UMLE/RBMG/Def Jam/Republic RecordsIt’s lucky number seven for “Despacito,” the smash song by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber. The song has just racked up its seventh week at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. But what is it about “Despacito” that’s made it the first Spanish #1 hit since “The Macarena” 20 years ago? Luis says, “That’s probably the question I get asked the most, and I don’t have a perfect answer.”
Luis does have a few theories, though. One is that he “didn’t write it or record it thinking that it was gonna be a crossover record,” he tells ABC Radio. “I just wanted to write a great song for people to dance to, with one of those melodies that just sticks in your head and it won’t leave.”
“I think it has a little bit of that, to the point that it’s so strong that even people who don’t understand the language just kinda automatically get connected to it.”
Then, Luis recruited guest artists to add something special to the mix.
“Daddy Yankee did an amazing job and obviously, five months in, four months in, we dropped the remix with Justin Bieber…who just took the song one step further,” he tells ABC Radio. “So I think everything just kind of aligned and happened in a very sort of organic way.”
“People are loving it,” Luis says. “So I’m just honored that, after 20 years of not having a Spanish #1 song, it just happened to be my song.”
Luis will kick off a U.S. tour in September, starting in Las Vegas and wrapping in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
