Quevedo has made two things clear in his brief but sparkling career: that he dominates the list of most listened to songs (he has accumulated eight number one songs since 2023) and that he is extremely influenced by artists who are more talented than him (which is logical, on the other hand). Today the third album by the Gran Canarian (24 years old) was published, titled The Baifoa work that functions as a vindication of their land, a story based on identity links, on clinging to the roots, on raising their voices to defend their cradle. The singer has always acted as a canary, but never before with as much effort as in this work. Let us remember that I should have taken more photos, from Bad Bunny, he already did it before with Puerto Rico, a year and a half ago.
One of the two previews of The Baifo was Not even drunk, which immediately rose to the number one position of the most listened to on the leading digital platform, Spotify. It is a merengue, a genre that is heard with passion at festivals and Canarian festivals and is located in the Dominican Republic. This is how he sings: “I’ve already been all over Spain, I went on a trip to Paris, I was in Miami in the summer. / I’ve already traveled the world and I’m not moving or drunk.” In the piece he mentions about twenty municipalities on the islands: “Agaete, Los Llanos, Corralejo, Teguise, Agüimes, Candelaria, Hermigua, Tazacorte…”. They also came before presenting their candidacy for song of the summer with a merengue (or something similar), Rosalía with Desperate in 2022 and Karol G with If I had met you before in 2024.
The Canarian affiliation on the album does not stop there. From the title, Baifoas the goat is called in the Canary Islands and which Quevedo claims, calling himself “baifo y capricolo.” Some of the collaborators are also locals, such as the Canarian popular music group Los Gofiones or Nueva Línea, an orchestra led by four girls that tours the archipelago’s festivals with their Latin rhythms. More from the land: this same week Quevedo announced the release of the album before thousands of people with a drone show on the beach of Las Canteras.
The Baifo It opens and closes with two themes René, from Residente (with some Milo J), where Quevedo expresses his feelings as a young star torn from his neighborhood. A millionaire boy who, however, feels anguish and loneliness too often. It is a recurring message when one embraces fame, but Quevedo tells it with honesty and naivety, and it is appreciated. In He is at home, the opening, he assumes that outside the islands he does not feel inspired to write, and in the closing, the sincere Son of the volcanosuccessfully supported by the voices and timple of Los Gofiones, Quevedo says: “I dream of my children never leaving school, and continuing to go down to the island to eat cheaply even though my diamonds are certified, not moissanite.”
The Baifo It is the best album from the Canary Islands, something with little merit if we compare it with the previous one, the disastrous and tawdry Good night (2024), but to take into account as an evolution of his debut, Where I want to be (2023). There is party hedonism in the album, the one experienced by a 24-year-old boy who, as he says in a lyric, already has the lives of his grandchildren and their grandchildren arranged. Parties, cocktails, sex with beautiful bodies… We would all do the same at their age and with their money. In reggaeton there is the intention to break out of the mold, with an unusual base or with a nod to the folklore of its land. In Gádar, It starts off as reggaeton, but then becomes salsa thanks to the intervention of Puerto Rican Tonny Tun Tun. In To the beat, one of the best of the album, ventures into vallenato with the sparkling New Line.
It is a long album (50 minutes) with space to explore varied styles and with some of the best lyrics of his career. Here we have the most sincere Quevedo, the one who twerks with girls in the VIP area of a club with a glass of cava in his hand, the one who locks himself in his hotel room after weeks on tour and misses his grandmother, and the one who feels proud of his roots and shouts it from the rooftops.