Calle 13
Calle 13 is a Puerto Rican band formed by stepbrothers René Pérez Joglar (born February 23, 1978 in Hato Rey) who calls himself Residente (lead singer, songwriter) and Eduardo José Cabra Martínez (born September 10, 1978 in Santurce), who calls himself Visitante (multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, beat producer) and their half-sister Ileana Cabra Joglar aka PG-13 or recently ILE (backing vocals)..
Stepbrothers Pérez and Cabra first were discovered by Elias De Leon. They were subsequently given a record deal with White Lion Records after leaving a demo with A&R Director Carlos “Karly” Rosario. After the controversial song “Querido FBI” was released, the group gained notoriety in Puerto Rico. In 2005, Calle 13 released its eponymously titled debut album, which became very popular due to the singles “Se Vale Tó-Tó” and “¡Atrévete-te-te!”. In 2007, the group released its second album, Residente o Visitante, which was also very successful and experimented with a wide variety of genres. The album helped the group gain success throughout Latin America and win three Latin Grammys. The group released its third album, Los de Atrás Vienen Conmigo, in 2008, which won Album of the Year at the 2009 Latin Grammy Awards. Calle 13 released Entren Los Que Quieran in November 2010 and its latest album, Multi Viral, on March 1, 2014.
Calle 13 is noted for its eclectic musical style, often using unconventional instrumentation in its music, which distances the group from the reggaeton genre. The band is also known for its satirical lyrics as well as social commentary about Latin American issues and culture. The stepbrothers are strong supporters of the Puerto Rican independence movement, a stance that has generated controversy. For their work, the group has won twenty-one Latin Grammy Awards, holding the record for the most Latin Grammy wins. They have also won three Grammy Awards.
Residente and Visitante met when they were both two years old, when Residente’s mother married Visitante’s father. The family developed strong ties to the Puerto Rican arts community; Residente’s mother, Flor Joglar de Gracia, was an actress in Teatro del Sesenta, a local acting troupe, while Visitante’s father (who later became Residente’s stepfather) is currently a lawyer, but at one time was a musician. The duo asserts that they lived a relatively comfortable lifestyle growing up, as Residente places himself in a group of Puerto Ricans who are “too poor to be rich and too rich to be poor.” Although their parents later divorced, the stepbrothers remained close. When they were children, Visitante would visit his brother at the Calle 13 (13th Street) of the El Conquistador subsection of Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico every week. Since the subsection is a gated community, visitors were routinely asked “¿Residente o visitante?” (“Resident or visitor?”) by a security guard when approaching the community’s main gate. Therefore, Visitante would identify himself as a visitor, while Residente would have to insist that he was a resident to clear the gate. The pair named themselves Calle 13 after the street their family’s house was on. Before living there, they lived at Calle 11.
Residente originally studied to be an accountant, and Visitante finished a computer science degree. An art course prompted Residente to pursue a career as a multimedia designer, and Visitante became a full-time musician and producer. Residente states that his degree in design has influenced his musical style: “What I used to do with my visual art is the same thing I do now with my lyrics. My songs are descriptive, very visual.” Besides this, Residente was a fan of what was then called “underground rap” in Puerto Rico, and started to earn a reputation as a lyricist (Residente says, with some embarrassment, that his moniker at the time was “El Déspota”, or “The Despot”). Meanwhile, Visitante participated in Bayanga, a rock and Brazilian batucada group. After Residente finished studying in Georgia at the Savannah College of Art and Design and earned a master of fine arts in animation, illustration, sequential art and film, he returned to Puerto Rico. Soon after, both of them started working on their music. They claim they initially did it as a joke, but they still managed to get some of their songs heard throughout Puerto Rico. They began recording music together in 2004, with the idea of hosting their work on a website, beginning with two demos (“La Tripleta” and “La Aguacatona”). Within a year, the duo began looking for a record label to distribute their music commercially. They decided to pursue a deal at White Lion Records, because Tego Calderón was on the label, whom the two admired.
As the duo has risen to fame, other international artists of various genres have sought them. In 2006 and 2007, they recorded songs with Canadian Nelly Furtado and Spanish Alejandro Sanz.
On November 13, 2013, the group released the track and video “Multi Viral”, which featured WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Palestinian singer Kamilya Jubran on vocals and Tom Morello on guitar.
In December 2013, they announced that their new album would be named Multi Viral and it would be followed by a Latin American tour, which saw the band performing in Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico.
Following the end of their Multi_Viral world tour, Residente and Visitante went separate ways to focus on personal projects – the former would see the release of his first solo effort, Residente, in March 2017. In October 2018, Visitante premiered his new musical project “Trending Tropics”, a collaboration with Dominican singer Vicente García. Though at the time of his album’s release some media outlets referred to Calle 13 as a defunct band, Residente had previously said on multiple occasions that the band is not over and is just taking a break.
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