Despacito was the goldmine of a song that shot its singer Luis Fonsi to fame, and even several months after the release, it is still topping Billboard Hot 100 at No.3 spot. The catchy beat and unique lyrics have won over the entire world and you can hear the song playing in almost every club, party or restaurant today.
The Puerto Rican sensation behind Despacito, which has turned into a global phenomenon, says that after two decades of hard work, his talent has finally seen the breakthrough he had hoped for.
The Puerto Rican sensation, Luis Fonsi
So how Fonsi come up with the idea of the megahit song? And how did he manage to win the support of a huge superstar like Justin Bieber? The Puerto Rican singer is finally dishing the secret details on the song that the world didn’t know about till now.
It all started with a single word
Luis Fonsi says that Despacito wasn’t one of those hit songs that take months to create. In fact, the idea was conceived within a matter of hours when the singer awoke from his sleep one day with the word ‘despacito’ stuck in his head.
That was the beginning of the song’s story which eventually led to its success. Not wanting to let the chorus slip from his memory, Fonsi recorded it on his phone the first thing after waking up and made a songwriter named Erika Ender listen to it later while they were in the studio together.
Luis Fonsi with Daddy Yankee on the set of Despacito
For months, Fonsi had been searching for a song inspiration and it seemed like he had finally found one. He told Ender that he wanted to make a fee-good pop song which revolved around the word ‘despacito’ and that is where the two got the ball rolling.
In a matter of a few hours, Ender and Fonsi had finished writing the lyrics of the song and it was time to bring his masterpiece to life. Fonsi said in his interview with E! that usually it would take him several months to finish writing a song but Despacito just came out of nowhere one day and none of his family or friends had anticipated that it would become such a huge success.
Putting together a song in three hours
After the initial composition of the song, Fonsi contacted a couple of producers to work on creating the soundtrack and in less than three hours, more than 80% of the final version of the song was put together. In order to set Despacito apart from other contemporary pop songs, Fonsi added a very special urban touch in its into – the sound of a unique guitar called cuatro which is traditional to Spanish music.
Fonsi and his team knew that the song was catchy and that it might become a hit in the Spanish music industry, but no one thought that it would become the first Spanish song in the history to reach No.1 spot on Billboard Hot 100.
Despacito is the first Spanish song to reach No. 1 spot on Billboard Hot 100
Justin Bieber hears the song for the first time in a Spanish nightclub
The first time Despacito was played outside Fonsi’s immediate circle was during the shooting of its video and the singer recalls that the entire cast and crew were telling him what an amazing song he had made.
They weren’t wrong after all, since the video has over 4.5 billion views today. What was more surprising that the success of Despacito was the fact that a huge pop star like Justin Bieber released his own remix version of it only weeks after the release of the original song. Apparently, Bieber had heard the catchy tunes playing in a Spanish club and asked his record label to contact Fonsi with request for collaboration.
Bieber drops his own remix
The Puerto Rican singer was beyond himself after receiving a phone call from Bieber’s record label and sent them the original song so that the Sorry singer could release his own cover. Fonsi said that Bieber worked really hard to learn the lyrics of the song with correct pronunciation and sing the song the way it was supposed to be sung.
Despacito is a huge breakthrough for Latin music and Fonsi considers the success of the song a victory for all music artists from Latin America who are now being given more opportunities to showcase their musical talent.
