Carlos Vives on His Colombian Identity and Bringing Vallenato to the Pop Spotlight: ‘My Greatest Act of Rebellion’ (2024)

Carlos Vives stops himself in mid-sentence and apologizes. He chokes up, overcome by a rush of the same raw, vulnerable emotion that informs his anthemic songs. Tears stream down his face — but they’re tears of joy or, at the very least, of sweet vindication.

“I never expected anything,” the charismatic singer and thoughtful songwriter says over Zoom from an unassuming, cozy space somewhere in his native Colombia. In the background, bookshelves are filled with novels, family photos and one of his many awards.

Vives has been named the recipient of the prestigious 2024 Person of the Year honor by the Latin Recording Academy. The accolade could hardly come as a surprise, as Vives changed the course of Latin music, selling more than 20 million albums, winning 18 Latin Grammys and two Grammy awards. But the road wasn’t an easy one.

“The Academy has always surprised me — they’ve been extremely generous with me,” he says earnestly. “When I committed to my path in music 30 years ago, so many people told me that I was doing everything wrong. I never allowed myself the luxury of aspiring to any honors. But my team never stopped dreaming. They’re used to competing within an industry that values such rewards, and consequently, I feel very happy for them. I’m deeply moved, but still have a hard time believing it all. I tend to be very hard on my own work.”

It was 1993 when Vives burst into the scene with “La Gota Fría” — a raucous vallenato nugget from 1938 that he transformed into a Latin pop mega-hit by preserving the fiery spirit of the original while updating its instrumentation with a rock ’n’ roll sensibility.

An accordion-heavy folk genre from the Caribbean region of Colombia, vallenato was the kind of provincial song format some upper-class Latinos would consider coarse and inappropriate — much like tango in Argentina or bachata in the Dominican Republic. But the former soap opera actor’s TV-star charisma and the virtuoso chops of his band — including accordion player Egidio Cuadrado and Mayte Montero on the gaita, a flute-like instrument with the textural sensibility of Andean music — suddenly put the band’s fusion on the global map.

“I discovered my Colombian identity the day I chose a career in music,” he admits. “I felt that, collectively, we weren’t proud of our identity, our fusion of cultures. We learned to curse our Spanish heritage, and the Indigenous side was considered inadequate; the Afro component was valued as long as it resembled Cuban music. There was always an attempt to copy everything that was happening in Mexico, Puerto Rico or Brazil. I think it’s our greatest tragedy that we don’t invest our dreams in our own land. Thirty years ago, I decided to do just that.”

Songs like “La Gota Fría” and “Fruta Fresca” — a rollicking 1999 hit about the folly of romantic love, with Vives comparing a kiss from his beloved to the taste of fresh fruit — bypassed the usual pathways of Colombian music to mainstream success: frothy erotic salsa, bouncy cumbia vibes or Anglo-influenced pop. Instead, it followed the country roads that led to the roots — and subverted the perceived identity of these rustic formats by daring to compare them with rock.

“That was my greatest act of rebellion — introducing Colombian vallenato as our own brand of rock ’n’ roll.” Vives says. “People told me that it wasn’t rock, but it was. Your brand of rock may be from Liverpool. Mine belongs here, in my land. I grew up close to my parents’ friends, who came from the provinces. That is why my first band was called La Provincia. Those people were from the villages close to Santa Marta, where vallenato was born. Humble people, who had very little in terms of material possessions, but were incredibly brilliant about the art of music and seduction, using words to express their feelings. They were my guiding light.”

Vives’ undisputed masterpiece, “El Amor de Mi Tierra,” came out in 1999. “It’s one of my most complete albums,” he agrees. “In this never-ending search of mine, sometimes I got things right, and sometimes I didn’t.”

In later years, his songs became smoother and more accessible without losing an ounce of soul. “Vives” (2017) included duets with pop stars like Thalía and Sebastián Yatra, but its most popular and notable song was “La Bicicleta,” a duet with Shakira that blended vallenato passion with a percolating reggaetón beat.

But then, “Suddenly the sounds that were considered cool changed, and people were bidding farewell to all of us from the old guard,” he laughs in reference to the rise of urbano sounds in Latin music during the 2010s. “It was like, ‘adiós, amigos, adiós. People enjoy other things now,’ which I found very suspicious, because when I listened to the new sounds, there was a specific entry point where I could connect them with my own thing. The foundation of my songs is so primal that it can survive as part of any new format. At its core, the origin of reggaetón and Latin trap are associated with cumbia. It becomes a struggle about not allowing our heritage to fade away. We value the sources; they provide a never-ending source of nourishment.”

Vives’ latest album, last year’s “Escalona Nunca Se Había Grabado Así,” did just that: it returned to the source and reinterpreted the songbook of vallenato master Rafael Escalona, whom Vives portrayed in a 1991 soap opera. The project began as a valid excuse to bring Cuadrado out of retirement. But it also connected the singer with the sheer joy of his early years, and it won Latin Grammy in the process. “Those vallenato melodies come easy to me,” he reflects. “They’re connected to the emotional landscape of my childhood — the world that I lost.”

Vives’ crusade to safeguard those cultural roots also informs his humanitarian activities. Founded in 2015, his Tras la Perla (After the Pearl) foundation promotes the sustainable development of his native Santa Marta.

“A few years ago, my career assumed an additional meaning,” he says. “I knew that I would eventually find the real reason why I sing my songs. Now I can offer relief to the ecological disasters that affected this amazingly beautiful corner of the Caribbean, where people from all over the world come to visit, even though the region has been marred by tragedy.”

Vives’ latest project involves the production of a documentary that follows him as he returns to the landscapes of his youth. It is scheduled to be released next year.

“I’m still struggling to find a title for it,” he says. “You will get to see my land, meet its people, and I’m sure you will like everything you see.”

He adds with a smile: “I’m not a virtuoso musician, and I often failed to find clarity in my musical direction. That said, I was always clear about the direction of my heart. It was my homeland, and it never stopped calling me back.”