J Balvin is comfortable with who he is on ‘Jose.’
On Jose, Balvin balances his fixed sonic template with reggaeton’s heavy expectation for novelty. He swings and misses with crossover tracks featuring Khalid and Skrillex, in which US stars feel like tourists. Instead, it’s when Balvin enlists forward-thinking artists, like the Panamanian singer Sech on “Una Nota,” that he taps into the new wave of reggaeton. Elsewhere, he revisits the early aughts and comes up with assured hits like the Yandel-assisted “Te Acuerdas De Mi” .
At one point on the album we hear a clip from a 2020 awards presentation in which Daddy Yankee toasts Balvin, saying “The purpose of a leader is to create new leaders.” While Balvin may not be moving the genre forward, his eye for emerging talent is undeniable: In 2018, Balvin featured Rosalía on standout “Brillo,” ahead of the release of the yet dethroned El Mal Querer; and, more recently, he handpicked the likes of Rauw Alejandro.
Eight of the 24 tracks on Jose were previously released as singles and most signaled a rather strained effort to suggest a more varied and dynamic album than we actually got. Instead, Jose ends up feeling mostly familiar. Perhaps that’s exactly what it’s meant to be: the work of a 36-year-old dad who’s comfortable with his place in this moment and happy with the team behind him, many members of which get shouted out on the aptly named number “La Familia.
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