NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts

J Balvin (2021x111)

: 16, 2021

A tattooed hand scrawls on a small school desk — "Jose by J Balvin" — followed by a signature smile. It's an intimate beginning for the príncipe del reggaetón, J Balvin himself, as he begins his "El Tiny" performance on a sunny barge in the middle of the East River. Backed by the Brooklyn Bridge, Balvin breezes through some of the best cuts off of his new album JOSE (Balvin's birth name). The first three — "Vestido," "Que Locura" and "OTRO FILI" — are moody and gentle popetón, creating expectations of familiar intimacy before he blows the performance wide open with the Tainy-produced, tempo-shifting album opener, "F40." And as the sun descends on the New York skyline, Balvin closes it out with a drop-laden extended mix of the jock-jam Skrillex collaboration, "In Da Getto."