Current nominees J Balvin, Bad Bunny, Flor De Toloache, Luis Fonsi, Juanes, Mon Laferte, Natalia Lafourcade, Maluma, Residente, and Sofía Reyes are among the first artists announced to perform on the 18th Latin GRAMMY Awards. 

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Alejandro Sanz, the 2017 Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year, and guest performers Steve Aoki, Alessia Cara, Logic and French Montana will also join the lineup. 

Mexican actor/singer Jaime Camil and Puerto Rican singer/songwriter and actress Roselyn Sánchez will host The Biggest Night in Latin Music on the Univision Network Nov. 16 from 8–11 p.m. ET/PT (7 p.m. Central) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

This year's top nominee is Residente with nine nominations. Also near the top of the field are Maluma with seven nominations, Shakira with six, and Kevin Jiménez ADG, Juanes and Mon Laferte with five each. "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee, earned four nominations.

A limited number of tickets for the 18th Latin GRAMMY Awards are available for purchase through www.axs.com.

18th Latin GRAMMY Awards: Full Nominations List

When Shakira’s "Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53" was released in January of 2023; its success seemed like a freak incident, explainable as a perfect but isolated storm. 

Their virulently catchy track — which happens to spill scalding tea on her breakup with retired Spanish soccer player Gerard Piqué —  set streaming records and took home a Latin GRAMMY for Song Of The Year. Today, the song's success looks more like the first crashing wave of a massive comeback for Shakira. 

The three-time GRAMMY winner followed her Bzrp Session with another hit single, "TQG," collaborating with Karol G. That song went to No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200, and the duo cleaned up at the Latin GRAMMYs. 

In hindsight, all of this was a mere preamble to the announcement of Shakira's Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (Women Don't Cry Anymore), due March 22. The album will be her first in seven years, but the sound is very much of the moment, leaning into a high-gloss urban Latin pop sound that delves in reggaeton, bachata and corrido. 

The album is no comeback. With a star as big as Shakira — one who performed at the Super Bowl in 2020 and had her own exhibit at the GRAMMY Museum — it's hard to make the case that she ever left the public eye. Yet the Colombian superstar has put out only a trickle of singles since 2017, when she released her GRAMMY-winning album El Dorado. Prior to the BZRP session, her last major hits were in 2016 with "La Bicicleta," a collaboration with Carlos Vives, and "Chantaje," featuring Maluma, which went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs. 

It’s impossible to talk about this period of retreat, or her new album, without talking about the personal upheavals Shakira has gone through in recent years. In June of 2022, Shakira and Gerard Piqué, with whom she has two sons, publicly announced the end of their 11 year relationship. Starting with 2022’s "Monotonía," featuring Ozuna, nearly every song she has released  since then deals directly with the split and the emotional turmoil she has felt because of it. 

The singer and songwriter herself is not shying away from the fact that her music has been a therapeutic outlet. "I feel like in this moment of my life, which is probably one of the most difficult, darkest hours of my life, music has brought light," she told Elle in 2022. 

Case in point: her Bizarrap session. "Someone should have taken my photo the day I worked on the 'Bizarrap Session 53,' a before and after. Because I went into the studio one way and left in a completely different way," Shakira told Mexican television channel Televisa. "He gave me this space, this opportunity to let it out and it really was a huge release, necessary for my own healing, for my own recovery process."

That feeling of catharsis continued in her work on Las Mujeres. "Making this body of work has been an alchemical process. While writing each song I was rebuilding myself. While singing them, my tears transformed into diamonds, and my vulnerability into strength," the artist said in a statement on Instagram.

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Shakira is styling the album as a testament to resilience in the face of adversity, tapping into an understanding that her experiences have a broad resonance. While accepting Billboard’s 2023 Woman Of The Year award, Shakira discussed her "year of seismic change."

"I've felt more than ever — and very personally — what it is to be a woman," she said. "It's been a year where I've realized we women are stronger than we think, braver than we believed, more independent than we were taught to be." 

Indeed, with strength and bravery, Shakira proceeded to channel her individual hurt into a message of universal empowerment. Ahead of her album release, she’s even more explicit about the details of her separation and the impact the relationship had on her career. "For a long time I put my career on hold, to be next to Gerard, so he could play football. There was a lot of sacrifice for love," recently told The Sunday Times.

As she told Billboard for her 2023 cover story, settling down in Barcelona with Piqué and their two children, far from music industry centers, made it difficult for her to work. "It was complicated logistically to get a collaborator there. I had to wait for agendas to coincide or for someone to deign to come," she explained. 

Shakira has since relocated to Miami, a location that played a major role in making her new album possible.

One of the hallmarks of a true pop star is the ability to evolve with the culture without losing their identity. Over decades, and with each release, Shakira has broken a barrier or risen above an obstacle to succeed beyond expectations – whether it’s leading the first Spanish-language broadcast on MTV with her 2000 "Unplugged" concert, or learning English to write her own crossover pop debut. Each move has felt authentic.

It is not an easy task, but Shakira accomplishes this alchemy beautifully every few album cycles, starting with her debut as an alt-leaning, brunette singer/songwriter in the mid '90s. At the turn of the millennium, she made the jump to international fame with a cascade of golden curls and Laundry Service, the English-language album that capitalized on the first wave of crossover Latin pop. She closed out the decade in a whirl of high-gloss dance pop with the Pharell produced She Wolf. Along the way, there was one platinum selling album after another and the No. 1 hit "Hips Don’t Lie," among several Top 10 singles, setting the stage for her to blaze through much of the 2010s. 

Shakira is well-aware of how hard she has had to work even after crossover success. 

In 2019, she told Billboard, "This whole new world had opened up to me, and with it came so many great opportunities, but I continued to pursue impossible goals such as making a song like 'Hips Don’t Lie,' for example—that had a Colombian cumbia and a mention of Barranquilla in the middle of it—play on American radio. I remember I said to [then Sony Music Chairman] Donny Ienner, ‘You have to trust me on this one. This is going to happen, this song is going to blow up.’" 

With El Dorado, she caught the second wave of Latin pop crossover, the one tipped off by Luis Fonsi’s now-infamous 2017 earworm "Despacito." El Dorado, is one of Shakira’s more Latin leaning albums in the long history of her bicultural and bilingual music career. The songs are sung largely in Spanish and her choice of features on the album are almost entirely Latin pop and reggaeton artists: Maluma, Nicky Jam, Prince Royce and Carlos Vives. The album's May 2017 release coincided with a rising global interest in reggaeton.

Shakira wasn’t following a trend; she was just in touch with the moment as usual. She released "Chantaje" months before "Despacito," and "Bicicleta," her song with Carlos Vives, which combines elements of reggaeton and vallenato, came out in 2016. 

With the continued mainstream global success of Latin artists, Shakira may no longer see a need to release an English-language album for every album in her mother tongue. Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran breaks with tradition in that it is her second Spanish-language album in a row. It's also loaded with features from the world of Latin music, including Ozuna, Rauw Alejandro, Manuel Turizo, and Karol G. The moment could not be better for an album that explores forward looking pop reggaeton, assisted by some of the brightest young stars in the genre.

If the past is any indicator, this era is going to be another step up for the artist. Beyond the album release, Shakira is teasing another tour. As she told Billboard, "I think this will be the tour of my life. I’m very excited. Just think, I had my foot on the brakes. Now I’m pressing on the accelerator­ — hard."

Every Year Is The Year Of Shakira: 10 Songs That Prove She's Always Been A Superstar

While reggaeton and música Mexicana currently dominate the Latin music scene, Latin pop is experiencing a vibrant revival — with female artists leading the charge. Both legacy and newer acts are putting a fresh spin on the genre, and their work is resonating with a new generation of fans.

Latin pop was one of the first Spanish-language genres to go global in the 1980s, thanks to the success of artists like Gloria Estefan and Luis Miguel. Into the next decade, Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Thalia, and Paulina Rubio continued to put a proudly Latin American and Spanish twist on popular musical trends in the U.S. at the time. 

After the Latin pop explosion of the 2000s with Shakira’s global crossover, Christina Aguilera embracing her Ecuadorian roots, and the breakthroughs of co-ed group RBD and Belinda, the genre waned in popularity in the decades that followed as reggaeton and Latin trap became the leading Spanish-language sounds.

As nostalgia for Latin pop reaches a fever pitch, it has experienced a resurgence. Shakira made Latin pop a main event again last year when she explored electronica with trap beats in the kiss-off anthem "BZRP Music Sessions #53." Beloved 2000s co-ed group sold out arenas across the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia with its comeback tour. Female-fronted trio Belanova is coming back from a hiatus with the Vida En Rosa Tour after its electro-pop classics went viral on TikTok. 

In honor of Women’s History Month, here are 10 female artists to watch out for in Latin America and Spain who are leading a new Latin pop revolution.

Belinda

The most veteran artist on this list is Spanish-Mexican star Belinda. After making her mark on Latin America with children's telenovelas and in the U.S. in The Cheetah Girls 2 movie, she reshaped the pop-punk sound of the 2000s with her breakthrough album Utopía. At the 2007 Latin GRAMMY Awards, she was the only teen nominated for Song of the Year, for the angst-driven "Bella Traición."

Following a hiatus to work on other projects, she's primed to reclaim her place in Latin pop after signing with Warner Music last year. Belinda blends Mexican corridos tumbados with a twinkle of Latin pop in the fiery single, "Cactus." Like Shakira, she used her song as a therapeutic way to roast an ex (in this case Christian Nodal). Her recent studio sessions with corridos tumbados pioneer Natanael Cano and Peso Pluma's co-writer Tito Doble P hint at further exploration of her pop spin on música Mexicana she's dubbed "corridos coquette."

Danna Paola

Danna Paola is another veteran making her mark in Latin pop. She first secured her star status in Mexico and Latin America appearing in children's telenovelas and through her teenage music career. After starring in the Netflix series Elite from 2018 through 2020, she gained global notoriety. In 2021, she garnered her first Latin GRAMMY Award nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album for her sixth studio album, K.O.

After scoring a few reggaeton-infused hits, Paola broke onto the Latin pop scene in 2022, with the euphoric pop song "XT4S1S." She continued to explore genres with a nod to house music in the kiss-off anthem "1Trago" and synth-pop in the introspective "Tenemos Que Hablar." In the music video for the latter, Paola revealed there was a point in her career where her image and sound were controlled by a past management team. Now that she has reclaimed her career, she has co-produced most of her recent tracks. There's a darkness in the haunting "Aún Te Quiero" as Paola lets go of the past. Her progressive Latin pop album is due out later this year. 

Daymé Arocena

Daymé Arocena emerged as a Latin jazz star in 2014 as part of the Cuban-Canadian collective Maqueque. Her work with the jazz troupe garnered her a GRAMMY nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album in 2018 for her work on Jane Bunnett and Maqueque's Oddara collaboration. 

After growing up in Cuba, Arocena moved to Canada and more recently Puerto Rico. There she worked with Eduardo Cabra, most known for his work in progressive urbano group Calle 13, on her new LP, Al-Kemi, which was released on Feb. 23. 

With her latest work, Arocena is proving she's an all-around Latin pop star. She blends the sounds of the Caribbean with stateside influences of jazz, R&B, blues, and disco. Showing there's no limits to the sounds of Latin pop, the reggaeton-fused R&B of "Suave y Pegao" with Puerto Rican artist Rafa Pabön and the funky "American Boy" also highlight how Arocena's soulful voice can't be bound to one genre. 

Kenia Os

Following in the footsteps of Belinda and Danna Paola is Mexican artist Kenia Os. Like many Gen-Z artists, the 24-year-old singer first started out as an influencer on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, where she has amassed millions of followers. Os parlayed her massive social media audiences into a successful music career.

With her debut album Cambios De Luna in 2022, Os mixed elements of Latin trap and reggaeton into pop songs. After going full Latin pop on her follow-up LP K23, she went global. Os explored nineties house music in the alluring "Flores" and synth-pop in the flirty "Malas Decisiones." The latter became one of the biggest Latin pop hits of 2023 after it went viral on TikTok. The visual project for the K23 album later earned Os her first Latin GRAMMY Award nomination for Best Long Form Music Video. 

As she prepares her third album, Os continues to push the genre to new places, dabbling in drum and bass in her latest single "Bobo" featuring Álvaro Díaz. 

Sofia Reyes

Throughout her career, Sofia Reyes has seamlessly weaved together Latin genres with elements of pop. In 2017, the Mexican star was nominated for Best New Artist at the Latin GRAMMY Awards. A year later, Reyes scored her first global hit with the cumbia-infused reggaeton of "1, 2, 3." Reflecting her boundless Latin pop sound, the song featured Jason Derulo and Puerto Rican singer De La Ghetto. 

Last November, Reyes released Milamores, the most adventurous album of her career yet. She became one of the first mainstream Latin acts to explore hyperpop in the frenetic "tqum" featuring Danna Paola. One of hyperpop's top artists, GRAMMY winner Kim Petras, jumped on the remix with Reyes and Paola. To create a therapeutic pop experience, she incorporated the healing frequencies of sound bowls in a few of the songs. That feel-good energy came through in the tropical "Rosas" and reggae-infused "Gaia" featuring Dēlian. A celestial standout on the album was "Luna" where Reyes sang about wanting to take a trip with her lover to the moon. Reyes' unique vision of Latin pop is out of this world. 

Aitana

Aitana is one of Spain's biggest Latin pop stars who has had success translating the sound of Y2K pop into her own fun and fierce version. The Barcelona-based singer became a household name in her home country after finishing as a runner-up on the reality show singing competition Operación Triunfo in 2017. Though she didn't win, Aitana achieved international recognition. A year later, she leveraged that exposure into her breakthrough hit "Teléfono," which was certified platinum in the U.S. and resulted in a nomination for Best New Artist at the 2019 Latin GRAMMY Awards.

For her third album Alpha, which was released in September 2023, Aitana was fully inspired by music from the nineties and 2000s. The feel-good "Las Babys" recalled the Eurodance of the Vengaboys and she embraced pulsating electro-pop in "Los Ángeles." The dreamy "Formentera" featuring Nicki Nicole sounds like something that could've come from The Cardigans. Aitana also teamed up with Danna Paola for the techno fantasy "AQYNE," reminiscent of the songs from Dance Dance Revolution. 

Emilia

Emilia is leading the Latin pop scene in Argentina. Thanks to the Y2K aesthetic on her latest album .MP3, the Argentine star is going global. Because of her refreshing spin on Latin pop, she was listed as one of GRAMMY.com's 25 Artists To Watch In 2024.

Emilia first broke through the Argentina music scene with her debut album Tú Crees En Mí? in 2022. That LP was loaded with trap and reggaeton-infused bangers like "Cuatro Viente" and "Intoxicao" featuring Nicki Nicole. 

On her follow-up .MP3, she leaned fully into the Latin pop genre. Living up to the LP's retro name, Emilia embraced music from the nineties and 2000s with tracks like the Kylie Minogue-inspired "GTA.mp3." On "La_Original.mp3." she introduced pulsating house beats, teaming up with fellow Argentine pop star Tini to sing in Spanish about having a "legendary flow" like "Madonna in the nineties." Emilia has since sold-out dates in Argentina, Uruguay, and Spain for her upcoming .MP3 Tour. 

GALE

Before becoming a rising Latin pop star and receiving a Latin GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist last year, GALE was co-writing hits for other artists. The Puerto Rican singer helped pen songs for Selena Gomez, Christina Aguilera, Anitta, Cardi B, and Shakira. After letting Shakira know that she wanted to become an artist of her own, the Colombian pop icon encouraged GALE to go for it.

For her debut album, Lo Que No Te Dije, which was released in May 2023, GALE seamlessly blended the music of her island with nods to the pop music she grew up with from Britney Spears, Aguilera, and Avril Lavigne. 

GALE channels the angst of Lavigne into the pop-punk of "Inmadura" and the explosive "Problemas." She pushes back against receiving unsolicited explicit photos from men in the defiant "D Pic." Against the dreamy synth-pop of "Nubes," she sings about the joys of female self-pleasure. Her breakup anthem, "Nuestra Canción," features house music colliding with reggaeton. Recently, GALE paid homage to Shakira by covering her classic "Inevitable." 

Mariangela

Another artist bringing an alternative edge to Latin pop is Mariangela. She was born in Monterrey, Mexico and later grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Mariangela's bicultural upbringing is reflected in her music, which blends Latin American genres with elements of pop and alternative music. As a singer/songwriter, she is inspired by artists like Paramore's Hayley Williams, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and Lana Del Rey. 

In 2022, Mariangela pulled inspiration from Depeche Mode’s "Never Let Me Down Again" for her song "Soñarte," which mourned the passing of a friend. The following December, she released her first EP 4+1, in which she explored other genres with her alternative grit. The EP included an entrancing and rock-infused take of the classic "Cama y Mesa" by Roberto Carlos. 

On Feb. 1, Mariangela dropped her debut album Sensible, which included a few of her past singles with newly-recorded songs. In her kiss-off anthem "Acto Final," she goes pop-punk as she bids an ex farewell from her life for good. Mariangela's electrifying spirit is reviving Latin pop like a shock from a defibrillator. 

Nohemy

Nohemy is reshaping music from Puerto Rico with a pop perspective. The rising Puerto Rican star gained attention in 2020 starring in the Natti Natasha-produced series "Bravas." Post-show, Nohemy continued forward with her music career, working with German producer The CRVV. 

On her debut album NOHAUS, released in March 2023, Nohemy's sound blends the pop that she grew up on, Caribbean rhythms, and European influences from The CRVV. Nohemy wrote the songs and co-produced the LP, collaborating closely with The CRVV to blend house, elements of trap, reggaeton, and pop in the fierce club banger "Loca" and the heart-wrenching "Perdón." 

Nohemy received a co-sign from one of her compatriots, Robi, who was featured on a remix of her dreamy love song "Te Vas." She continues to evolve, releasing singles including the atmospheric "¿Y Ahora Que?" and reggaeton-infused romp "On Top." 

How The Latin GRAMMYS Brought Latin Music Excellence To The 2024 GRAMMYs

Puerto Rican rapper Residente wants to embark on new adventures.  

The artist born René Pérez Joglar has dreams of directing movies and acting, writing books, and making for pleasure — not to pay the bills. These goals reflect a new attitude, one resulting from time spent reflecting on the passage of time and the presence of death.

Residente's sophomore album, Las Letras Ya No Importan (Lyrics No Longer Matter), echoes this transitory period. An extensive body of work, featuring 23 tracks, with several songs surpassing the five-minute mark. Las Letras is an act of deeply intimate rebellion.

"It’s a very personal album, and I sought to connect with myself in many moments throughout," Residente tells GRAMMY.com. 

While Las Letras explores topics already a hallmark of his music — the music industry, political systems, Puerto Rico — it's also exceedingly vulnerable. The 28-time Latin GRAMMY and four-time GRAMMY winner opens up about depression and personal relationships, and confronts mortality.

Lead single "313" is inspired by Residente's late friend Valentina, whose voice appears in the first interlude. As Residente recounted to El País of Spain and GQ Spain, Valentina was a violist, and the last messages they exchanged on WhatsApp were at 3:13.

The song begins with a French verse, fulfilling Valentina’s wish, expressed in the first interlude, to do something in that language. "Les paroles n'ont pas d'importance," (words no longer matter), a female voice whispers, followed by a spectacular string arrangement.

Residente revisited older works during this period of creative transition, and the record features previously released tracks  "René," "This Is America," and "Quiero Ser Baladista."

 Las Letras Ya No Importan features many collaborations, with actress Penélope Cruz, Spanish singer Silvia Pérez Cruz, Rauw Alejandro, Ricky Martin, Christian Nodal, Arcángel, Jessie Reyez and others making appearances. Hip-hop icon Busta Rhymes is featured on "Cerebro," while Big Daddy Kane makes an appearance on "Estilo Libre" with Vico C.

GRAMMY.com spoke with Residente via Zoom about the process that led him to his second album, the symbolism behind "313" and the artistic connection to Spain.  

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What inspired you to create Las Letras Ya No Importan?

It’s an album that marks a musical transition for what’s coming for me. It feels diverse; it also has songs with which I may not feel as connected [to] now because several years have passed since I made them. There are newer songs with which I do connect, which have a bit more to do with the way I want to start working on my music in the future.

"René" is part of this album, even though it came out four years ago. This is an album I was going to release during the pandemic. 

We have "René," which is very personal; we have "313," which I also feel is personal; then "Ron en el piso," [a song about the passage] of time, the collaboration with Nodal ("Pólvora de Ayer") also touches on the theme of time, of enjoying everything.

You confront death in several songs. In "René," you sang about losing a friend; in "Ron en el piso," you see your funeral; and in "313," you draw inspiration from your late friend Valentina. What is it about death that inspires you?

It’s something I’ve been going through in recent years. I lost many people I love, and it made me much more reflective when it comes to understanding time, the things I want to do, and the things I’ve stopped doing.

That’s why I’m also transitioning to cinema. I’ve always wanted to make films, directing, being behind the scenes, not being on stage.  I’m crazy about dedicating myself entirely to that.

I discovered acting now in a movie I starred in [In the Summers] that won the Jury Award at Sundance. When I saw it, I didn’t know I was the protagonist until I watched it. [The film] encouraged me to follow that too, and I’m going to want to act, direct; I want to dedicate myself to that for a while fully.

The album has a lot of life, and even though the lyrics no longer matter, you still have much to tell. You already said the album is very personal, but how would you describe it?

I can describe it in two years, not right now. It’s transitional. That’s what happened with Calle 13; everything was a musical and lyrical change from the second album onwards.

Residente represented a fusion of world music and rap. Now, in this one, I’m using a lot of strings, cellos, and double bass. I’m going to experiment a lot with different instruments in different ways. I’m going to be creative without the need to balance the album.

What’s coming next doesn’t have that artistic pressure. The only artistic pressure I want to have is to do the highest I can, which happens organically, not feeling pressured but naturally.

I want to do art as I did in college [at Savannah College of Art and Design]. I was never thinking about people or trying to convince anyone, and I was completely free, and that’s what happened with "313." I had the freedom I always wanted to have.

There’s substantial symbolism in "313," from the faceless dancers, the color pink. What was your vision with the visuals?

The dancers represent time. Penélope [Cruz] can represent many things, from life to Valentina, my friend, who inspired me to make the song. Penélope controls me, holds me, flies me, brings me back, and then I decide to control my life and time. That’s why I raise my hands, and everyone raises them, and time is running out, and then you see a sunset.

Sunset marks the end of something. The colors of the costumes also have some dusk elements. You can see at the end when I’m disappearing; it fades and blends with the end of the sunset.

These are decisions I make that are both aesthetic and technical. I put masks on the dancers because I liked it aesthetically. It also helped me speed up the process with makeup. I had to find creative ways to maintain the video’s aesthetics and make everything more agile because in filming, everything is time, and I had little of it.

What’s the idea behind the song "Las Letras Ya No Importan?"The arrangement is magical, with a numerical sequence from one to eight in different languages and a voice spelling of the alphabet.

That was the initial track. Before "313," I had this idea that I dreamed of with some basic notes, and it turned into something big.

There’s a voiceover of Penélope [Cruz] that says that we were eight [people in the studio], we are on an 8th street in New York, in studio B, which, if you look at it, it resembles the number 8. Everything connected with eight and [that number] also at a time level can mark infinity. So, I connected all that with the immensity of letters and languages. That piece’s runtime is five minutes. I think it’s pleasurable. I like that music, which resembles what I want to do.

Leo Genovese, an excellent musician and musical genius, made the arrangements. I greatly respect him.

In "Cerebro," you showcase your skill and vocal speed; what was it like collaborating with Busta Rhymes, whose own flow is iconic?

We met, and he loved the concept of what I was working on. He was a very humble, good person to me. After we met in person and talked for a while, he went to write after I sent him everything I had written in English.

I created ["Cerebro"] a while ago…. That’s why I tell you that the album has several concepts that I had to let go of because it was too much, and a lot of time had passed. I had a previous concept when I released the song "René" [in 2020], which is why it’s on the album. [At that time] I was working with the brain waves of different animals and people, and I made music with those brain waves.

This song ["Cerebro"] is part of that, and that’s why it’s called "Cerebro." The album was originally going to go that route. Then I didn’t do it; maybe I’ll connect to it in the future because I loved that idea.

What has Spain meant to you? The country has been so prominent in the trailers you’ve released and in the collaborations in your latest songs.

I've been making frequent trips to Madrid. This past year, I was there a lot; I was more in Madrid than at home. I traveled, wrote, and filmed videos like "Problema cabrón" and "313."

 I grew up with Spanish cinema by Almodovar and a bunch of directors I admire, and I wanted to collaborate with the actors I grew up watching in movies.

This album has many personal elements, and cinema is very intimate for me. I saw [Penelope Cruz] in [the movie] Abre los ojos when I was a kid; working with her now is a dream. The same goes with Javier Cámara and Najwa (Nimri) [who is in the film] Lovers of the Arctic Circle by Julio Medem. I saw all these people, and now being able to collaborate with them, be friends with them, talk to them is a dream. Everything is very connected to my life.

Erick The Architect Steps Into A New World On 'I’ve Never Been Here Before'

Dave 1 and P-Thugg —  the dapper duo best known for their modern funk project, Chromeo — have been friends their entire adult lives. The bond that has deepened over the past 30 years shines on their latest venture, Adult Contemporary.

Out Feb. 16, Adult Contemporary explores  maturity through the lens of relationships — including their own. The duo wrote, produced, performed, and arranged every song on the album, which blends funky beats with cheeky lyrics.

But before they became Dave 1 and P-Thugg, David Macklovitch and Patrick Gemayel were a couple of skaters in Montreal making hip-hop in the '90s. In the decades since, they've garnered GRAMMY nominations for their album Head Over Heels and worked with A-list artists like D.R.A.M., Toro y Moi, and French Montana, while traveling the world. 

As Chromeo, the duo's subtle yet efficacious humor — as well as their history of collectively riding the highs and lows life throws at them, as only close friends could — is reflected throughout their discography. Adult Contemporary is no exception: On the glitzy disco tune, "BTS," Macklovitch proudly sings, "Sometimes rest can be better than sex."

"The challenge for us is taking music that's made for the dance floor, but trying to infuse some sophistication and intelligence in it," Macklovitch reflects. "There was a lot of sophistication in the arrangements on this album. We're in a little bit of our Steely Dan double-breasted suits era."

Their evolution from teenage friends to synth icons reflects a journey enriched by lasting camaraderie and musical innovation. 

"The music is as hungry and as raw as the first album, with, of course, the added value of everything we've learned in the last 20 years," Gemayel continues.

Read on to discover what the duo shared with GRAMMY.com on their enduring partnership, navigating the music scene, and their vibrant approach to life and art.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

*Why did you title this album Adult Contemporary?*

Macklovitch: This one is called Adult Contemporary because of two things. It's very lyrically cohesive. All the songs in general talk about mature relationships and different facets of mature relationships. From commitments to codependency to insomnia to ambiguousness to breakups with "Personal Effects," and so on. 

Also, it's been 20 years since we put out our first album. So we're definitely in the adult period of our career. And also we really find the phrase "Adult Contemporary" hilarious 'cause it's a nod to the worst genre of music, but also, maybe the best, or the funniest one. We always felt it could have been the title of a men's magazine, or an erotic magazine in the seventies 'cause of "adult." 

And so that play of like adult contemporary, aka really mushy, and kind of sappy… but also adult contemporary, like edgy and adults only. We thought it was a very Chromeo kind of contrast. It works on many levels. 

Also, our favorite Hall And Oates song is "Adult Education." There’s always a nod.

Given you guys have been "adults" in terms of age for a while now, what makes this album more adult compared to others?

Gemayel: I don't know if it's an adult album. The subjects on this album are mature and adult, but the music goes back to our first two records. 

We get asked about [longevity] a lot. How do you keep your career going for so long? How do you keep the friendship going so long? How do you keep a duo going for so long? We're at a stage where these subjects are now in our repertoire and our vocabulary, but our hunger and our desire to keep making music is still the same as day one. 

Macklovitch: We went back to the raw feel of the Fancy Footwork era. Also, our last two albums were more collaborative. This is one where P. and I did basically everything. We had other people play on the record, but we wrote and produced everything ourselves. But then we were able to inject a lot of the experience that we've acquired along the way. 

After 30 years of friendship, what has it been like to become adults alongside one another?

Macklovitch: We were at each other's eighteenth birthdays. We were at each other's thirtieth birthdays. We went through so many pivotal moments of life together. I remember when I applied to grad schools, and P's the one who drove me to the different post offices in New York City to drop off my applications. 

We went to the GRAMMYs together. We went to the JUNOS in Canada together. Most of the countries we've been to, we visited them together for the first time. 

Gemayel: Yeah pivotal moments. Every record we do is a pivotal moment. Us meeting is a pivotal moment. That's what keeps us together, going strong, and still wanting to release records. 

There's something new every day. Every day there's a pivotal moment. Yes, of course, I remember the day Dave moved out of Montreal to go to Columbia. I helped him move, and we did the road trip together. Or the time we got arrested in the car going to Florida. There's a lot. But for me, it's a continuation. It's an accumulation of pivotal moments. 

It's not measured by the birthday parties or the album releases. Every day offers that same experience of "I'm glad you're my best friend."

Macklovitch: That’s a great way to say it. Another thing about the adult theme of the album is that there's been this fixation on youth for the last five or six years. There are all these really funny viral TikToks of Gen Z kids being ageist on purpose, which I find hilarious. 

But everybody agrees. Youth is dumb. 

Your youth was miserable. My youth was miserable. Youth is dumb. Youth is the worst time. What was happening culturally in the last few years is that you had all these like adult corporations or business interests or cultural movements fixating on kids. And it's absurd. It's supposed to be the other way around. 

When you were a kid, you were looking up to people. You're looking up to your older brothers, your older brother's friends. You were looking up to an older skater, or you're looking up to Nas, or you're looking up to a rock band. These are your north stars. These are your guiding lights, and it shouldn't be the other way around. 

Who was the best moment of the GRAMMYs? Tracy Chapman, and, by the way, the Gen Z kids will be the first ones to say that. "Oh, my God! Iconic" Tracy Chapman. Joni Mitchell. Annie Lennox. They stole the show. 

Kids need OGs to look up to. Look at Miley Cyrus. She's 31. She's at the top of her game. She's had the best song of her career: "Flowers" is the only song I really love of hers. That one transcends, and it goes into this universal, timeless category.

Gemayel: Killer Mike is our age, and he was out and proud. "Don't tell me I'm too old."

Macklovitch: This is the Zeitgeist, my friends.

Why did you veer away from making everything yourselves for the last two albums? And then what brought you back?

Macklovitch: Every album we make is a reaction to the previous album. It's almost like having a conversation with your own body of work. When we did White Women, we had never collaborated with anybody, and we wanted to expand the sound, expand the circle, and try other features. It was super exciting, and that did really well. 

Then we went into Head Over Heels. Truth be told, We had a really nice album budget. So we were like, "Let's go, Rolls Royce. Let's get all these big [people]." 

We moved to LA to make it. We did this expensive Los Angeles album. We had heard so much about the LA session writer/producer world. We were curious because we're just two little dorks from Montreal by way of New York. 

We've done everything by ourselves our whole life. We wanna know how the sausage is made. So we went and saw that, and It was cool. We learned so much. We made great friendships, and we were able to fulfill our dreams like having The-Dream on a song. 

But then, once that's done, and then the pandemic starts and P and I are together, we're like, "You know what? Let's go back to the essence." We don't wanna be with anybody in a room. Not because they're gonna give us Covid. We gotta go back to quality time. The two of us. 

Gemayel: Like Dave said, every album is a reaction to our previous album. But it's a reaction to our full career. We're filling the gaps. And that's again, longevity. "How do you keep this exciting?" You always look back and be like, "We did this. We did this. We did that." We don't rest on our laurels. We still have something to prove. How do we complete this narrative of the Chromeo career that we hope is gonna last until we're in the hospital making beats in a bed?

What was it like taking the experience you had in L.A. with Head Over Heels back to the more internal process of making Adult Contemporary?

Gemayel: It's great. It's amazing. We're collecting tools as we go in our career. Music, vocabulary, tricks. Expand our vocabulary all the time. We started collecting records, figuring out how songs are made, what funk music is, how to dissect it, how to study it. We just keep collecting stuff along the way. 

Macklovitch: I think it helped the lyrical consistency of the album, too. When you write with other people there are five people in a room that have to sign off on every lyric. So I think when I was bringing lyrics to P on this album, we were really editing them together. 

A lot of our songs could get too cringy. It could get too Weird Al Yankovic. You really have to ride the line. It's much harder to do that than to write sad boy music. So P and I go through the lyrics, and we parse the lyrics together, and we take out the stuff that looks like it's too overthought.

I think working with other people and having that high standard in rooms with like five or six people with strong opinions — It helped our dynamic as well. 

The one guest artist on the album is La Roux who sang on "Replacements." What is it like to work with her? Also, I heard an instance where it sounds like you interpolated the vocal melody from her song "I’m Not Your Toy," into "I Don’t Need A New Girl." How did working with her influence the album beyond her vocal feature?

Macklovitch: It's great to work with her. She's super opinionated. She's a very thorough perfectionist. We've had a 15-year friendship with her. 

Last year she came out at Coachella, and we did a funk version of "Bulletproof." But then people liked it so much that we had to release it. 

We make the collaboration really organic and multi-faceted. So when you say that you hear her in other bits of the album, it's really cool. I didn't even have "I'm Not Your Toy" in mind, but it's real when the listener hears it. Not necessarily when the author thinks about it. 

So the fact that you hear it makes it valid. Doesn't matter if we thought about it or not. Cause who knows? Who knows what’s within my subconscious? Maybe it was there somewhere.

It’s like the tree falling in the woods philosophical exercise. It becomes real when someone else acknowledges it. 

Macklovitch: Music is a listener-oriented discipline. When we play live, people ask us, "Yo, you must be so excited." We always answer we're excited, but we're only excited if the crowd’s having a good time. It's really about you guys.

When P and I play a show we're like two chefs. The restaurant is packed. The stakes are high. There are a couple of Bon Appétit journalists in the room. We're stressed. We want to give you the best meal that we can give you. 

So you're asking us if we're excited. Do you go into the kitchen and be like, "Hey, chef! Are you excited?" They’ll be like "Can't talk. Busy." That's how we play a show. It's about you. It's not about us, and if you've had a great time at the show, then we can kick back after the show. We did our job.

Two strong themes from this album are gratitude and contentment. How did the gratitude and the contentment that you feel around your friendship fuel this album?

Gemayel: It's a little bit like I said before. We find pivotal moments every day. Whether you’re closing a show, doing accounting, thinking about the stage setup and how we can afford it. Or thinking about new ideas for songs, demos, patch sounds, melodies. Every moment that you get to work towards a goal is a great moment for me. 

It's in the continuum. I think that not resting on your laurels is the Chromeo motto. Never do that. So how you stay focused is you enjoy every little bit of annoying and fun moments of your career. 

Macklovitch: There are a lot of tribulations that we go through that allow us to always stay humble and never take things for granted. It always keeps us hungry. 

We always wanted to have a GRAMMY nomination. We got a GRAMMY nomination, but it's like for the nerdiest category — Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical — which actually suits us so well. But, of course, we're against Beck. Of course we didn't win the GRAMMY. So now we gotta get another one. 

Or we'll play a show that's like this triumphant show and we feel amazing. We're on the high. Then we gotta go do a corporate DJ set. You're lucky when you have those, but it might be like the Christmas lunch party for some company somewhere, and it's super awkward. 

For every success, there's always a really funny episode that grounds us. That keeps us hungry all the time.

Gemayel: The way our music is made gives you an insight into how we survive for that long. You put humor into everything. So I sometimes prefer the bad moments because we just end up laughing and making a thing out of it. You just gotta roll with the punches. That's what having a good partner is all about.

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