Colombian singer and rapper José Álvaro Osorio Balvín known professionally as J Balvin has released his new single, “Forever My Love”, featuring English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.
The rapper has been referred to as the “Prince of Reggaeton” (from Spanish: “Príncipe del Reggaetón”), and is one of the best-selling Latin music artists with sales of more than 35 million records (albums and singles) worldwide.
J Balvin was born in Medellín, Colombia. At age 17, he moved to the United States to learn English, where he lived in both Oklahoma and New York. He then returned to Medellín and gained popularity performing at clubs in the city.
J Balvin’s breakthrough came in 2014 with “Ginza” and the single “6 AM” featuring Puerto Rican singer Farruko which peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart following with “Ay Vamos” and “Ginza”.
In 2016, he released Energia, which included the hit singles “Ginza”, “Bobo”, “Safari”, and “Sigo Extrañándote”. In June 2017, Balvin released the single “Mi Gente” with Willy William. On 1 August 2017, “Mi Gente” topped the Global Top 50 on Spotify, and later reached one billion views on YouTube.
In January 2018, J Balvin released the hit single “Machika” featuring Jeon and Anitta. He collaborated with Cardi B and Bad Bunny on the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one single “I Like It”, which was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year.
In November 2019, Balvin released the music video for the single “Blanco”, which introduced a “futuristic, all-white environment filled with hypnotic dancers and flying cats”.
On 20 March 2020, Balvin released the album Colores, in which every song is named after a color except the song “Arcoíris” (the Spanish word for rainbow). The album contains influences from dancehall, R&B, and electronica, and features Nigerian afrobeats artist Mr Eazi on the song “Arcoíris”.
Balvin collaborated with Murakami for the music videos and album and single artwork, which notably feature Murakami’s flowers, as well as American clothing brand Guess on a capsule collection inspired by the album.
Later that year Balvin released a new song in collaboration with Pokémon for their 25th anniversary. Balvin also contributed a remix of the Metallica song “Wherever I May Roam” to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021. In December 2021, J Balvin earned his 33rd No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Airplay Chart with “Una Nota”, breaking the record for the most No. 1s on the chart.
Balvin released his most recent album José in March 2021.
