Reggaeton can also have positive messages for teenagers, says young singer David Navarro

That many young people listen reggaeton and other urban genres is a reality. It is the rhythm of the moment, the one that makes them take their feet off the ground and wiggle, and the one that even amuses them with its double meanings or the humorous situations that it tells. It is also a reality that many are concerned about their lyrics, although to others it may not seem like something really serious.

The truth is that the young singer David Navarro, 19 years oldwants to burst onto the urban scene with a positive proposal, opening up to teenagers like him about the experiences that are happening to them at this point in their lives.

His first single is More than friends, inspired by an anecdote of this emerging artist from Quito. “I wrote this song with a friend, we prepared it in a pandemic, it is inspired by a relationship that I had with a friend a while ago. She is born from there, because we wanted to try to be more than friendsbut for different situations it was not given. But we made it clear, he didn’t want to lose his friendship,” she reveals.

This melody with an urban background has been merged with other genres, explains David, such as the Spanish rhythm that adds some castanets and a Spanish guitar; there are also electric guitar sounds. It is a production together with the music producer Gilver Montiel and Miguel Toloza.

“I didn’t want it to be purely urban, so that people don’t think I’m just another reggaeton singer, who sings the same as always,” he clarifies. “I wanted to do something new and different, above all to show that the urban genre and reggaeton can be healthy, it can have beautiful lyrics, not denigrate women, have something to say, not have empty lyrics.” “At the beginning it was a very pop song, but I wanted it to have more urban terms, but always with respect.”

At the moment David is preparing his second song, full moon. “It’s a totally reggaeton song, spiteful, but at the same time it’s happy, whoever listens to it doesn’t feel like dying, but it makes him want to overcome it and get ahead.” That’s why she says that she sings everything that happens to a teenager every day.

And other projects come for the interpreter. “I am working with a producer from Universal Music, who has worked with Lele Pons and Rauw Alejandro.” The contact was made through social networks, as many initiatives arrive in these times. “I like to move my networks until one day, when I was appearing on RTU at the end of the year, I saw his messages, he told me that he liked my content, that he heard my first song and wanted to know if we can work together.”

Small steps for a great career

Like many new artists, David Navarro is experiencing all this as the beginning of a great dream, which he has been daydreaming about, and with his feet on the ground, since he was 6 years old. “At that age an aunt showed me a video of a Selena show. Before there was only the radio, there was no YouTube to see the artists, I was shocked”.

Thanks to this anecdote, he asked his parents to enter a conversation and, since he was little, the parents agreed, says the singer. “I entered the Quito conservatory, Franz Liszt. I studied vocal technique, piano and drums. I was also in the choir. However, that big step was not as easy as he expected; but after that came the second, the third and others that have positioned him in the place he is now.

“I had my first performance with them when I was 6 years old, I remember that I was dying of nerves, because I was little and seeing a lot of people overwhelmed me. I only sang two songs, but it gave me experience. It helped me see if this was for me.” For this reason, at the age of 14 he resumed his singing studies, this time, he says, with the soprano Esthela Betancourt. With her he joined the choir of the House of Culture of Ecuador for a couple of 2 years, and they went on national tours, already overcoming the initial fear of childhood.

At that moment he realized that he no longer wanted to be known only by the choir, but by his name. “When I graduated from school I told my parents ‘I want to be an artist’, they told me that in Ecuador the artistic career is seen as a hobby, but I wanted to make it my professional career”. Of course, the parents were suspicious. “But I told them to do the first song, so they can see the process and if they like it.”

Indeed, that is what happened. His parents accompanied him on his first day in the studio and participated in the development of the production. And he loved them. “When we recorded the video clip, my parents were crying with emotion, from that moment they supported me,” he recalls. They became the biggest fans of him.

“It took us almost 7 months to work on the song, because I was involved in all the production processes, the melody, the lyrics, and that took time, we achieved it,” he adds. “My parents were surprised, they realized that it was worth working hard.”

Not only Selena has been his great inspiration. “From a very young age I listened to Daddy Yankee, I liked it a lot The gas; hence Maluma, J Balbin. Even other genres, I like vallenato, with Jorge Celedón, Patricia Terán”.

But his musical career is focused on the urban genre, he highlights. “I wanted to focus on the urban at this time, to break the pattern that people have of saying that the urban speaks nonsense, denigrates women or has meaningless lyrics. Although it costs me, I want to achieve it, ”she points out.

“We see that many people, young and old, consume this music with empty lyrics. I want people to know me, and to know that I have good lyrics”, points out the singer from Quito.