Más Futuro Que Pasado

Before he became Juanes, Juan Esteban Aristizábal was a student of industrial design. “When I was going to do a project, always, just to start, I would have to investigate and research all the elements,” he tells Apple Music. “In this case, I look back to my roots, to my essence. It’s important to have a beginning. For, me it’s Colombia.” His eighth full-length, Más Futuro Que Pasado, finds the multiple-Latin Grammy-winning legend reinterpreting the diverse rhythms and traditional folk music that shaped him, by intertwining those sounds with that of Latin America in 2019. It’s an effort that’s meant to be hopeful. “I come from rock,” he says, “but I listen to all kinds of music. I’m interested in finding a way to reinvent, to do something different. I’m always finding inspiration in the past, but also in the future and the present.” Here he takes us through the album’s many elements, track by track. Aurora “The whole inspiration comes from the cumbia rhythm, which is one of the most important rhythms from our region. It goes from Mexico to Central America and Argentina, all these countries around the Americas—the rhythm that unites everything. Back in the ’80s when I was 14 or 15, there was a lot of punk and metal music and then techno. But now it's popping, the hip-hop audience in Medellín, and I just want to be close to what is happening in my city. I made this with Crudo, who's a rapper from Medellín. For me, he's very original—the flow he has and the words he uses.” Tequila “The origins of this song are in cumbia rebajada—a type of cumbia playing in Monterrey, Mexico, back in the ’70s. All the cumbia music that came from Colombia, the vinyl records came to Monterrey, and they used to play them at all the parties. But after many hours of playing, the turntable overheated, and it started to sound slow. It was by accident, but that’s how they started to listen to the cumbia more slow. I discovered this and I just loved it. The song is about a broken heart, like