In the 1960s Motown founder Berry Gordon Jr. had his employees audition future hits on low-fi car radios rather than fancy studio speakers. One of reggaeton’s top hit makers, J Balvin, reveals that he does something similar when crafting the songs that pour out of car windows in much of the world today. “That’s what we always focus on — is it going to feel good blasting in the car or in the club?” he says.
Balvin’s love affair with the car inspired his 2024 album “Rayo” and the Back to the Rayo Tour, which brings him to the Agganis Arena for a show on Friday.
“Rayo was actually [what I called] my first car when I was a teenager,” explains Balvin, who grew up in Colombia. That red Volkswagen Golf “was a car that my dad bought for me. It was a big sacrifice, and so to help pay the bills I used to drive my friends to school. It taught me a lot about work, and about hustling, and I’m still hustling.”
That hustle has included working with Beyoncé, appearances at Coachella, and billion-stream bangers like “Mi Gente” and the Bad Bunny collaborations “La Canción” and “No Me Conoce.” Recently he’s expanded into everything from a clothing line to acting and anime voice-over work — not to mention albums, singles, and adding his signature high-energy flow to tracks by both nascent and established artists. (“We just dropped one last night with FloyyMenor, a new kid from Chile, who is great,” says Balvin.)
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What it hasn’t included for the last six years has been a full US tour. A 2022 trek was slated to bring him to TD Garden, the site of his first Boston appearance, where he opened for Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull in 2014. But the 2022 tour got called off at the last minute due to COVID-related production issues. “I’d never had to do something like that,” recalls Balvin.
“For the fans that bought the ticket and couldn’t see me, I’m here for them — I want them to think it was worth the wait. … It’s like coming back to the old neighborhood to see your old friends and also the new kids on the block,” says Balvin on a video call from tour rehearsals in Pennsylvania.
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The famously stylish Balvin, long a social media staple, even took a break from online platforms in 2022. “I went off because I was going through a dark time,” he recounts. “My son was just born, so I took the risk of focusing on myself and my family by stepping away for a little. It had consequences, but I’m a hard worker — I know what we have done for the culture, and we’re here for a new season.”
Balvin’s son Rio is also the namesake of one of his recent singles. The ode to domesticity reflects Balvin’s penchant for crafting sensitive, self-reflective lyrics that fit right on top of his party-ready rhythms.
“It’s definitely a real open and honest song,” he says. “It’s talking about this moment in life as a dad and as a husband and what my priorities are. It’s cool to do songs that make you dance, but the lyrics go totally opposite of what the beats are screaming.”
Balvin is happy to work in many different musical styles. “Rayo” dips into Afrobeats. He also helped bring Brazilian star Anitta into the spotlight and last year released a track with Imagine Dragons. There’s even a track with K-Pop titans BTS in the can — although Balvin isn’t sure when or if it will be released. But while he’s happy to go well beyond reggaeton, Balvin, who spent time in Oklahoma as a teenager, says he’s sticking to Spanish lyrics.
“I’ve been around the world and my mind is super open, but the reason I [perform in] Spanish is because I feel proud of being Latino. I feel proud of our language. I think that the way our sounds flow is super sexy. I can speak English, but my soul is Spanish — I don’t dream in English.”
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He’s also been broadening his horizons beyond music. After being the subject of an Amazon Prime documentary and hosting a wellness-oriented series for Peacock, Balvin acted in a crime drama set in Nova Scotia called “Little Lorraine,” which is slated to premiere on the festival circuit this year. He also did both English and Spanish voice-over work for the new season of the anime series “Solo Leveling.” “The fact that people might think that you’re a good [musical] artist doesn’t mean that you’re a good actor,” Balvin admits, “so you gotta do it with respect.”
The 2024 election found different reggaeton stars taking different sides. In 2017, Balvin told the Globe “I’m not really into politics — I’m more into the discussion of the human situation and our human race.”
Reminded of those comments, Balvin points out that before he was a superstar he himself was an immigrant housepainter who had overstayed his visa. “This situation right now, it really hurts me,” he says. “With this tour, I’m gonna make sure that people feel like they’re at home and they feel protected and loved.”
J BALVIN
April 4, 8 p.m., Agganis Arena. Tickets $41 to $230. Ticketmaster.com
Noah Schaffer can be reached at noahschaffer@yahoo.com