Juanes Helps ‘El Tiny’ Desk Kick Off Latinx Heritage Month

NPR Music is kicking off its Latinx Heritage Month celebrations with a Latin music icon . Colombian star Juanes stopped by Tiny Desk — renamed “El Tiny” for the next several weeks — to perform a medley of his hits, including a new take on his track “La Luz” and a must-listen version of “A Dios Le Pido.”

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Backed by horns and a pair of backup singers and surrounded by the Colombian flag, Juanes started his performance with “Nada Valgo Sin Tu Amor,” a beloved cut from his 2004 album Mi Sangre .

Juanes then introduced his song “Cecilia,” from his most recent album Vida Cotidiana , by telling a silly story about how he didn’t learn that his wife Karen had a middle name — “Cecilia” — until about 10 years into their relationship by eavesdropping on a conversation with his mother-in-law. “I told her, ‘For now on, I’m going to call you Cecilia!'” he said before the performance. “I’ll never call her Karen again. It’s named after her.”

Juanes then took it back to 2002 as he gave his fan-favorite track “Mala Gente” from his seminal album, Un Día Normal , an acoustic spin and led the crowd in a chant of the song’s title.

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“I wrote [it] based on my memories of relationships, and the coolest thing is that I made it just laughing,” he told Rolling Stone about the track for its 20th anniversary. (This track won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 2003.) “I was just like, ‘I want to do something kind of funny, but also with a rock attitude.’ It’s a typical story about a breakup, when you really want to be with somebody, but that person doesn’t want to be with you.”

Juanes then pumped up the Tiny Desk energy as he transformed his song “La Luz” into a lively merengue before pretending to finish his set. “As I said, we have until the sun rises!” Juanes said, before kicking off his classic “A Dios Le Pido.”

The visit to Tiny Desk comes several weeks before he’s set to kick off a tour of the United States in October, stopping in cities including Oakland, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, and Albuquerque. Last year’s Latinx Heritage Month celebrations at Tiny Desk featured performances from Ivy Queen, Becky G , Villano Antillano, and DannyLux.

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