Rollingstone online magazine has reviewed the new single, “Loma de Cayenas” by Latin Grammy-winning young performer Vicente García where he sings with Juan Luis Guerra.
García said he would tour next year with the legendary Dominican singer to promote his third solo album. He explains how Guerra has been an inspiration to him all along in his career and the production of his three albums (Melodrama, A la Mar and Loma de Cayenas). García was awarded three Latin Grammys in 2017, including Best New Artist.
Rollingstone says that now the singer is able to interact more directly with his lodestar: García’s latest single, “Loma De Cayenas,” is a nimble merengue collaboration with Guerra himself. The publication explains that the two singers trade light-footed verses about love at first sight as a guitar tumbles and cascades and an agile brass section adds weight to the driving beat. In the song’s final third, wordless backing vocals arranged by Janina Rosado swell prettily just beneath the drums.
García explains initially he was into punk rokc and other genres. But when playing with Calor Urbano, Guerra invited the group to open for him on tour. “That’s when I realized that Dominican music has this power to make people dance and saw how people got really interested in our culture [through Guerra’s music],” García told Rollingstone.
“I went back to the Dominican Republic after that tour, realized I wanted to work with Dominican music and with our culture,” he continues. “I was really influenced not just in terms of music and rhythm, but in the way [Guerra] writes songs, trying to bring Dominican expressions and make people get curious about the things said in Dominican Spanish.” García left Calor Urbano to pursue a solo career in 2010.
His first two albums were bachata and bolero explorations. But now, García has set his sights on merengue. “I think merengue is our best known rhythm, our music flag,” he says. “But I didn’t want to do it before because I thought I wasn’t ready to do it — it’s a really specific way of singing. So I started to look into the origins of the merengue and see how I could get my own voice,” he told Rollingstone.
Read more:
Vicente García Embraces Merengue in New Single ‘Loma De Cayenas,’ Featuring Juan Luis Guerra
29 October 2018
