Calle 13 was a Puerto Rican alternative hip-hop band formed by stepbrothers Residente (lead vocalist, songwriter) and Visitante (multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, beat producer), along with their half-sister iLe, also known as PG-13 (backing vocals).
Pérez and Cabra first were discovered by Elias De Leon. They were subsequently given a record deal with White Lion Records after leaving a demo with A&R Director Carlos "Karly" Rosario. After the song "Querido FBI" was released, the group gained attention in Puerto Rico. In 2005, Calle 13 released its eponymously titled debut album, which included the singles "Se Vale Tó-Tó" and "¡Atrévete-te-te!" and reached number 6 on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart. In 2007, the group released its second album, Residente o Visitante, which experimented with a wide variety of genres and reached number 1 on the Top Latin Albums chart. The album helped the group gain success throughout Latin America and win three Latin Grammys. The group released its third album, Los de Atrás Vienen Conmigo, in 2008, which won Album of the Year at the 2009 Latin Grammy Awards. Calle 13 released Entren Los Que Quieran in November 2010 and its latest album, Multi Viral, on March 1, 2014.
Calle 13 is noted for its eclectic musical style, often using unconventional instrumentation in its music, which distances the group from the reggaeton genre. The band is also known for its satirical lyrics as well as social commentary about Latin American issues and culture. The stepbrothers are strong supporters of the Puerto Rican independence movement, a stance that has generated controversy. For their work, the group has won twenty-one Latin Grammy Awards, holding the record for the most Latin Grammy wins. They have also won three Grammy Awards.
History
2004–2005: early years Residente and Visitante met when they were both two years old, when Residente's mother married Visitante's father. The family developed strong ties to the Puerto Rican arts community; Residente's mother, Flor Joglar de Gracia, was an actress in Teatro del Sesenta, a local acting troupe, while Visitante's father (who later became Residente's stepfather) is currently a lawyer, but at one time was a musician. The duo asserts that they lived a relatively comfortable lifestyle growing up, as Residente places himself in a group of Puerto Ricans who are "too poor to be rich and too rich to be poor." Although their parents later divorced, the stepbrothers remained close. When they were children, Visitante would visit his brother at the Calle 13 (13th Street) of the El Conquistador subsection of Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, every week. Since the subsection is a gated community, visitors were routinely asked "¿Residente o visitante?" ("Resident or visitor?") by a security guard when approaching the community's main gate. Therefore, Visitante would identify himself as a visitor, while Residente would have to insist that he was a resident to clear the gate. The pair named themselves Calle 13 after the street their family's house was on. Before living there, they lived at Calle 11.
Residente originally studied to be an accountant, and Visitante finished a computer science degree. An art course prompted Residente to pursue a career as a multimedia designer, and Visitante became a full-time musician and producer. Residente states that his degree in design has influenced his musical style: "What I used to do with my visual art is the same thing I do now with my lyrics. My songs are descriptive, very visual." Besides this, Residente was a fan of what was then called "underground rap" in Puerto Rico, and started to earn a reputation as a lyricist (Residente says, with some embarrassment, that his moniker at the time was "El Déspota", or "The Despot"). Meanwhile, Visitante participated in Bayanga, a rock and Brazilian batucada group. After Residente finished studying in Georgia at the Savannah College of Art and Design and earned a master of fine arts in animation, illustration, sequential art and film, he returned to Puerto Rico. Soon after, both of them started working on their music. They claim they initially did it as a joke, but they still managed to get some of their songs heard throughout Puerto Rico. They began recording music together in 2004, with the idea of hosting their work on a website, beginning with two demos ("La Tripleta" and "La Aguacatona"). Within a year, the duo began looking for a record label to distribute their music commercially. They decided to pursue a deal at White Lion Records, because Tego Calderón was on the label, whom the two admired.
2005–2006: "Querido FBI" and Calle 13 While their first album was being mixed, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, leader of the Puerto Rican revolutionary group known as Los Macheteros, was killed in the course of arrest by the FBI.
Angered by the FBI's action, Residente wrote a song protesting against what had happened to Ojeda and asked his record label to allow the group to release it on the Internet through viral marketing through Indymedia Puerto Rico, an alternative news website.
Public controversy about the song's lyrics ensured immediate attention from mainstream media in Puerto Rico. The song, according to critics, "redefined what a reggaeton vocalist's relationship to Puerto Rico should be."Frances Negrón-Muntaner and Raquel Z. Rivera, "Reggaeton Nation" (December 17, 2007)
Soon after this, the duo rose to fame in 2005 with two back-to-back hits on Puerto Rican radio stations: "Se Vale Tó-Tó" and "Atrevete-te-te!" Both songs were later included on their eponymously titled debut album, which was released on November 29, 2005.
After this rise to fame, the duo was sought by other reggaetón artists, and they collaborated with artists such as Julio Voltio in the song "Ojalai" (also known as "Chulin Culin Chunfly", whose name is a minor variation of a song written by Mexican comedy writer Roberto Gómez Bolaños, of whose comedic characters Residente is a fan—by citing the name, Gómez Bolaños is legally a co-author of the song, for "Chulin Culin Fun Flai", accessed on June 25, 2012.) and with the Three 6 Mafia in the remix, singing or co-writing songs. At the end of 2005, they finally released their album, which received great critical praise.
In 2006 the duo kept on working as they broke into a wider-music scene with at least two more smash hits that were played throughout Puerto Rico and U.S. Urban music radio and television stations, including the songs "Japón" ("Japan"), and "Suave" ("Soft/Slow"). The group had their first massive-venue concert on May 6, 2006, at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan. They also toured Central and South America, playing "Atrévete-te-te" before an escola de samba in Venezuelan television, and also visiting, among others, Guatemala, Chile, Honduras and Colombia.
In light of the criticism directed towards the band, Calle 13 has become a cultural reference to be reckoned with in Puerto Rico. An example of this is the constant references made to the band and to Residente by satirical writer Fiquito Yunqué in the weekly pro-independence newspaper Claridad. Yunqué's columns sometimes feature Calle 13 lyrics as their titles, and Yunqué even introduced the band onstage at one of their live performances in Puerto Rico.
Acceptance of Calle 13's music even influenced the former Governor of Puerto Rico, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá who, in December 2005, admitted to listening to Calle 13 because his son had copied some of their songs to his iPod. Acevedo claimed that "songs such as Calle 13's were eye openers" to him. As a result, since the country had a chronic problem of people being unknowingly injured or killed by stray bullets fired to the air on New Year's Eve, Acevedo felt compelled to invite the duo to La Fortaleza and to have them record a song against shootings bullets in the air as a way of celebrating the holiday.
The single, "Ley De Gravedad" (Law of Gravity) was released as part of a public-service campaign for that matter. Some political adversaries of Acevedo dismissed this as a trick to ingratiate himself with Puerto Rican youth and pro-independence advocates, and was criticized by the local press due to the fact that an artist who seemingly promoted violence with their "Querido FBI" song was now supposed to be a role model for anti-violence. However, the campaign was thought to be effective in reducing the injured, from twelve (and one death) the previous year, to three the year the campaign was run, though many members of the artistic community contributed to this effort in separate campaigns.
2007: Residente o Visitante
As the duo has risen to fame, other international artists of various genres have sought them. In 2006 and 2007, they recorded songs with Canadian Nelly Furtado and Spanish Alejandro Sanz. In their recent album, they feature contributions with such diverse groups like Orishas (a hip hop group whose members had emigrated from Cuba), Mexican Café Tacuba, Argentine Vicentico (from Los Fabulosos Cadillacs), and La Mala Rodríguez (from Spain), among others. On May 19, 2006, the band celebrated their first international concert, held in Panama City to a crowd of 5,000. During the summer of 2006 Calle 13 was featured on MTV's My Block: Puerto Rico. From September 15 – October 31 Calle 13 was Artist Speaking Tr3s on MTV Tr3s.
On November 2, 2006, the band won three Latin Grammys (Best New Artist; Best Urban Album; and Best Short Version Video, for the song "Atrévete-te-te"). They later filmed a video along with Julio Voltio for "Chulín Culín Chunfly", where Residente, dressed as a priest and later as Bruce Lee, is given a severe beating by a gang.
On April 24, 2007, their second album Residente o Visitante was released. Tracks in the album were partially recorded in Puerto Rico and while on tour in Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela. While recording the album, Residente and Visitante took a trip to South America to explore areas populated by Latin America's indigenous and African-descended minorities. The duo was strongly influenced by the experience; Visitante discovered and purchased several new musical instruments on the trip including a quijada, a charango and a bombo legüero, all of which were used on the duo's song "Lllegale a Mi Guarida".
Residente considered this album to be darker than the first, but also more introspective and biographical. The album garnered controversy for its sexual and religious overtones. As part of the album, Calle 13 filmed the video for their first single off the album, "Tango del Pecado", on February 25, 2007.
In May 2007, the duo performed at Vive Latino, and the public answered them by throwing beer bottles filled with urine. In 2010, when taking part of the same festival, they were less bitterly welcomed. In July 2007, Calle 13 teamed up with Julio Voltio to speak out against police brutality in Puerto Rico. After recording a song titled "Tributo a la Policía", Calle 13 distributed the single free on the streets in front of the Police Headquarters of San Juan.
On November 8, 2007, Calle 13, along with Orishas, performed the song "Pa'l Norte" at the 8th Annual Latin Grammy Awards, held at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their live performance featured the percussion/dance group Stomp. A troupe of dancers dressed in traditional Latin American garb and wearing bandannas in their faces (as if they were bandits) were also featured. Two members of the traditional Colombian folk cumbia band Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, as well as members from an indigenous tribe local to the Gaiteros' hometown in northern Colombia, followed Residente to the stage at the beginning of the song. The subtext of the presentation was that Latin Americans were "invading the North" (the United States) and were there to stay.