Livin' la Vida Loca' is not Latin music. It does not represent Latin music what Jennifer Lopez put out. It's not Latin music. What Enrique Iglesias, it's not Latin music, no? It's Latin artists. There's a Latin artist doing it you could say.
If tomorrow I want to release a rock album or I want to release a bachata album, nobody can tell me anything - why can't I?
I do proclaim myself king of bachata because I have to represent my genre. I have to always come out and put on the Superman cape. I'm pretty much representing my culture. I'm not going to change that. But I definitely don't want there to be a misconception where people are like, 'The only thing he likes to do is bachata.'
You can only release music so often. You have albums and the whole cycles and everything like that, so covers are a great way to release music and new things before the next album comes out.
I did whole Latin albums and it was like Beatlemania for me in the Latin world, the screaming girls, not being able to leave the hotel, at the airport met by screaming fans. That was something!
I don't think it's my responsibility, but I definitely try to create my own projects that are Latin-based with a Latin crew and Latin cast. I try to give all my characters Latin names whenever I can and make sure that they are of Latin heritage. But that does not work with every project.
There are two sides of me, the bachata/tropical Latin side and the English pop as well. They're both equally important, so I'll always make sure to keep both roots in my music.
I grew up around salsa, merengue, bachata, bass music, freestyle, hip-hop, techno, house, rave. Miami is special for that. It's a city where you don't know if it's more a part of the US, or of the Caribbean, or of Latin America, or of Europe.
You're never going to release the next album and have it be different from your other two, three, four, five albums. People give them a hard time, but it's like, 'I'm an artist, I'm trying to grow. I don't want to have the same album for 10 albums in a row!' Same thing for a martial artist.
I want to try different things but, most importantly, always be true to my roots and keep it organic. I'm never going to leave bachata behind. I'm always going to be a bachatero first.
I've got a superstar like Usher singing bachata, a tune featuring Lil Wayne. I'm offering people more than just bachata. That captures a new audience that would listen to bachata because Usher is singing.
Pain is definitely a genius in his own right. 'Thr33 Ringz' is definitely one of my top 10 albums. It's one of those albums you listen to front-to-back.
I want to be somebody, a person, first that people remember, but also, I want music that I release to still be around. I don't want it to just be cool for a second and be gone.
I just wanted to release an album of piano music for music's sake. I'm not expecting to sell millions of albums. It's was just nice to be able to sit down at an acoustic piano and make some music.
My father was able to play a number of musical instruments and I fell in love with classical music in my teens and I allowed it to influence me. I like to think I took and still do from classical music and various techniques, I have made classical albums and recorded seven different pieces of Bach on different albums and its all music too me.
Avril Lavigne sold a massive amount of albums and she has to top that with her next release. We have four great albums behind us, and it's not going to be as hard to live up to that.