréjus to a Guadeloupean father and an Eritrean mother. He grew up in Champagné in the department of Sarthe.

Music and breakthrough

William made his mark in 2003 with the dancefloor hit B Boyz Shake da Body, with DJ Flex, and as the producer of Tragedie, at the time still under the name Lord William. He joined the French collective Collectif Métissé and worked on many songs by other artists. In 2016 he had his first big French solo hit with Ego, from the album Une seule vie.

Influence

With Mi Gente he became internationally known in 2017. The song combines Latin music with electronic dance music and also received a remix with Beyoncé. It received a Latin Billboard Music Award and the video clip got more than two billion views. In 2018 it won an MTV Video Music Award for best Latin video and spent twelve weeks in a row at number 1 on Spotify worldwide. With that the song showed that Spanish-language music without an English translation can reach a worldwide audience. In 2018 William also made La La La and worked on Goodbye by David Guetta and Jason Derulo.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Mi Gente and notice the sung chorus and the rhythm: can you hear how Latin music and electronic dance come together, and how the drop falls exactly on the beat?
Categories: ArtistsReggaeton