Latest news with #Ca7riel
Japan Times
03-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
A great start to Saturday
At first, it seemed like a lost opportunity to schedule the Argentine pop duo Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso in the morning, but it actually was a stroke of genius. Saturday is traditionally the most crowded day of the festival for obvious reasons, and today is sold out. C&PA thus were charged with getting the crowd in the proper mood to last the rest of the day, and they passed with flying colors, especially pink, which Ca7riel sported in an enormously puffy air-conditioned jacket and slacks combination. Paco was all in black, though the weird shapes coming off his costume made him look like a Takashi Murakami figurine. The fact that they stayed seated for the first half of their hour-long set didn't discourage the audience from dancing themselves, which they did with total abandon, and all the way up to the tree line. We assume we have Sony, their label, to thank for the translated lyrics on the jumbotron screens. Lots of good-natured sexual content there, and while the duo's music zigzags from hip-hop to smooth R&B to raunchy rock and several species of Latin dance music, it's all wrapped in a sardonic tone. The reason they're so easy to love is because they make you feel you're in on their secret joke. And once they stood up and started dancing themselves, Ca7riel's bounce contrasting fully with Paco's swish, it was already party. In fact, the problem may be that the crowd would be too exhausted to last the day. Maybe the best opening Saturday set we've ever seen at Fuji The crowd at the White Stage for opener Basque ska-punk Fermin Muguruza was much smaller but quite a bit livelier. We saw our first mosh pit of the day, which is saying something considering how hot it was. Stridently political, Muguruza covered the waterfront so to speak, ranging from Kurdish independence to chants of Free Palestine! to name-dropping important figures of the revolution. Rumor has it that he's finally retiring, but despite the grandfatherly aspect, he still puts on a fiery show and got the kids, as well as few ojisans, pogoing enough to kick up some dust. Viva la Revolucion!
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Pop music can be so scared to offend': Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, the Argentine duo subverting machismo
Over impeccable jazz-funk arrangements and Latin percussion, a man in a furry blue trapper hat raps like he's inhaled a Benson & Hedges multipack, while his partner brings lip-curling, hair-twirling attitude to his own lyrical delivery. This is Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso's Tiny Desk Concert, an online performance that turned the two Argentine vocalists into global sensations almost overnight after it came out last October. It has now racked up 36m views and Rolling Stone has called them 'the future of music'. Some eyebrows were raised, though, by the English translations of their lyrics: crude, daft, often hilarious tales of parties, sex and girls – even, accidentally, goes one punchline, the same one. 'We're always having fun and trying to confuse people,' Amoroso explains on a video call from Madrid, during a 53-date tour that includes London, Glastonbury and Japan's Fuji Rock. 'Yesss, confuse!' his co-pilot pipes up, impishly. 'Our life is like a TV show and we change in every episode. We have our meloso [schmaltz], our punky side, our rapper side.' The duo revel in 'honesty, absurdity and contradiction', they say. Some new fans lured in by their viral moment were surprised to hear that their 2024 major label debut, Baño María, was far more electronic, with Charli xcx-rivalling electro-house, airy reggaeton, and – on La Que Puede Puede – a bolshy mix of dubstep, EDM and trap. In a South America still dominated by reggaeton, Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso are proudly, even subversively, unclassifiable. That genre-hopping spirit goes way back: the pair, now both 31, met at primary school, realised they had similar surnames (Ca7riel is Catriel Guerreiro; Paco Amoroso, Ulises Guerriero) and pursued music. Ca7riel became a guitar teacher, dreaming of being the next Steve Vai; Amoroso studied violin but switched to drums – 'I wanted to be a rock star.' They tried for seven years with funk-rock band Astor, releasing a 2017 EP to little fanfare. But soon trap was sweeping the nation – and the rest of South America – via YouTube. 'We saw an opportunity to be seen by everyone,' says Amoroso. What do Argentinians do differently? 'We have no shame and no fear,' says Ca7riel. They started releasing tracks as a duo, split in 2020, and reunited in 2023, though they still perform solo tracks in their shows. They agree they're more 'fearless' as a duo and write lyrics together like it's a jam session. They're also more famous, so much so in Spain that their Tiny Desk has been parodied on national television. Ca7riel has flown his 73-year-old mother out from Buenos Aires to Spain to experience the tour, the first time she'll have seen him perform abroad. 'She can't believe it,' he says. 'It's weird to me but it's so weird to her.' You wonder what his mum made of their Madrid arena show. It flips through genres like a hyperactive TikTok feed, from funk-pop to nu-metal, and, like their Tiny Desk, they sing sitting on stools like a boyband. When he's on his feet, Ca7riel, who is also in the metal band Barro, has the strut of Freddie Mercury and a screamo howl; Amoroso, the Hansel to his Derek Zoolander. 'We are giving everything on stage,' says Amoroso. The show ends with male bodybuilders who hoist them in the air, linking to the themes of their recent release, Papota. Argentinian slang for being pumped on steroids, the EP pokes fun at the music industry and image. The song #Tetas (direct translation: tits) depicts a fictional music producer in Miami who tells them they need to get buff, sing in English and go viral on TikTok – 'to win a Latin Grammy', says Amoroso. They've felt those pressures, but are setting their sights beyond the Latin pop world and collaborating with UK electronic producer Fred Again. 'We don't make music to win Grammys,' Amoroso says. The pair amplified their gym bro satire by wearing muscle suits on a recent Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon performance. But expanding later on email, the pair suggest they have a more serious message too. 'There's definitely a pressure for Latin men, especially artists, to look like action figures. Six-pack, perfect jawline, dripping in machismo,' they say through a translator. Mocking this, they've used a 'chad filter' in their visuals, they appear naked in a hot tub on Baño María's cover and they sometimes share a kiss at the end of their stage show. 'We're not anti-body, we're anti-box,' they add. 'Pop music can be so polished, so scared to offend, but we want to poke at expectations: of masculinity, of genre, of what a Latin artist should look or sound like.' Not that they shy away from polish: #Tetas has a knowingly saccharine chorus, worthy of Backstreet Boys. It's the 'most cheesy shit' they've done, says Ca7riel. But, adds Amoroso: 'When the chords are right and the lyrics are fun, everything is possible.' Like video game avatars, they have 'a skin that we put on and we're able to change, musically and visually'. Lately they have taken to describing themselves as degenerados – not just 'degenerates' as it translates, but genre-less and gender-less too. As for Glastonbury? No word yet if they are shipping in the Chippendales but they are open to the great unwashed on Friday afternoon at West Holts. 'It's a special festival,' says Amoroso, 'and the freaks will be watching us.' 'And,' hoots Ca7riel, 'we are freaks too!'
The Guardian
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Pop music can be so scared to offend': Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, the Argentine duo subverting machismo
Over impeccable jazz-funk arrangements and Latin percussion, a man in a furry blue trapper hat raps like he's inhaled a Benson & Hedges multipack, while his partner brings lip-curling, hair-twirling attitude to his own lyrical delivery. This is Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso's Tiny Desk Concert, an online performance that turned the two Argentine vocalists into global sensations almost overnight after it came out last October. It has now racked up 36m views and Rolling Stone has called them 'the future of music'. Some eyebrows were raised, though, by the English translations of their lyrics: crude, daft, often hilarious tales of parties, sex and girls – even, accidentally, goes one punchline, the same one. 'We're always having fun and trying to confuse people,' Amoroso explains on a video call from Madrid, during a 53-date tour that includes London, Glastonbury and Japan's Fuji Rock. 'Yesss, confuse!' his co-pilot pipes up, impishly. 'Our life is like a TV show and we change in every episode. We have our meloso [schmaltz], our punky side, our rapper side.' The duo revel in 'honesty, absurdity and contradiction', they say. Some new fans lured in by their viral moment were surprised to hear that their 2024 major label debut, Baño María, was far more electronic, with Charli xcx-rivalling electro-house, airy reggaeton, and – on La Que Puede Puede – a bolshy mix of dubstep, EDM and trap. In a South America still dominated by reggaeton, Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso are proudly, even subversively, unclassifiable. That genre-hopping spirit goes way back: the pair, now both 31, met at primary school, realised they had similar surnames (Ca7riel is Catriel Guerreiro; Paco Amoroso, Ulises Guerriero) and pursued music. Ca7riel became a guitar teacher, dreaming of being the next Steve Vai; Amoroso studied violin but switched to drums – 'I wanted to be a rock star.' They tried for seven years with funk-rock band Astor, releasing a 2017 EP to little fanfare. But soon trap was sweeping the nation – and the rest of South America – via YouTube. 'We saw an opportunity to be seen by everyone,' says Amoroso. What do Argentinians do differently? 'We have no shame and no fear,' says Ca7riel. They started releasing tracks as a duo, split in 2020, and reunited in 2023, though they still perform solo tracks in their shows. They agree they're more 'fearless' as a duo and write lyrics together like it's a jam session. They're also more famous, so much so in Spain that their Tiny Desk has been parodied on national television. Ca7riel has flown his 73-year-old mother out from Buenos Aires to Spain to experience the tour, the first time she'll have seen him perform abroad. 'She can't believe it,' he says. 'It's weird to me but it's so weird to her.' You wonder what his mum made of their Madrid arena show. It flips through genres like a hyperactive TikTok feed, from funk-pop to nu-metal, and, like their Tiny Desk, they sing sitting on stools like a boyband. When he's on his feet, Ca7riel, who is also in the metal band Barro, has the strut of Freddie Mercury and a screamo howl; Amoroso, the Hansel to his Derek Zoolander. 'We are giving everything on stage,' says Amoroso. The show ends with male bodybuilders who hoist them in the air, linking to the themes of their recent release, Papota. Argentinian slang for being pumped on steroids, the EP pokes fun at the music industry and image. The song #Tetas (direct translation: tits) depicts a fictional music producer in Miami who tells them they need to get buff, sing in English and go viral on TikTok – 'to win a Latin Grammy', says Amoroso. They've felt those pressures, but are setting their sights beyond the Latin pop world and collaborating with UK electronic producer Fred Again. 'We don't make music to win Grammys,' Amoroso says. The pair amplified their gym bro satire by wearing muscle suits on a recent Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon performance. But expanding later on email, the pair suggest they have a more serious message too. 'There's definitely a pressure for Latin men, especially artists, to look like action figures. Six-pack, perfect jawline, dripping in machismo,' they say through a translator. Mocking this, they've used a 'chad filter' in their visuals, they appear naked in a hot tub on Baño María's cover and they sometimes share a kiss at the end of their stage show. 'We're not anti-body, we're anti-box,' they add. 'Pop music can be so polished, so scared to offend, but we want to poke at expectations: of masculinity, of genre, of what a Latin artist should look or sound like.' Not that they shy away from polish: #Tetas has a knowingly saccharine chorus, worthy of Backstreet Boys. It's the 'most cheesy shit' they've done, says Ca7riel. But, adds Amoroso: 'When the chords are right and the lyrics are fun, everything is possible.' Like video game avatars, they have 'a skin that we put on and we're able to change, musically and visually'. Lately they have taken to describing themselves as degenerados – not just 'degenerates' as it translates, but genre-less and gender-less too. As for Glastonbury? No word yet if they are shipping in the Chippendales but they are open to the great unwashed on Friday afternoon at West Holts. 'It's a special festival,' says Amoroso, 'and the freaks will be watching us.' 'And,' hoots Ca7riel, 'we are freaks too!'
Fast Company
31-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
How NPR's Tiny Desk became the biggest stage in music
Until last October, Argentinian musical duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso were more or less a regional act. Known for their experimental blend of Latin trap, pop, and rap, the pair had a fanbase, but still weren't cracking more than 3,000 daily streams across services like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. Within a week, they shot up 4,700%—hitting 222,000 daily streams—according to exclusive data firm Luminate, which powers the Billboard charts. Suddenly Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso were global pop stars. What changed? On Oct. 4, the pair were featured in a Tiny Desk Concert, part of NPR's 17-year-old video series featuring musicians performing stripped-down sets behind an office desk in the cramped Washington, D.C. headquarters of the public broadcaster. In the concert video, the artists play five songs from their debut album Baño Maria, which came out last April. Paco's raspy voice emerges from underneath a puffy blue trapper hat while Ca7riel sports an over-the-top pout and a vest made of stitched-together heart-shaped plush toys. The pair sing entirely in Spanish, backed by their Argentinian bandmates (sporting shirts screenprinted with their visas) and an American horn section. The duo's performance quickly took off across the internet. Within five days, it had racked up more than 1.5 million views on YouTube, and hit 11 million in little more than a month. It also reverberated across social media: the NPR Music Instagram post garnering nearly 900,000 likes, and TikToks clips garnered hundreds of thousands of views. In a year that featured Tiny Desk performances from buzzy stars like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, as well as established acts like Chaka Khan and Nelly Furtado, Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso's concert was the most-watched of 2024. It currently sits at 36 million views. That virality translated to an influx of bookings for the duo, including a performance at Coachella in April, and upcoming slots at Glastonbury in June, FujiRock Japan in July, and Lollapalooza and Outside Lands in August. Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso's global tour includes sold-out dates at Mexico's 20,000-capacity Palacio de los Deportes and Chile's 14,000-seat Movistar Areana—and was previewed by an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April. 'Through Tiny Desk, we've noticed media approaching us, promoters being very interested in offering their spaces and festivals, and many media outlets opening doors to show us to the world,' says Jonathan Izquierdo, the band's Spain-based tour manager who began working with the duo shortly after the Tiny Desk Concert debuted. 'We've managed to sell out summer arena shows in record time and we're constantly adding new concerts. Promoters are knocking on our doors to get the Tiny Desk effect.' Tiny Desk, Big Influence The Tiny Desk effect is something Bobby Carter, NPR Tiny Desk host and series producer, has seen firsthand. Carter has been at NPR for 25 years, including the past 11 on the Tiny Desk team. He took the reins when Bob Boilen, the longtime All Songs Considered host who launched Tiny Desk in 2008, retired in 2023. The series—which now has more than 1,200 videos—began as an internet-first way for Boilen to showcase performances from musicians that were more intimate than what happens in bigger concert venues. The first installment, featuring folk artist Laura Gibson, went up on YouTube. Today, the concerts are posted on the NPR site with a writeup and credits, as well as YouTube, where NPR Music has 11 million followers. NPR Music also clips installments on Instagram, where it has 3 million followers. In the early days, NPR staff reached out to touring bands to secure bookings. Acts coming through DC could often be cajoled into filming an installment before heading out to their venues for that night's sound check. Now, musicians come to DC just for the chance to record in NPR's offices. 'We don't have to worry about tours anymore,' Carter says. 'Labels and artists are willing to come in solely for a Tiny Desk performance. They understand the impact that a really good Tiny Desk concert can have on an artist's career.' Early on, the stripped-down nature of the Tiny Desk—artists can't use any audio processing or voice modulation—lent itself to rock, folk, and indie acts. But a 2014 concert with T-Pain, in which the famously autotune-heavy singer unveiled an impressive set of pipes, showed how artists from a broader array of genres could shine behind the Tiny Desk. 'Everyone knows at this point that they're going to have to do something different in our space,' Carter says. 'It's a bigger ask for hip-hop acts and electronic acts, but most artists now understand how important it can be if they nail it.' Carter highlights rapper Doechii as an artist who overhauled her sound for her Tiny Desk concert in December. Doechii's all-female backing band used trumpet, saxophone, guitar, and bass to transform songs from her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal for the live setting. 'If you listen to the recorded version of her music, it's nothing like what you saw in that Tiny Desk,' Carter says. Clips of Doechii's Tiny Desk virtuosity lit up social media, introducing the 'swamp princess' to new fans. The concert even inspired a viral parody, with writer-director-comedian Gus Heagary pretending to be an NPR staffer watching the performance. Reimagining Old Favorites It isn't just emerging acts that totally revamp their sound for a Tiny Desk opportunity. Established artists like Usher, Justin Timberlake, and Cypress Hill have followed T-Pain's lead and used NPR's offices to showcase reimagined versions of some of their most popular songs. When Juvenile recorded his installment in June 2023, he was backed by horns and saxophones, a violin and cello, and John Batiste on melodica. The New Orleans rapper played an acoustic version of 'Back That Azz Up' twice at the audience's request—the first encore in the series' history. 'I love what has happened with hip hop [on Tiny Desk],' Carter says. He explains that artists now approach the concert with the mindset: 'I have to really rethink what I've been doing for however long I've been doing it, and present it in a whole new way.' Tiny Desk has also helped musicians like Juvenile, gospel artist Marvin Sapp, and percussionist Sheila E to reach new audiences while reminding listeners they're still making music. 'We're helping artists to re-emerge,' Carter says, 'tapping into legacy acts and evergreen artists [to help] breathe new life into their careers.' In many ways, Tiny Desk now occupies a niche once filled by MTV Unplugged —but for the generation that has replaced cable with YouTube and streaming. 'Maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, all of our favorite artists had this watershed moment in terms of a live performance,' Carter says. 'Back in the day it was MTV Unplugged. SNL is still doing their thing. But when you think about the generation now that lives on YouTube, some of these Tiny Desk performances are going to be the milestone that people point to when it comes to live performances.' Building a Diverse Audience When Carter talks about Tiny Desk concerts reaching a new generation of listeners, it's not conjecture. He notes that the NPR Music YouTube channel's 11 million subscribers are 'as young and diverse as it gets. It's almost half people of color [and] much younger than the audience that listens to NPR on air, which is an audience NPR has been trying to tap for a long time,' he says. That diversity informs some of the special series that Tiny Desk produces. The Juvenile video was part of Carter's second run of concerts recorded for Black Music Month, in June. Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso's video was tied to El Tiny, a Latin-focused series that debuts during Latin Heritage Month (from mid September to mid October) and is programmed by Tiny Desk producer and host AnaMaria Sayer. Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso's tour manager, Izquierdo, has worked with artists featured in the series before. He says Tiny Desk is crucial for Latin American artists trying to break through. 'I've realized that for U.S. radio, Latin music benefits from Tiny Desk,' he says. The Tiny Desk audience's broad demographics are also increasingly reflected in its broader programming. Bad Bunny's April installment took his reggaeton-inspired songs from recent album Debi Tirar Mas Fotos to their acoustic roots, using an array of traditional Puerto Rican, Latin American, and Caribbean instruments, such as the cuatro puertorriqueño, tiple, güicharo, and bongos. '[Our] audience informs a whole lot of what we do,' Carter says. I get so many pointers from YouTube comments like 'Have you heard of this artist?' We're watching all that stuff because it helps us stay sharp.' Tiny Desk heard round the world With a strong global audience, Tiny Desk has been expanding into Asia. In 2023, NPR struck a licensing deal with South Korean Telecom LG U+ and production company Something Special to produce Tiny Desk Korea for television. Last year, NPR inked a deal with the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) to launch Tiny Desk Concerts Japan. 'We're really expanding in terms of global reach,' Carter says. Here in the States, Carter and Sayer recently launched Tiny Desk Radio, a series that will revisit some of the series' notable installments, sharing behind-the-scenes stories from their productions and playing the audio from the concerts 'Our engineers put a lot of time and effort into making sure that we sound great,' Carter says. 'I hear it a lot—people tell me they prefer an artist's Tiny Desk over anything.' That's something Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso clearly have on their mind as they navigate the Tiny Desk effect and a new level of recognition (their daily streams haven't dipped below 50,000 a day since the beginning of the year). The duo released an EP in February, Papota, which features four new songs, plus the recorded versions of their pared-down Tiny Desk performances. They also released a short film that recreates their Tiny Desk performance—this time in a Buenos Aires diner. One of the themes of the EP is the pair wrestling with the implications of their viral success. On the song Impostor, Ca7riel asks '¿Y ahora que vamos hacer?/El tiny desk me jodio' (What do we do now? Tiny Desk fucked me up.) It's an overstatement, but an acknowledgment that the path they're now on ran directly through the NPR offices.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Argentina's Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso Bring Their Explosive Live Show to New York's Bowery Ballroom: Concert Review
Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso are a Latin/hip-hop/multi-genre duo who are superstars in their native Argentina and much of Latin America, but until recently were little known in the U.S. outside the Latin music genre. That began changing first with their NPR Tiny Desk Concert last fall, then with their incendiary appearances at Coachella earlier this month. The duo's 2024 debut album, 'Baño María,' featured their strong singing and rapping over largely electronic instrumentation, and although their new EP 'Papota' has live instrumentation from their band, it does not prepare you for what an explosive and exciting live band it is — and not only because the group brought the same set to New York's 575-capacity Bowery Ballroom that they played at Coachella and in stadiums on the recently completed Lollapalooza South America tour. On Tuesday night, they practically erupted off of the Bowery stage. The duo — who have comic, antic stage presence that belies their serious musical chops — are accompanied by nine top-flight musicians: a three-piece horn section, two backing singers, a keyboardist, percussionist, bassist and a powerhouse drummer (who, astonishingly, has a tattoo of the logo for '70s progressive rockers Emerson Lake & Palmer on his arm) — while Ca7riel played guitar on several songs. All of the musicians' formidable skills are on full display in their live set, which finds them changing direction in a head-spinning but still fluid manner: They'll be playing a Latin-flavored song and then make a hard left into hip-hop and then serve up a smooth '80s R&B-flavored number that actually had my companion saying, 'This reminds me of Bone Thugs N Harmony'; a couple of others veered into cool-jazz territory found the horn section evoking mid-'70s Stevie Wonder and Earth Wind & Fire (and featured a stinging jazzy solo from keyboardist Javier Burin). In just one example of the group's versatility, Ca7riel — who happens to be a blazing guitarist — peeled off some tasteful, jazzy licks on one song, even scat-singing along with his solo a la George Benson, and on the next was rapping loudly while pulling elastic faces and jumping up and down. Even though the joyfully enthusiastic audience knew the words to all of band's songs — nearly all of which were from the album and EP — and sang along passionately, you truly never knew what was coming next. But for all of their musical expertise and undeniable chops, most of all Ca7riel and Paco are fun, playing with the audience, making faces, doing a comical exercise routine to their latest single 'El Dia Del Amigo' (which they took to even more comical ends on 'Jimmy Fallon' earlier this week). And the musicians all looked like they were having a great time too: Clad in more or less matching outfits — white shirts with black shorts, which bassist Felipe Brandy customized with hilarious oversized sunglasses and sock garters — they were laughing, goofing around and cheering each other throughout the set, all without missing a single beat. There were even lasers. Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso will be on tour in North America for most of the spring, and come back in the summer for Lollapalooza in Chicago and presumably more dates. Even if you don't speak Spanish or have little familiarity with Latin music, you'd be hard pressed to find a more entertaining live show.
