J Balvin - Vibras (2018) Review by El Funky Bae

I heard of J Balvin before most.  He did some Colombian festivals in New England way back around 2008.  Around the same time he put out "Tranquila" he sold out a former popular club here of about 500 people with people left outside who wanted to get in.  If you had Colombian friends then you definitely heard of J Balvin prior to him becoming an international sensation in 2014.  J Balvin was a superstar in Colombia since pretty much "Sin Compromiso" in 2007.  And in neighboring countries like Ecuador and Venezuela he had been huge since 2010.

People would call me crazy now, but I foresaw J Balvin becoming the megastar he became if the Reggaeton game changed into something different way back in 2008, which it did.  What I said back then is that if Reggaeton and Urbano became so commercialized that mainstream audiences couldn't distinguish mediocrity from greatness and had no reference points even like a Mas Flow, much less Boricua Guerrero or Playero... J Balvin was tailor made for an Urbano world like that.  And that's why J Balvin became the phenomenon he was.  The game arguably devolved to fit into his mold.

That is why 98% of the people who read this will know who J Balvin is but at best only  a quarter will know what Mas Flow is.  Less than 10% will have any idea what Playero and Boricua Guerrero are.  And that is the world that Balvin needed to become the international sensation he is.  Balvin lucked out that 90% of his audience never heard "Mas Flow 2" so they had no high standards to measure him to.  The majority of Balvin fans never even heard "Pal Mundo", "Barrio Fino" and "The Last Don".  

That's why there was a period where their "J Balvinsanity" (see what I did there) had them so crazy, they once said on all social media and public forums... that J Balvin was the GOAT #1 of all-time.  I lost it when they did that.  It was all over Billboard and Rolling Stone that J Balvin was the greatest Reggaeton artist of all time just because he became the highest selling one by 2018 (he no longer is btw).  It was stupidity at its finest.

That would be like me going into fashion and just picking some random guy as the greatest designer of all time, who might be nice, but I don't know enough about fashion to make that assessment.  In all honesty, in any list where the makers know what they think about, Balvin isn't even Top 50.  But a megastar he became without a shadow of a doubt.  And legends like Yomo, H Man & P Man, Yaviah, Glory, Blanco Flake, Maicol & Manuel, Kafu Banton, and countless others will never have that written about them.  I bet you not even 1% of Balvin's audience ever heard a Blanco Flake song that wasn't sampled by Bad Bunny (Bunzo sampled Blanco a couple of times).

But unlike some hardcore or better yet pseudo-hardcore Reggaeton fans who are hopping on the recent phenomena of the "J Balvin Sucks!" bandwagon... thank you Residente... I think Balvin was good for Reggaeton.  And now with more maturity I can say he was the artist the culture needed at the time.  My biases aside, there are only barely more than a handful of artists in the history of Urbano that had the impact that J Balvin had, especially with outsiders to the culture.  I'll even name them all.  Daddy Yankee, Bad Bunny, Karol G, Wisin & Yandel, Don Omar, Maluma (as much as I hate to admit), and Rosalia.  Maluma wouldn't be there if it were just Reggaeton-Rap people, but the mainstream Pop crowd doesn't know shit, so when we include them, you have to mention Maluma as an all time Reggaeton influence, sadly.

But Balvin was necessary for this new generation who have no idea who Vico C is.  He is "their" guy.  Is Balvin Reggaeton oversimplified?  Hell Yes!  But think about these people who never grew up around this music and their first introduction to it was Balvin... that is the Urbano that spoke to them.  And I think that's cool.  I can be a snob all I want with my Gargolas and Guatauba, but it will never reach even a tenth of the people that Balvin did.  As much as I love Mexicano 777, J Balvin did more to keep Reggaeton alive than the legendary MC ever could, regardless of who is the greater talent (Mexicano by leaps and bounds of course).

Even though all that was a fact by 2018... Balvin still had lifetime fans like me pissed off at him.  Why?  They gave you the mantle carried by previous true greats like Vico C, Mexicano, Daddy Yankee and Tego Calderon... and the best you could do was "6am"?  I hate to say but until "Vibras", Balvin hadn't even put out a quality album.  His albums were always at least 3 good songs, 4 or 5 deep cuts that ranged from decent to good, and the rest was crap.  Now you Balvin apologists would be like "Oh, but that's normal and the best anyone can do"  Not if you're #1!  If you're #1 you gotta prove it with skills, not just sales.  Balvin will be the only time the #1 guy got there only based on sales over skills.

And why was that?  Why was Balvin's audience so tolerant of his high aspiring mediocrity?  Because they knew no better.  They didn't know about Vico, Tempo, Mexicano. They had no idea of the government suppression and repression in the 90's.  They had no idea about the struggles this culture went through.  And frankly they didn't care.  They still don't, which is why half of them already jumped ship away from Reggaeton culture.  And that was the audience that made Balvin #1.  An audience that didn't know shit!

I'm not gonna deny Balvin had jams and the hit singles.  "Ahora Dices", "Ay Vamos", "Sensualidad", "Shorty Make It Clap" etc...  Balvin always had some solid songs.  But being #1 used to be held to such a high standard.  Thankfully, Bad Bunny brought it back to that, but there was a couple of years where somehow Horace Grant won the MVP, not even Jordan nor Pippen.  That was the problem many of us had with Balvin, not that he was Colombian, white or a Pop Star.  It is that he never came anywhere near close to the standards set forth before him.  And sadly, he was the biggest face for our culture for a few years.

But "Vibras" kinda saved Balvin's legacy from being almost meaningless.  I'll admit, he came close with "Energia" (Rating:  7.5/10)  But here you have the #1 guy being called the GOAT with a C+ album.  Yea, give that guy the noble prize in physics, although they say Einstein wasn't great at school... at first.  Eventually he got good.  And for one album, so did Balvin.

"Vibras" is good.  It's very Pop, very commercial, but it is a solid effort.  Sadly it was too late as Bunny knocked Balvin out of position by 2019.  I know J uses writers but I don't know to what effect.  There was evidence that Hector El Father would practically just remake reference tracks and piece them together to form a hit song.  The problem with writers is that if they are artists too, they usually are, they will often want a bigger piece of the pie, at least eventually.  So when Balvin lost Feid around this time, so went away his ability to consistently make hits.  And we have seen it in recent years as Balvin has struggled to come anywhere near his peak artistically.

You don't need socially conscious lyrics or introspection to make a good album.  You just need quality music.  "Vibras" is the best version of Balvin we will probably ever see.  The production from Sky and others was really on point.  And Balvin intelligently delved into different rhythms hiding his weaknesses as an artist.  Maybe Balvin will never be regarded as a true GOAT.  Maybe his time as #1 will continue to be under great scrutiny as in "What the hell were you people thinking!?"  But at least he reached that status.  And no one can take that away from him.

Rating:  8/10 

"Vibras" by J Balvin is available to listen on all popular audio streaming services.