There are a number of things that fans don’t know about “Despacito”. This includes the fact that the 2017 song became so big that it inspired three Olympic skaters to perform to it as well as it joined Youtube’s most popular songs of the decade… Okay, maybe fans know that last part. After all, the song was played everywhere… EVERYWHERE…
In fact, it’s safe to say that the success of the “Despacito” is nothing short of unprecedented. While Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s hit came together quickly and became a massive success in Latin America, they didn’t think it could break into English-speaking territories… Specifically, The United States.
Therefore, they owe the bulk of the success of the song to Justin Bieber and the fact that he came on board to remix it. His name boosted the successful song just when they needed it to. Not only that, but Justin singing in Spanish really blew the door open for more Latin and Spanish artists. Let’s take a look at how Justin and this outrageously memorable song came together…
“Despacito” Broke Barriers Before Justin Came Onboard
Latin music has always had a hard time breaking into the United States. That’s not to say that a Latin song can’t blow-up and be huge in Spanish-speaking territories. The fact is, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” was absolutely colossal when it released in 2017.
“Probably about a month after its release I realized that this was going to be a game-changer for me, ” Luis Fonsi said in an interview with Variety. “The response was instantaneous. I was now doing promo in markets where my music had never been played before, places where Latin music in general rarely gets played.”
The song, which was produced by Columbian artists Mauricio Rengifo and Andrés Torres, debuted at #2 on the Hot Latin Songs chart. It climbed to the first position about three weeks after its release, according to Variety. Around the same time, it was #3 on Spotify’s global chart and was #1 on Youtube’s Global Music Chart… both of these were just unheard of for a Spanish-language song.
However, things started to veer downwards after a couple of months. Once Justin jumped on to do the remix, it was back at #1 everywhere…
“We always had a remix in mind, but failed in our initial efforts to find an Anglo artist, until Justin Bieber heard the song at a club in Bogotá [Colombia],” Jesús López, the CEO of Universal Music Latin America & Iberian Peninsula, said to Variety in the exclusive interview. “At that point, I knew the last and most difficult barrier was going to fall. We at last had the chance to be #1 in the United States and the UK, and I knew that would unleash a global domino effect.”
Justin Gave “Despacito” A Whole New Life
While the song was hugely successful in Spanish-language territories and on Spanish-Language charts, the remix with Justin caused the song to break in the UK and the U.S., which at the time was dealing with racial discussions due to the language used by former president Donald Trump.
“When Justin jumped on “Despacito,” it was already a big song in the Latin world. Then it went crazy,” Justin’s longtime manager Scooter Braun said to Variety. “I was frustrated hearing on the news the president of the United States talking about Mexicans and Latinos the way he was talking about them. I got offered to do the remix of “Despacito” with one of my clients and the client didn’t want to do it, so I said, ‘Justin, why don’t you get on it?’ He was down in Bogotá and he heard “Despacito” in a nightclub and he said, ‘Man, the girls went crazy. Should I do this?’ And I said, ‘Yes. But if you do it, you need to do it in Spanish.'”
The only problem was that Justin didn’t speak Spanish. However, he was excellent at mimicking. So learning Spanish for the song wasn’t all that difficult. Although, he did need some help.
“Bieber was performing a show in Bogotá, and I got a call asking to meet with his team because they needed a translator,” Juan Felipe Samper, the man responsible for teaching Justin how to sing in Spanish, said. “The first thing I thought of doing was something I’d done with [songwriter] Jorge Luis Piloto, who translated songs for Mariah Carey: He wrote the songs phonetically in English, so she could just read in her own language. So, I wrote it out and said, ‘Read this: despahzee toh.’ We worked on the diction for around half an hour and then we started to record. When he finished, he walked out of the recording booth, he gave me a hug, and he told me he loved how we had worked.”
Amazingly, it took just four days between when Justin actually heard the song for the first time for it to be released.
“What many people don’t know is there’s a full English version of the song. But he said he wanted to do his own version. He added an extra layer to the song,” Luis Fonsi explained. “Sometimes you hear remixes and it’s different or you go to the original. He was very smart in that it started with his voice. Because your regular listener doesn’t know who Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi are. And that was very smart.”
