The star power of Camilo

Even though he's softly spoken and of average height, the handlebar-moustachioed, pink glasses-wearing Colombian singer has an aura that commands a room. Even as he and his entourage make their way through the hotel multiple other acts and influencers are using as a base in Seville for Latin Grammy week, everything changes. He has star power. This also explains his near-30 million Instagram followers and hundreds of millions of streams. But far from a clout-chasing face, Camilo Echeverry is uniquely authentic.

Even as he settles into a ceremony that finds him nominated for seven awards, he’s intensely aware of – and embracing – all facets of what this moment, and all the smaller ones that lead up to this week in November, mean: “I'm just allowing myself to feel everything, like, I'm gonna get nervous, I'm gonna be okay with being nervous, I'm gonna want to win the awards. I'm gonna be sad if I don't win. I'm just gonna allow myself to feel everything that is going to happen this week,” he tells me the day before the 2023 Latin Grammy’s ceremony. Going onto win only Best Long Form Music Video, while a snub for last years third album De Adentro Pa Afuera, which he notes as being “super special and super personal,” may sting, it’s his singular win which holds a special place in his heart: “It's very important for me, and it's super special, because that tour really impacted me and changed me.”

Documenting his first headline tour in 2021, El Primer Tour De Mi Vida is a full-circle moment isn’t lost on Echeverry. “I love the the craft of trying to complete circles,” he says. “I love that. I love that. But I'm already complete, long ago, to be honest. I mean, this, everything that I'm living right now is way bigger than everything that I've dreamt in my life, to be honest.”

Throughout the week Camilo Echeverry – the six-time winner already – posts reels of he and his sometimes musical collaborator wife Evaluna Montaner out ambling around Seville’s ancient streets with coffee. For someone with near-megastar status, the vibe still sits as one of a dreamer who somehow achieved something great.

Born in Medellín, Antioquia, his early years were dominated by the classic sounds of Pink Floyd and The Beatles, as well as Latin powerhouses such as Shakira. His first major musical experience came when he and his sister auditioned for XS Factor – though it would be the year after in 2007 when he would go onto win as a solo act, and his story begins proper.

Going through the various classic talent-show-start churns, including TV show acting appearances; mixtapes; singles, he then undertook a behind-the-scenes stint in Miami writing songs for other contemporary Latin acts including Becky G and Natti Natasha (“Sin Pijama”), Anitta (“Veneno”), and Sebastian Yatra (“Ya No Tiene Novio”). Eventually signing with Sony Music Latin in 2019, he wound up releasing his debut album – Por Primera Vez – in 2020. But we all know what happens next.

Halted in his tracks by the pandemic, it wouldn’t be until 2021 that he would finally get his first-ever worldwide tour. Taking his second album Mis Manos around the globe – and a bunch of cameras for what would become his Grammy-nom’d documentary – it was actually here in Spain that he wound up having an incredible affinity. “Spain was the first country that I visited on my first a tour,” he remembers. “The first time I was on stage, with my name, with people in front of me, was in Spain. So that was, for me, very impactful. So being here announcing my next tour, receiving all those nominations, releasing new music here in Spain, is something very important.”

With another Spanish tour in the pipeline for 2024, the road from hopeful stars-in-his-eyes talent show contestant to bonafide pop star has been long but the dividends appear to be paying off for Echeverry. Since his 2019 success with “Tutu” – a collaboration with fellow Colombian Shakira, and Puerto Rican singer Pedro Capo – each foot forward has been one soundtracked by quirky pop that blends ear worm with Latin passion. Echeverry is certainly building himself a fortified pop stronghold, which is currently capped off with De Adentro Pa Afuera, an album centrally inspired by his wife and the 2022 birth of his daughter, and visually backdropped by an impassioned red with Echeverry in portraiture with a blooming rose.

“I try to look backwards in order to celebrate the journey and how long the journey has been. I really don't make an effort of like, ‘Oh, I want to change, I want to reinvent myself,’” Echeverry explains. “But I want to be as connected as possible with my creativity…I want to be as honest and transparent with my creativity – and with who I am. Of course, when I see that documentary, or when I see my first album, whatever, of course I see a lot of things that are very different, but I see that I have the connection with my creativity intact, [there’s] maybe more innocence right now than I had when I was releasing the first album because right now I know the importance of the innocence, the importance of being aware of every little detail of my creativity. I'm more aware of that right now, so I'm protecting it more than I did before. I'm trying to go deeper and deeper, but at the same time, I'm trying to go backwards with the intention that I had when I grabbed a guitar for the first time when I was a little kid.”

For Echeverry, success is “measured by the quality and the the level of strength between me and the people at the other side of the microphone.” Certainly an acknowledgement that, as the numbers get higher, couldn't hurt to be stated, but there’s still a confident truth in his voice as he explains further: “That's the biggest award and prize, so every time they're announcing the nominations, or tomorrow when they say '...and the Latin Grammy goes to' there in that moment, I have to go to myself in my heart and said like, ‘Yo, remember who you are the the importance of what really matters here and then celebrate or cry or do whatever the fuck you want.' But I mean right now the important thing is who you really are.”

Echeverry is a part of the new generation of Latin artists who are redefining and re-imagining what it means to be an artist on a global scale. Particularly with events such as the Latin Grammy’s taking place in new, European pastures, being able to accept that change is good while, in an increasing act of fortuitous planning in Echeverry’s eyes, paving the way for even the next generation. “I'm super excited for the next generation when they are born into the reality of you are who you are, and who you are is more than enough for you to make it not only here, but globally – you can be part of the global picture being who you are, singing in your language, eating what you eat, dressing as you dress – being who you are,” he implores, “but you just dive deeper and deeper and deeper on who you really are, instead of trying to look like another person that you're not.”

Unabashedly embracing their roots is a joyous part of Latin music. It's so contagious it simmers throughout the air surrounding the week’s events, as artists from various walks of life gather to celebrate their heritage and future. “I'm super excited to be part of this new generation of Latin artists that are just discovering what was true all the time that we as Spanish speakers and Latin Americans, we are not a minority that has to be full of makeup and customs of another language and another land for us to be able to make it globally...all the time like a war between who you are and who you should be for you to make it, you know. So that's what makes me more excited about this moment in Latin industry.”

Echeverry's view on the building success of Latin music on a global platform is also rooted in directness: “I really think that transparency is contagious, you know? So right now the I mean, it's not a secret that 10 years ago or 20 years ago, being an artist was like you have to fake a lot of things for you to make it." Recalling how his first manager told him "don't let anybody know that you're married, or don't let anybody know that you have a girlfriend or a wife. Or that you have a grey hair or a daughter. No, you have to be this appealing person – try to fake it all the time that you're sexy, or you never have pain or you don't feel...you're like, this semi-God."

The unambiguity is what plays into Echeverry, and Camilo the artist, being one entity rather than a persona. He's found himself in the throes of a talent show gauntlet, and even now, with success billowing around him, he nods that "transparency and honesty is so appealing for an artist, I just want to be who I am. I don't have to fake anything. I'm not gonna get to the hotel and be like, ‘Oh, I’m so tired of this moustache, I'm just gonna change this...no, this is who I am. This is who I am,” he reiterates. “Tomorrow I don't have any interviews, or the day after that I'm going to a concert or, you know what I mean? Being honest is addictive, and awesome and amazing."

This could be why he has that so-called star power. Even if it all turned out to be an unlikely charade, the fact that Echeverry can build a world out of an honest amalgamation of deep-rooted musical prescience while being truly himself, all the while knowing that "Latin music is being a celebration of that be who you are, be who you are. And within all the time being locally, who we are budding the picture that we're about to be like, Yo, everybody, this is who I am, you're never gonna be able before you were never able to show the 100% of who you are, because nobody was gonna be interested.”

Now, the world is indeed watching. For Echeverry and his peers, there’s been no better time to be a Latin artist - particularly one who freely collaborates and shapeshifts sonically. It's a time Echeverry is relishing, as he notes that ”everybody is being as Colombian as they can, is showing what being Colombian means...showing what being Mexican means – I'm going to speak with my accent. I'm going back to my accent. I'm going back to having my food." As he unfurls his point, he becomes more gleefully animated. "I'm just going to travel to Spain, and I'm going to try everything, and you know what? Sunday we're gonna go get Colombian food in Spain, just to see, you know, being proud of who you are. It's so awesome to celebrate." As he winds down, the real diamonds that constitute Camilo's bright aura sparkle: "And don't wait for somebody else to celebrate you. You can start celebrating yourself, and then that's going to be contagious.”