The Mexican group Reik is aware that “the rules of the game have changed”, which has made them release the single “I refuse” taking advantage of the freedom that exists in the industry to reach their followers “more efficiently” and follow experimenting with their different influences.
With this theme, the group approaches the urban genre at the hands of Ozuna and Wisin, while offering its audience new material without being necessarily tied to the creation of a record production.
“We are thinking that we are going to release a lot of music this year with a freer format,” the vocal leader of the group, Jesús Navarro, said in an interview with Efe, who advances that later, when they have already released “three or four songs”, They will ask if they are included or not in a disc.
It is not due to lack of songs, it qualifies, because right now they have “enough material” to make ten more albums, but it is a reflection made from the group about “how to make people listen and connect with songs in a better way”.
The “I Refuse” collaboration with the two Puerto Ricans came in a “very organic” way. The group recorded the subject and later, when the producers were working on it, “Ozuna heard it and wanted to add”, as happened with Wisin.
“I think it’s something special about the way urban artists work, that they’re all very connected and constantly creating,” says Navarro, who forms Reik along with Julio Ramírez and Gilberto Marín.
The formula has given good results: the single added more than 17 million views before the first week and has positioned them in the top 50 of 11 countries.
“We are overwhelmed with so much good news, of course, when you do something with affection you expect things to work, but it is also something different from what we had done before,” he says.
He adds that they are entering the world of the urban – which qualify as “solidarity”, by the way they have opened their doors – but understanding “that the urban is not only reggaeton.”
His “is still a super pop, melodic and digestible sound, but also influenced by what is happening in the world.”
Although he admits that sometimes changing “is scary”, Navarro confesses that in the group, which has successes such as “I already learned”, are “excited to be living this moment where, in the Latino industry, the trend is for artists they are renewed “.
“We started in an industry where it was not like that, where the great exponents of the music of our country were artists who found their sound, their style, and they repeated it,” he reflects.
This has never been an option for Reik, who from his native Baja California, border state with the United States, has always been very aware of miscegenation, by the influences of Anglo-Saxon pop and “romantic lyrics and the depth of music in Spanish”.
In addition, they have always had the “curiosity to experiment”: “So we have done it before it was a trend and people asked for it,” says the vocalist.
Reik continues with the tour that takes the name of his most recent album, “Des / Amor” (2016), but at the same time they work in a process of “transition” to make a different show.
“The result of the album has allowed us to do even bigger things,” says Navarro about this change, which will add more resources to try to offer a more “complete” concert.
And above all, to continue maintaining what is its main objective: “Connect and make sure that people have a nice time,” concludes Navarro. efe
