Personal Essay of an Ecuadorian living in Queens
I was born May 18, 1999, in Guayaquil, Ecuador. I am the second oldest in my family, I have one older brother and three younger siblings. My parents are separated, when I was in Ecuador I lived with my father and stepmom. My dad and I moved to New York to have a better life in 2006. When I moved it was very hard for me to adjust to the new environment. Music took a big part in my life, to learn English and make my days brighter. The variety of music heard in my household ranges from Gianluca Grignani to Eminem. That is just to say a few since my dad was raised in Ecuador and also lived his teenage years in New York, at home English pop and Spanish music were on a daily basis.
Personally, due to my dad’s influence on music, I like and listen to Eminem, Culture Club, Queen, and many more. This also developed my taste later on into liking Bruno Mars, Pink, Akon, Rhianna, Katy Perry, and many more. But do not let my English singers and songs fuel you. You are about to see my Spanish taste and who I am crazy about. I am totally in love with Romeo Santos. He is a solo artist but also used to form a group named Aventura. The genres of my taste rank from Bachata of Aventura and Prince Royce. Merengue of Juan Luis Guerra, Elvis Crespo, Salsa of Jerry Rivera and Gilberto Santa Rosa. Romantic music from The sun of Mexico Luis Miguel, the Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz and Oreja de Van Gough to name a few. Luis Miguel is also a good example of my romantic and actual singer until this decade. Recently I must confess that lately Luis Miguel and Ricardo Arjona’s music have been in my head.
I consider myself to have a very wide knowledge of music in most genres. Bachata, Merengue, Vallenato which is a Colombian genre as well as Cumbia, romantic music, salsa, pop-rock, rap, and so on. Not only do I know the artist and their songs, but as well I know how to dance to these songs, (Salsa I am still in the process with). Music to me is a way to express my emotions and circumstances I pass through life. It is like if there is an exact song when I am feeling happy, sad, nostalgic, tired, anxious, etc. For example, when negative thoughts come to mind or I am not passing a good moment, I like to listen to Aventura. Aventura Dominican group who’s vocalist and leader is Romeo Santos. I have seen him live in concert 3 times, twice in Ecuador and once in Madison Square Garden. It might sound a bit crazy but I tend to say Romeo Santos is the only person who will never let me down and is always in my best and worst moments. I feel this way because his music is very special to me and has been in my life since I am 6 years old. Like Aventura and Romeo Santos are my top favorite music and artists of all time, but as mentioned before I also like other singers and genres. I am going to share my favorite genres and singers so you can be part of my music taste.
My Favorite singers and my relation to their Songs-Lyrics
Aventura Group
Aventura was a bachata music group from New York, United States. Aventura was formed in 1994 by Anthony “Romeo” Santos, Henry Santos, Lenny Santos, and Max Santos. Aventura is a group of not only dancing songs with explicit lyrics. Aventura has a variety of songs to which it relates to society and even brings his religious opinion in songs. I am about to name and elaborate on songs of Aventura that have touched my soul and impacted my life at some point. “Amor de Madre” narrates the story of a mom who is left alone with her child and gives to her son everything with so much sacrifice, without noticing that this same love has made her child take the wrong way. This song reminds me of a friend and I see him resemble this, his mom gave him everything but instead he took the addiction paths. This song really has me thinking so when a parent’s love is enough, is giving everything without a measure wrong?
Another song is “Hermanita” which tells the story of a woman being bit up by her husband and her brother who is desperately trying to help her. This piece of the lyric touched me deeply “ En tu casa hay un monstruo y tú duermes con él. Anda Cuenta las horas que te ha hecho Feliz, luego Cuenta Los años que te ha hecho sufrir” which translates to “ In your house, there is a monster and you sleep with him. Go ahead and count the hours that he has made you happy, right after count the years that he has made you suffer”. Personally, I can relate to and understand this portion of the lyric. I used to be in a relationship with someone who hurt me emotionally. I used to hold on to the happy moments, to not notice the bad person he really was. As the song says, maybe I could count the hours or amounts of happiness in the relationship, but the years and unpleasant moments weighed more heavily. Without realizing I was living and sleeping with the monster. It is horrible to lie down next to that person whom you love, crying silently for all the damage that person causes you. I was able to get rid of this blindness because like the song says, counting the hours someone makes you happy does not erase the hurtful reality.
Jerry Rivera (Salsa)
“Amores Como el Nuestro” is one of my favorite songs from Jerry Rivera. The lyrics describe a unique love story and not like the other love stories. It is simply poetry to the ears, truly makes the person want to be in love. I dream of one day finding true love as he sings in his song, those loves that are a few in the world. Oh but another song I love about him is “Ese” which translates to “The One”, the lyric describes a guy who is a disaster and plays around with a woman, but somehow she is still in love with him. No matter how many negative traits he has, something deep in his soul had to be different that she fell in love with him. No matter what, she always goes back to his arms in love. Jerry Rivera until this very day is well known and his music is sung and danced all around the world. It has that variety of salsa romantic music. A point of reference in salsa should always be Jerry Rivera.
Juan Luis Guerra ( Merengue)
A song I really like about Juan Luis Guerra, and makes me reflect is “Avispas”. His songs are mostly passages from the bible. It is a dancing merengue song with vibes but also the lyric represents the love for God and how he has changed the singer’s life. I like to listen to this song, how beautiful and interesting it can sound combining bible passages and turning them into a merengue. I am catholic and this song not only makes me sing, dance but reflect as well and I like it.
Carlos Vives ( Vallenato)
“Carito” is a song I like by Carlos Vives, it combines a nice story of platonic love with great musical arrangements, proving that though Vives may be a romantic at heart, he also values any kind of love and companionship, a common theme in Latin music in general. This is a cute song with a sweet story about a schoolboy’s crush on his English teacher. As the singer reminisces about his boyhood romantic ambitions, he has to use the imperfect (past continuous) tense to express what he was feeling. Carito is really a fun love story guideline to follow, how cute and full of excitement to dance.
Luis Miguel (Romantica)
Luis Miguel is a Mexican singer. He is widely known only by the name Luis Miguel. He is often referred to as “El Sol de México” (The Sun of Mexico). “La Incondicional” describes a song of a woman so faithful and in love with him, who never asked him for anything. He is describing the perfect woman but he lets her go, he did not know how to love her properly. That happens in real life there sometimes when unconditional people are taken for granted. “Te puedes Marchar”, “ Tu o Ninguna” and “Culpable o no” are my top favorites.
Bruno Mars (English Pop)
Bruno Mars is an American singer. How can I even begin to express Bruno Mars is such a versatile artist, he is the type to make people dance, cry over a heartbreak, boost self-love, and dance altogether. The first song I ever heard of him was “Just The Way You Are” and that was enough to like his music and soft voice. Of course, many songs followed “When I Was Your Man”, “It Will Rain”, “Talking To The Moon”, “Billionaire”, “Grenade” and many more. If I keep going I would probably not end, to be honest. I used to think of Mars as a romantic pop singer, little did I know he can do and does more than that. “Grenade” is such a powerful song, the lyric describes what we are capable of doing when in love. “I would jump in front of a train for you, but you won’t do the same”. How many times haven’t we gone beyond ourselves for a person knowing they would not do the same for us. It happens, I had to learn the hard way, that not everyone has the same good intentions as me.
Conclusion
The above-mentioned genre and singers are my favorites and complements who I am. With this, I am demonstrating that versatility is possible. That I can be dancing to a salsa song by Jerry Rivera and also rap an Eminem song. Music forms a huge part of my life and is like a best friend going everywhere with me. Writing this personal essay with some of my main playlists made me remember that music heals everything, and how grateful I am to have a versatile knowledge of music genres in English and Spanish. The best parts of the childhood parties in Ecuador were the songs and dancing combined with food, which made the best childhood for me. Through this essay, I have talked about my number 1 music crush and love for “Aventura”, specifically Romeo Santos. But Hey I am sure we all have a musical crush. I wonder how many of you know “Aventura’’, “Jerry Rivera”, “Carlos Vives” and “Luis Miguel” out of my playlist. Hope you all enjoyed reading my personal essay with my favorite genre and music included.
