From Majorca to the world. TO Rels B he begins to put on the face of a walking legend of Spanish music. If it is not a title that is already held by public and published opinion, when he is the third most listened to Spanish artist of his generation worldwide, only behind Rosalía (older words) and Quevedo (let’s see where the canary is after ten years of his career) and well ahead of names like Aitana or C. Tangana, is due to his aversion to the traditional media and, above all, to what they allow, the creation and development of a narrative around his figure that makes him look like a hero or a villain in the eyes of an audience that does not stop listening and sharing his songs. Rels B does not need to give any image. From Mallorca to the world, he touches twenty million monthly listeners on digital platforms, signs soldouts in the great squares of the Spanish-speaking world and, most importantly, he does it while maintaining the style that brought him here: Rels B is the only voice who has succeeded singing R&B in Spanish out of all the applicants (thousands) who try each year. To his foundations he joins a remarkable freedom and intuition to play with trends and anticipate his generalization. your new job “AfroLOVA’23” it is a good sample of it; Rels B joins the movement that the most distinguished minds of the urban genre are promoting worldwide and that points to the Afro world and the Amapiano, a fusion genre born in South Africa in the middle of the last decade and that is going to conquer the industry.
Rels B converts with “AfroLOVA’23”, without the need to pop, into a first-rate pop artist. This work represents the consecration of an artist who reaches creative maturity by dint of working and singing. Rels B learned by doing, without this meaning that he had to wait to succeed. His connection with the public was instant. Now he not only signs the first mainstream Afropop album in Spain, but he manages, in the midst of the commitment to a specific and marked style, to achieve the most complete and transversal sound of his discography. Contrary to the musical, the aesthetic and visual development of the project is getting out of hand. Rels B’s commitment to riding a giant robot when he appeals to an organic sound escapes me. He will have his reasons, of course. If the Mallorcan has shown us anything (with the exception of his mixtape “SMILE BIX :)”) is that he is almost always right.
Some funny titles (“A time hahaha”, “Media Pastiii” or “Sin Gato (MIAU!)”) anticipate an album where we hear influences ranging from the first Maroon 5 to the Ñengo Flow of “Safaera”, going through the union between the electronic pop of Daft Punk and the melodies of the best national pop. All of this in the most complete work by Rels B to date in terms of sound, in which he has collaborated with more than a dozen producers, including the usual Itchy & Bucco, Omar Alcaide, Tempoe and Taiko; a crucible that makes it even more complicated than “AfroLOVA’23” sounds cohesive and unitary.
This is an outstanding album, with a certain homogeneity in the style that helps make it so catchy and addictive as a whole and that no hit ends up sharpening itself over the rest. A vision of the coming years in music that is not constituted as a risky bet on the avant-garde, but as a complete work thanks to the maturity of the performer. Daniel Heredia is already one of the greats of Spanish music of the 21st century, present in its transformation in the period 2012-2016 and one of the protagonists and responsible for its explosion and internationalization in the next five years. On the verge of 30, few in Spain can boast of a career like his. “Almost everything I have was given to me for singing” is a phrase that sums up the present, past and future of him. In that sense, it seems that he has revealed himself as the true heir of Drake in Spanish, and that, dear readers, are big words.