Bachata stars Romeo Santos and Prince Royce on Wednesday night seduced a packed Madison Square Garden in New York City with fans who attended the first listening of their joint album, ‘Better Late Than Never’, and were treated to a medley of their hits. Living up to the title of the project, “Better late than never”, the Dominican-American singers were kept waiting for more than two hours, but were greeted with cheers in anticipation of this project that they have been producing in secret for about seven years.
The “king” and the “prince” of bachata demonstrated their personal and professional harmony as they moved around the stage, decorated like any street in the city where they both grew up, with a subway car, benches, a kiosk with a DJ inside and, in the background, a view of the Brooklyn Bridge. “It’s a little strange to perform songs you don’t know,” Santos said with a chuckle, mimicking the gawking faces of the audience at the so-called ‘listening party’, an increasingly popular format for presenting music, and to which tickets could only be obtained through contests and radio promotions. Nevertheless, with good spirits, large doses of humor and mischievous calls to the Latin women who attended the event en masse, Romeo Santos and Prince Royce were warming up the atmosphere as they explained in detail one by one the thirteen songs of the album, which will be released on November 28th.
A bachata fusion
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For example, in ‘Lokita por mí’, Santos drew spirals on his temple and warned that, “respectfully”, they describe “the most divine being on planet earth”.
While in ‘Jezebel’, which evokes his iconic infidelity track ‘Ella y yo’ alongside Don Omar, he talks about another discovery of “your wife’s lover”.
Traditional bachata arrangements dominated the musical journey, modernized with the fusion of other rhythms, as in ‘Dardos’, which blends R&B, afrobeat and tropical.
Santos admitted it is one of his favorite songs, along with ‘Encerrados’, about that “toxic” man who inspires the most poetic lyrics.
Santos was the main master of ceremonies, although both spoke in English and Spanish.
They did not stop dancing, as in ‘Ay, san Miguel’, a tribute to the Caribbean that makes a nod to the Puerto Rican bomba, a culture to which Santos is heir on his mother’s side.
Romeo Santos repeatedly praised Prince Royce and highlighted his “Michael Jackson vibe” in ‘Blanca nieves’.
They advanced that it has “a subliminal message, because we are supposed to be talking about a woman”.
In ‘La última bachata’, which has flashes of bolero, they got nostalgic by touching on the theme of death.
Touring additive?
It was then when, after an hour of presentation, they reminded that “tomorrow there is no work” because Thursday is Thanksgiving in the USA.
And, with a screaming crowd that confirmed more hunger for bachata, they offered an appetizer of what could be their tour, singing together the hits of their repertoires.
The ‘listening party’ turned into a small concert in the form of a ‘battle’ of refrains.
It included Prince Royce’s ‘El amor que perdimos’ and ‘Solo quiero darte un beso’ and Romeo Santos’ ‘Propuesta indecente’ and ‘Odio’.
With the grand finale of ‘Obsesión’ by Aventura, a Latin music phenomenon since 2002.
“We’re going on tour!” the artists exclaimed without giving further details, hugging each other with a glass in hand, after a night in which they claimed that “we have to be grateful that we are Latinos”.
They expressed their Dominican pride and said they were confident that “this album will make history in God’s hands and in your hands”.
With information from EFE
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