Yahoo News Karol G Doesn’t Have Any Plans After Her Tour—and She’s Okay With That
Karol G is feeling nostalgic as she calls in from Portugal. The Colombian superstar is currently helming the final shows of her history-making Mañana Será Bonito tour in Europe, and the sad reality that it’s almost over is finally starting to sink in. “I have been crying the whole day,” she says over the phone.
For almost the entire past year, she has brought her latest album, Mañana Será Bonito, on the road in the United States, Latin America, and now Europe, concluding with a sure-to-be-epic final show in Madrid tonight. (She’s even live-streaming the performance to fans on YouTube.) She’s already made history along the way, most recently commanding the largest Latin European tour in history, selling out shows in all 10 cities. According to Live Nation, she’s the Latin artist with the fastest sell-out rate in London, and the first female artist to hold four consecutive stadium shows in Spain.
The European crowds have been “super hype, and the energy was next level because I think there is for sure a [big] Latina community that is visiting the shows,” the artist says. “I feel [like] they are really happy because we are bringing a piece of their homes, our culture, to them.”
We caught up with Karol G to discuss the final moments of her tour and her new, merengue-inspired summer anthem.
Your tour is officially the biggest Latin tour in Europe ever. How does that feel?
First, it feels unreal because there are a lot of artists that I admire that have been an inspiration for me, and to see our tour making history, it’s crazy. At the same time, I don’t want to take it for granted. I just want to step on those stages and keep dreaming. I feel that I’m a representation not just for Colombia, [but] for my Latina community, all the countries in Latin America. I feel that they [think of] me as a representation. That means even more to me on this tour.
Your latest song, “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido,” which you made with Coke Studio, is a bona fide summer bop. What was it like writing that in the studio? You worked some meringue elements in there, too.
In January, before the tour, I went to L.A. for a month. I [spent a whole] month in the studio working on new music. And I got this idea to do a summer vibe song because I love summer...I love the ocean and I love the sun and I love what I feel when I’m close to all these things. So I went to the studio, we did this song, and we worked on a bunch of new music, and I remember that my team called me. We had different opportunities with different brands, but this was a big opportunity to do this Coke Studio session. They were looking for something really Latino and [with] a summer vibe. And I was like, I think it’s super great if they follow an idea that I had to [be on] a rooftop where I can see the ocean…and everything was so perfect for me. To have the opportunity to go global with a song that represents Latinos is super amazing. So I’m super happy.
And then you filmed the actual music video in the Dominican Republic. What was that energy like?
The Dominican Republic is, for me, one of those places where you go and you cannot get over it, ever. The people have a subculture that is really special. They have a genre of music and the culture of the people in the streets, in the hoods...it’s super real. So when you get there, you get the vibe, you get involved and you fall in love and you cannot get over it.
I remember that I went to the Dominican Republic to do the concert that I had there for the tour. I made the decision that “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” was the song that I was going to do for Coke Studio and that I wanted it for the summer. So to make the decision there, I played the song a bunch of times, backstage at rehearsals and everything, [and] it just made me think that the vibe was there. So that’s why I chose the place to do the video. And because of the music, because the meringue that I did is from there. So to be real, I really wanted to do “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” in that country, with the people and everything.
It looked like it was so fun to shoot. You’re there dancing and singing with everybody.
It was. It is crazy, because when I got into the place that we recorded the first part of the video, they were shooting half of the day. They were shooting things without me. And even when I got there, people were so happy and dancing and they already knew the lyrics of the song and I saw them just having a great time and vibing and I had a really great feeling about what we were doing. It was going to be a summer anthem because the vibe, it never lies. We were super happy, we danced, we ate. It was crazy. I loved it.
When you perform it live on your tour, it seems like the energy is great, you’re hearing people sing it back to you and seeing everybody dance to it. Is it just as fun to perform it in front of an audience?
That one was special, because we launched this song and I didn’t perform it for two weeks and everybody was expecting it, like, hey, we really want this song. So when we finished the shows, we’d just put the song on for the people to listen to and people kept dancing and singing, even though the show had ended. But our first time playing it was in Lisbon, the first night. And it was a surprise, because I finished the show and I went offstage and when people were about to leave, we just turned on the bracelets [the light-up wristbands]. … And that moment was crazy. It was like a gift, because the show was finished and when we played it, people were screaming so loud and singing the lyrics and dancing. I did a video for TikTok doing a dance that I didn’t know was about to be a challenge. And I went down with my fans and where everybody was doing the challenge...it was magical.
It seems like this tour has been life-changing for you. You shared a very sentimental post on Instagram about how hard it will be to say goodbye. Could you talk a little bit about what it’s meant to you? Have you learned anything new about yourself from these performances and seeing your fans?
I think that today is a really nostalgic day for me. I have been crying the whole day. It’s amazing to see where I came from, my city and my family, and a lot of years that I was dreaming and working for this and having the support of my family and my parents. And it’s crazy to see how everything became a reality and I didn’t feel it. It was like it happened over a long time, because it [has] already [been] 18 years of my career, but at the same time, it feels so fast. When we started doing this tour, we didn’t expect that we’d be doing stadiums. We just launched the album, and I just took every opportunity that came. I was growing as a person in front of my fans in this album. I had the saddest moments in my life written in the music, and I have the most amazing experiences with them onstage.
I have a heart full of emotions. All of them take me to a different place. But I’m super proud that I was healing my heart at the same time with my fans, with my people, with my music. And this project has a lot of love and a lot of soul and I am super happy that the most vulnerable work in my life was the album that connected the most with my fans. What I feel right now is that our love and our connection is super real, because they could see Carolina in everything that I did. I think they really love the person and not the brand, and not anything else. It’s incredible to experience.
Are you writing music on the road too?
Writing music? All the time. Everywhere. But right now I don’t have a plan. It’s crazy because, right now, it’s the first time in my life that I don’t have a plan for what’s next. I’m just doing music everywhere I go because I find a muse in everything I see and with the things that I experience and my emotions. But I don’t know what’s going to be next. I don’t know if I want to launch an album soon or not, or if I want to just stay away for a while because a tour [takes] a lot from you too.
I just decided to be really present in what I was doing because I don’t know if I’m going to do it again. So I really made the decision to be super present and not be thinking, What’s next? What’s next? What’s next? I’m just doing music because I love doing music, and I’m going to finish this tour and I’m going to be away for a while. I am going to let life surprise me with what’s next.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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