00:00Barro was a letter that I wrote to myself.
00:05Even though I'm very good at speaking and with words,
00:08it's hard for me to talk about myself, about Mauro and what happens to me.
00:11I was very motivated, but very little inspired.
00:14So I went to the studio a lot and I couldn't come up with things,
00:18but I really wanted to.
00:19My first meetings with labels and everything,
00:22I realized that what they offered me didn't work for me,
00:25because it restricted my freedom to make music the way I liked it.
00:29Hi beautiful people, I'm Duque and you're watching Billboard.
00:33Duque, welcome to Billboard.
00:35Thank you very much.
00:36Well, there are many things happening,
00:39but let's talk about the main thing for me,
00:42which is that in 2025 you come to your first big tour in the United States.
00:48Exactly.
00:49How do you feel? Nervous? Excited?
00:52Both things? With desire? What?
00:55Last year we had a very nice first tour.
00:58I had the opportunity to go from giant stadiums to smaller places,
01:03to reconnect with my audience, to get to know them too,
01:06because there are many people who had never seen me,
01:09or it was the first time they had the opportunity to meet me.
01:12And this second tour, a little more nervous,
01:15sand, a little more nervous.
01:17You have to be up to the situation, but super excited.
01:21Also knowing that I come from rap, trap,
01:25and being able to play here and have my show here,
01:28where everything happened and was born,
01:30it's a dream come true.
01:32Now I saw you in Buenos Aires playing at the River Plate stadium
01:37in front of 75,000 people,
01:40and with a very impressive, very beautiful staging.
01:50And with many invited friends.
01:52Now you are used to doing these big things.
01:56Now you go to Arenas, 15,000 people,
01:59but then it's more or less the same idea,
02:02but reduced a little bit, or not?
02:05Or do you have your own staging?
02:08Or are you always thinking big, no matter where you are?
02:11I don't know if you can explain it to me.
02:13Yes, no, no, it is understood, it is understood 100%.
02:15We always look to grow and do big things.
02:19Although the Arena is smaller in size,
02:23it gives you more possibilities,
02:25because it is a more controlled environment.
02:27You can use everything that is lights,
02:30everything that is scenery,
02:32it is all super more controlled,
02:34it is easier for connections.
02:37So surely for these shows there will be something armed too,
02:41speaking at the aesthetic and scenographic level.
02:44That is very important for you, right?
02:46I like to accompany it,
02:47because I feel that it is a way that,
02:49although Ameri is a record and it is music and it is listened to,
02:52I want you to live it as I lived it,
02:55as I imagined it.
02:57So we chose this, to use red and black.
03:01Well, I can't go ahead much,
03:04but we are going to use several resources
03:06to make people go to the Arena and feel that they are in Ameri.
03:09That they are part of the universe of the record.
03:12Exactly.
03:13Now, your fans obviously know your history of Peapa,
03:17and you have many fans.
03:19You also played in June,
03:21you filled the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid,
03:23that is, you are filling stadiums on both continents.
03:26Exactly.
03:27But you started doing trap in Argentina
03:32at a time when trap was not done in Argentina.
03:35Why trap?
03:36Why not reggaeton?
03:38Why not Spanish rock?
03:41Why not cumbia?
03:43Especially since you are a melomaniac
03:45and you grew up with so much music.
03:47The first thing that happened to me was that from a very young age,
03:49at 4 or 5 years old, I started playing basketball.
03:52And I already played basketball,
03:54and for me the biggest was Allen Iverson.
03:59And Allen was a very rapper, tattooed,
04:02he had his rap records, everything.
04:04So when I was little, I had that image that caught my attention.
04:08Then it happened to me that I started listening to the first songs of Eminem,
04:13I started listening to a little bit of Lil Wayne.
04:15So I always liked the whole culture of rap, hip hop.
04:20And it happened to me that I started,
04:24I connected a lot with, at that time there was Red Bull,
04:27which is like the competition of more famous battles, let's say, more mainstream.
04:39And one day I tried, I started improvising and it worked out well.
04:43And I had always wanted to connect with music,
04:45and trying the guitar, I didn't like playing the guitar, I didn't like the piano.
04:49And for the first time I said, uh, I love this,
04:52and I started rapping and I was rhyming for a minute or 40 seconds,
04:55saying things that didn't make sense, but rhyming.
04:58And it was like a new world opened up.
05:01I wake up and train, I wake up and train, I wake up and train.
05:06For about a year, I was figuring out, I said, ah, this is trap, this is what you call trap.
05:10Which were the faster beats, with the hi-hat, the cymbals with the triplet, the 808.
05:17And that's where I found my home, let's say, my place.
05:22Your groove. But you weren't looking for that, or were you?
05:27And I ask you because with J Balvin, we always talk a lot about how when he started in Colombia,
05:33he didn't have an established reggaeton scene.
05:36So it's this process of creating something that doesn't exist.
05:41It wasn't like you were doing a career in pop, that there was already a pattern here.
05:47Were you aware that you were creating it,
05:50or were you just doing it and finding your way?
05:54No, we, well, I say we, because at the time it was, as I was saying, we were a group.
05:59There were many, yes.
06:00Yes, I was also with Easy A, with Neo, CREO, a lot of the guys.
06:05And we said, we have to achieve that what happens in the United States with trap happens here.
06:11What is the way to connect with the public?
06:14And for us it was that, to start showing people that it is not that we lived the life that they lived here.
06:20No, we lived the life that was seen in Argentina,
06:23but we liked this music and we did it in our own way, you know?
06:27With our words, with our terms, with our shites.
06:32And people little by little were connecting.
06:35And that's where it stops being perhaps a cultural distance, right?
06:42And the language barrier or the culture barrier is broken a little.
06:51You are signed now, well, from very early, but not from the first album,
06:56but not from the first songs, but early in your career with Dale Play.
07:01Yes.
07:02Which is an independent label.
07:03What freedom has that given you and why did you do that versus signing with a multinational, for example?
07:09No, the first thing that happened to me is that I realized that today the artist could be his own distributor.
07:18I didn't need to sign with a label to sound.
07:22And my first meetings with labels and everything, I realized that what they offered me didn't work for me
07:28because it restricted my freedom to make music the way I liked it.
07:33What is like?
07:34Freely.
07:35It happened to me before that I did not plan the releases.
07:38And one Tuesday I made a song and I uploaded it at 12 at night, at 2 in the morning I uploaded it.
07:43And people loved that.
07:44It was finished.
07:45The song comes out when it is ready.
07:47This was not even ready.
07:48Uh-huh.
07:49They are very good at accompanying the vision that the artist has.
07:52Because sometimes it happens to you that you think that the label is the one who has to give the vision to the artist
07:58and sometimes there are artists who need company.
08:01Do you understand?
08:02That is, that you accompany them and that you cover certain gaps and that you follow them because they already have the vision.
08:07They know where they have to go, they know what they want to do and how they have to do it.
08:11And I think that today it happens a lot.
08:13Uh-huh.
08:14Now your new album is called Ameri.
08:18And the tour is called Ameri.
08:20So what did you want to do with this album?
08:22This album, what happened is that I was very motivated but very little inspired.
08:27So I went to the studio a lot and things did not come out.
08:31But I really wanted to.
08:32Because Ameri is a place.
08:34That is the place where you want to go.
08:36It is the place of the goals.
08:38It is the place where you find inspiration.
08:39That is, it is not a physical place.
08:40It is a place in your head.
08:42Exactly.
08:43And it started to happen to me that I was making this album and I said,
08:46Okay, on this album I want to have fun and I want to try and I want to pay more attention to these musical facets that I have.
08:54And not go so straight and straight for the trap and rap of always.
08:58And suddenly I looked at our continent, America, and that ability that in a couple of kilometers you go through several biomes.
09:07You have mountains, you have lakes, you have sand, desert.
09:11And I said, of course, everything that lives in America is what lives on my planet.
09:15All those facets of mine, Ameri.
09:17Now you have a song called Barro.
09:19Yes.
09:26That is very beautiful.
09:28Very personal.
09:29And you talk about your life, your childhood, your fears, being in love, not being in love.
09:37It really surprised me.
09:38I said, wow, I did not know that Duki was so sincere in the songs.
09:42Why?
09:43I feel that Barro was a bit of a letter that I wrote to myself.
09:49Beyond everything, although I am very good at speaking and with words, it is very difficult for me to talk about myself, about Mauro, about what happens to me.
09:55So in music sometimes I find that refuge, that catharsis, that almost even psychologist.
10:03And in that song it happened to me that at the time I downloaded what I really felt.
10:10And I also feel that it is good sometimes to get off the character of Duki a little, maybe.
10:16And the role of Duki, the tattooed face that raps, there it goes with the chains and everything.
10:20And be Mauro and show people that vulnerability that we all have, that happens to us all and that makes us human and makes us real.
10:28Doesn't it scare you a little?
10:30No, no.
10:31Has it been with networks and everything that people tell you things?
10:34No, because it is a war that I have already passed.
10:38I was always shy, I was always embarrassed.
10:41I say it on the subject, I was always afraid of life, I was afraid of death, I was afraid of everything.
10:45I already fought that war, I think I won it.
10:48And if I didn't win it, I'm standing here to keep fighting it.
10:51Because my mom did something to me, she was brave, but recognizing that there is fear, if you have to be afraid and it is normal.
10:58Thank you very much, good luck with Ameritour, there we will be in the front row.
11:04Thank you very much to everyone, thank you to the people of Eylor and thank you to you, Leila.
11:08Thank you for everything.
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