A Dios le Pido spent 47 weeks on the Latin chart for Colombia's Juanes
Juanes grew up in Medellín when it had the world's highest murder rate, lost a cousin and a close friend to violence, and turned that grief into songs about imagining a better Colombia. Since his 2000 solo debut he has won 26 Latin Grammys and sold more than 15 million records.
Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez was born in Medellín in 1972. He started piano at two, and at seven his father and brothers began teaching him guitar, which led him to tango, vallenato and even Russian folk music. His father later died of cancer. The city of his childhood was dominated by Pablo Escobar's drug empire, and Juanes has said his country suffered so much that picturing a better one was the only way ahead.
As a teenager he loved the Beatles and Metallica, and in 1988 he founded the rock band Ekhymosis, whose debut Niño Gigante came out that year. They released seven studio albums and shared stages with stars such as Ricky Martin, but by his own account they never broke beyond the Colombian market. He dissolved the group in 1998 to go solo.
Fíjate Bien, produced by Gustavo Santaolalla and released in 2000, held the top spot in Colombia for ten weeks and earned three Latin Grammys, including best new artist, though it made little impact abroad. The night of that ceremony he arrived at Santaolalla's studio with demos of more than forty new songs. The result, Un Día Normal in 2002, went gold in Colombia on its first day and platinum in Mexico and Spain, and spent a record 92 weeks among the ten best sellers on Billboard's Top Albums chart. Its lead single, A Dios le Pido, reached No. 1 in twelve countries, and a duet with Nelly Furtado, Fotografía, led to further collaborations. At the 2003 Latin Grammys he won all five awards he was nominated for.
Mi Sangre in 2004 became an international bestseller, and albums have kept coming, up to Vida Cotidiana in 2023. He has also won three Grammys. Through his foundation, named after that record, he supports Colombian victims of landmines, and in 2013 he published an autobiography, Chasing the Sun.
Source: Juanes
