Skip to main content

Who is Juanes?

Juanes is a Colombian pop music songwriter, singer and guitarplayer who has sold more than 14 million copies of his albums in Spanish and has won one Grammy Award, 17 Latin Grammy Awards and 9 MTV Latino Awards. He is also a declared social and humanitarian activist who holds a fundation for victims of antipersonal mines named Mi Sangre (My Blood). He is the author of the civil initiative called Paz Sin Fronteras (Peace Without Borders) which consists of free music concerts performanced by him and any other famous singers and musicians, as a way of appealing for peace by ignoring the political differences . There has been two so far, and the second one caused some controversy between the involved parts.

Paz Sin Fronteras II was carried out in Havanna, Cuba, for the people who live isolated in the island under the comunist governmnet of Fidel and Raul Castro and the US economical blockade. These people and the Cuban government and its political allies welcomed the concert but the opposition, specially the one who lives in Miami, US, protested agains it and blamed Juanes because of a supposed support for the Cuban government. They even smashed Juanes' CD albums. According to Juanes, some of them threadtened him through Internet. Despite everything the concert was done succesfully, more than expected since it gathered together more than one million 150 thousand people in a sole square (The Square of Revolution), breaking a world record of atendance.

That is Juanes: an artist who seems to care about Colombian and other countries social and humanitarian problems, the most beloved artist in Colombia, even more than Shakira who is more famous internationally, as I had the chance of experiencing last year when I covered as a TV reporter his tour in Bogota. He had to performance five concerts in the city because there were too many people who wanted to atend his shows. He also atended some promotion and social events where it was imposible for me and my co-workers walk through the crowd. "He is a human magnet" I thought. But my chance of interviewing him had come, it happened in a semi private event, (semi private because it was supposed to be pirvate but the information about his presence leaked and there was more press than expected and , of course, much more fans). I only could ask him three questions as follows:

Rodrigo Rodriguez: ¡Juanes, Colombia's man of the year 2008!
Juanes: This has been an incredible year, brother, I'm really grateful to you the Media who has chosen me, well, some Media, I'm really grateful because of much work, much aceptance, and at the end also many things, brother.
RR: ¿Is this the Juanes who people love too much?
Juanes: This is the only that there is (he laughs and makes people around laugh), I don't know another else there is, this is the only that there is, I can't do anymore (he laughs).
RR: ¿What is that something about Juanes?
Juanes: ¿There's something about Juanes? (he laughs), I don't know, I don't know brother, I really don't know, I just try to make music with the heart and to take my life in fact through the way of the heart, and that's all, even me can't believe it, I can't believe what's going on.

One of the best, short though, interviews of my life. If you know Juanes or not, track him out and listen to his music. You may not understand the Spanish lyrics but I bet you will like that pop-rock music fused to Colombian folk.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The John F. Kennedy's district in Bogota, Colombia.

Bogota, Colombia's capital city, is divided by 20 districts (Localidades, in Sapnish). One of them was named Kennedy, after the former president of the United States who founded the district himself. This district is the most populated, 1,5 million inhabitants, and one of the largest in Bogota. John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie visted Bogota in Dicember 1961 within the framework of the Alliance for Progress, in which Kennedy founded the neighborhood for the poorest people in the city. The neighborhood was named then Ciudad Techo (Techo City) and 12.000 houses began to be build. In 1964 after Kennedy's assessination the residents of the neighborhood changed its name to Ciudad Kennedy (Kennedy City) and the Council of Bogota approved the name change in 1966.  President Kennedy inaugurates the housing project Ciudad Techo (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum) Last November 22nd, 50th anniversary Kennedy's assassination, the residents of the d...
Post a Comment
Read more

The kidnapped general.

General Mendieta is a Colombia National Police commissioned officer who was recently rescued from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC after eleven years of kidnapping. He was took prisoner in 1998 in the city of Mitu, in the Colombian Amazon, when he was practicing as the commander of city police bureau, in the rank of litenuant colonel. During his captivity he was promoted by the Colombian Government to the the ranks of colonel, Brigade General and Major General. Mendieta was rescued with three more Armed Forces of Colombia members by Colombia Army through 'The Chameleon Operation'. Until that day General Mendieta was the police and military force kidnapped the with the highest rank in the world. Two facts involves me with this. The first one is that I produced a journalism report on it as a prelude of General Mendieta's rescue. It was by the way of his last promotion which was particular due to the general's obvious absence. Then, I attended the ceremony ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A low-popularity Colombian female senator was nomanated to Nobel Prize of Peace.

Her name is Piedad Cordoba. Although she belongs to one of the traditional parties in Colombia (Liberal), she is opposite to government and, according to some sectors of the country, she sympathizes with the left-winged guerrilla FARC. The Colombian authorities have done research into her for supposed links with FARC. She leads the humanitarian group Colombians for Peace, and she certainly simpathizes with Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. Piedad Cordoba has become well-known internationally because of her intermediary work in the Humanitarian agreement of kidnapped people and FARC prisoners, between the Colombian government and the guerrilla. In early 2008, she, together with the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, achieved the release of six kiddnaped politicians. Because of this, she won the Prince of Asturias Prize. Even when Colombian president Alvaro Uribe din not authorized Cordoba's intermediary work anymore, she achieved again the release of three kidnapped policemen and o...
Post a Comment
Read more