Nicky Jam

American singer (born 1981)

Nick Rivera Caminero (born March 17, 1981), known by his stage name Nicky Jam, is an American singer. He is best known for hits such as "X", "Travesuras", "En la Cama", "Te Busco", "El Perdón", "Hasta el Amanecer", and "El Amante"; the later three are from his 2017 album Fénix. He has frequently collaborated with other Latin artists such as Daddy Yankee, J Balvin, Ozuna, Plan B and Anuel AA. While his early music exemplified traditional fast paced reggaeton, his newer compositions place more emphasis on sung vocals and romantic lyrics. Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts to a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father, his family moved to Puerto Rico when he was ten years old. He began recording music at age fourteen with his first EP Distinto a los demás (1995), and eventually caught the attention of Daddy Yankee. The two formed the group Los Cangris, which was active from the late 1990s to 2004. The pair split acrimoniously and Nicky Jam's career quickly took a sharp decline, followed by a period of legal struggles and substance abuse. He then moved to Medellín, Colombia, where he rejuvenated his career and developed a more melodic style of music, which proved to be popular through the release of the singles "Voy a Beber" and "Travesuras" in 2014. His success was furthered by the 2015 single "El Perdón" and his 2017 album Fénix. He released the album Íntimo in 2019, which was a critical and commercial success. Nicky Jam has also acted in the films XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017) and Bad Boys for Life (2020), and starred in and executive produced the Netflix biographical series Nicky Jam: El Ganador (2018).

Nick Rivera Caminero was born on March 17, 1981, in Lawrence, Massachusetts to a Dominican mother and Puerto Rican father. Having been born on Saint Patrick's Day, he enjoyed attending parades for the holiday as a little boy. When Nicky Jam was ten years old, his family moved to the Río Hondo suburb of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in an attempt to reconnect with the family's Puerto Rican roots. However, in an interview with Billboard, Nicky Jam explained that his father had become embroiled in a drug related case and escaped bail, necessitating the move to Puerto Rico. Nicky Jam initially experienced culture shock upon moving to Puerto Rico, having never spoken Spanish before arriving to the island. Despite the difficult start, he quickly made friends in his neighborhood and after spending time in the streets as a middle schooler, became inspired to pursue a musical career. He endured a difficult breakup with his girlfriend shortly after the album's release and the emotional pain of the experience led him to try cocaine for the first time at age fifteen. After the breakup of Los Cangris, Nicky Jam struggled personally and professionally, calling himself the "embarrassment of the Latin Caribbean music industry". Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias contacted Nicky Jam to collaborate on the 2015 song "El Perdón", which later won Nicky Jam his first Latin Grammy for Best Urban Performance. His increased popularity during this time led Nicky Jam to reunite in 2015 with his mother who had been deported to the Dominican Republic; he had not seen her for more than twenty years. He recalled, "Most of my life, I was trying to be famous, do music to see if my mom could listen to me and see me when [the reunion] happened, it was like a movie moment. My bodyguard was like, 'There's this woman outside. She's fighting with everybody saying she's your mom and she wants to see you' and automatically, I knew it was her because I remembered her voice." The following year, he recorded a remix of the 1992 song "De Pies a Cabeza" with Mexican rock band Maná, a collaboration Nicky Jam described as a "blessing". In 2016, his song "Hasta el Amanecer" became his first song to reach one billion views on YouTube. The song won the Billboard Music Award for Top Latin Song at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards. It also won the Urban Song of the Year and was nominated for Single of the Year at the 29th Lo Nuestro Awards.

On January 20, 2017, he released the album Fénix. The album cover consists of a mural painted in Medellín of Nicky Jam with the Spanish word for "Phoenix" (stylized FEИiX). This mural was painted by fans without Nicky Jam's knowledge, and upon discovering the existence of the mural, Nicky Jam was so moved that he proclaimed on Instagram that he would make the mural the cover of his next album. The record was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 18th Annual Latin Grammy Awards, losing to Salsa Big Band by Rubén Blades with Roberto Delgado & Orquesta. Fénix featured collaborations from Sean Paul, El Alfa, J Balvin, and Kid Ink and included Nicky Jam's first English language songs "Without You" and "I Can't Forget You". With the album, he hoped to maintain an organic reggaeton sound, feeling that genre had evolved into an overly "futuristic" sound in Puerto Rico. "El Amante" also reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The video debuted at the number one spot on YouTube's global music chart and amassed more than 200 million views in two weeks. Nicky Jam performed the song with J Balvin on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon while Jimmy Fallon danced onstage with the two singers. Reacting to the success of the song, Nicky Jam divulged, "I knew our music was going to be big, but I didn't think it was going to be the way it is now." Nicky Jam starred in the Netflix biographical series Nicky Jam: El Ganador, which explored the artist's struggles with drug addiction and his rise to fame and premiered in November 2018. In October 2019, Nicky Jam previewed the release of his documentary, Behind Nicky Jam's Íntimo, which was produced through Apple Music. He released the album Íntimo on November 1, 2019. It contained the singles "X", "Atrévete" featuring Sech, and "Whine Up" featuring Anuel AA. Billboard called the album "17 songs of pure reggaeton magic". He collaborated with Daddy Yankee on the song "Muévelo" which samples Jamaican dancehall artist Ini Kamoze's 1994 hit, "Here Comes the Hotstepper". Nicky Jam appeared on Bad Bunny's surprise album Las que no iban a salir, released in May 2020. In August 2021, Jam announced that his first official post pandemic tour will kick off in early 2022. The 'Infinity' Tour will visit major cities across the U. S. and Canada, starting Feb. 3, 2022, at Boston's Agganis Arena.