Ricky Martin: Like A Cannonball

It's time for a new icon, one that opened the door for an entire generation of new Latino artist Ricky Martin, an artist who started his career when he was just a teenager and kept finding new ways to push himself artistically until he had become a global star.

This sounds a lot like Ricky.

Martin, an icon that in one performance so electrified an industry that every record executive went out looking for a crossover star.

Uh is this Cinglon? It's Ricky Martin.

I'm talking about none other than Puerto Rico's on Ricky Martin. You never let me surprise you anymore? Can we talk about Ricky?

Now?

How much do you know about the man, the myth, the legend?

Okay, I know that he was in a boy group and he is hot. Well that's a number one was in like American novela? What are those called American novelas?

You don't know? Wait?

I'm sorry, did you just forget your English? Like Hilaria Baldwin?

Wait? Is this Baldwin?

This is Joso Speppino moment an American novella. You don't know how to say that in English?

No?

What is that actually called? Because you just say novela.

A soap opera, A soap opera, Oh my god, a soap opera. He was in a soap opera and like a pop star and took over the world.

And gay a gay icon, not just an icon, a gay icon. I think you got most of everything. You casually drifted by boy band, which is really funny because to me, man Noodle was life as a little girl.

Well it's also life for me when I'm hungover on Sunday mornings.

Is that when you listen to it, that's when.

I ate Manudal Just kidding, but I did love Vadola growing up.

Everybody loved Manudula growing up. There is so much more to his forty year career than most even know. Over the next few episodes, we're going to tell you how Ricky did the improbable and use his time in a boy band to launch an uber successful solo career.

There aren't many that have for every justin Timberlake, there are forty Where are they now Google searches.

I'm looking at you, Joey.

Fatone, And yes, of course, naturally, we will talk about how he helped launch the Latin I hate this word, the Latin explosion ex explosion. Can we change it please? The Latin boom, the Latin wave, how about a wave,

Henny, he didn't have to be just one thing, and we'll get into that.

We're also going to tell you about his time on stage, his charitable work, and if I can convince iHeart an entire season about his time on the American Novella General Hospital.

I love you, Miguel.

We all do today on becoming an Icon Ricky Martin. I'm your host, Lilianavasquez.

And I'm Joseph Carrio, and this is Becoming an Icon.

A weekly podcast where we give you the rundown on how today's most famous LATINX stars have shaped pop culture.

And given the world some extras.

At all, sit back and get comfortable.

Because we are.

Going in the only way we know how. With Buena bea ushigunas Riesas and a lot of opinions, as we really their greatest achievements on our journey to find out what makes them so iconic, It all starts with menudo. Now most of you of a certain age, you mean people younger than us. Okay, you're choosing violence today. That hurt, But moving on, Like.

Mike Girl, Lozzo says, truth hurts.

The entire band was a gimmick cooked up by music producer at godilodas the as had seen the Jackson five drive young girls crazy, and he thought, I started a boy band and then as soon as the boys turn into men, I'll kick their ass out and replace them. In Puerto Rico, menudo is slang for loose.

Change clever. It got very clever.

The band members knew that they could count on screaming girls and getting kicked out of the band when they're balls.

Dropped by the way. I do think we need to be more inclusive in the language here. I don't think that it was just screaming girls.

Joseph screaming fans.

I'm just gonna say, I'm pretty sure Joseph had some screaming moments for boy bands, right, for.

Yeah, for boy bands, and for no doubt, but that's another podcast.

Now, do you have favorite boy bands from going on?

Obviously it's going to be something like the End Sync and Backshit Boys, right, But for me, I actually have a favorite boy band now and it's the like the BTS group. I like their music and I like to listen to it.

I think it's crazy that in our lifetime that has now almost surpassed four decades. Just kidding, just getting them minds I lead into, Then you choose a modern day boy band because for me, the heyday of boy bands obviously the nineties, but I fell in love with boy bands in the eighties. NKOTB was for me like just a continuation of the love that I had for Manudal. But my first boy band love was obviously Ricky and Manudal, Like I thought there was nobody cuter on the planet.

But listen to this.

According to Billboard, US Weekly, seventeen and teen Vogue, Manudal is right up there with all of those boy bands we just named, so in saying BSB Backstreet Boys in case you don't know, Oh my.

God, you said BSB, and I was gonna correct you, bitch, because I was gonna say, you mean BTS but BSB.

Are you that initial girl? I didn't think that I were that button where in the early eighties we called it flair, not button.

You had flair.

I'm dead, But Maneudal is right up there in the ranks with them, and each of those magazines rank them is one of the biggest boy of all time.

I mean, if they're good enough for teen Vogue.

So the band was formed in nineteen seventy seven, but Ricky didn't join until nineteen eighty three, the year I was born. He tried out for the band three times, and the producers told him they loved his singing and dancing, but that he was too short.

Oh oh, are you feeling triggered?

No, because, like me, Ricky was persistent af and kept knocking on that door until they couldn't refuse him.

That's very you.

At age twelve, he joined the band and became part of its golden age. When fans talk about the band, this is the group that we are talking about. In just six years, the band released eleven albums.

Eleven albums, one hundi they didn't have Child Liberlaus back then.

No, that's basically two albums a year. And Ricky said he loved being part of the band for all the incredible opportunities the band offered him and to be around so many amazing people, but he was exhausted by the crazy schedule and how strict the producers of the band were. In his debut stage performance, Ricky broke the choreography by walking around the stage when he was supposed to stay still,

Well damn bitch, that is like seriously some BTS strict shit.

By the way, that is a band that we love here at becoming an icon. Maybe we could make them honorary icons in our international episodes.

There you go.

Hey, have you also seen what the BTS army does online to people that aren't fans of BTS.

A good call, BTS, we love you.

While with Manudal Ricky performed alongside Robbie Draco Rosa. Rosa quickly became one of Ricky's best friends, and the pair formed a lifelong friendship. Quick side note, because it can't be fun. Rossa would also star in one of the worst movies of the eighties, Salsa What. Yeah, it's a terrible film, but I bet if you were a young Latino in the eighties, your parents definitely made you watch it. They're just, you know, weren't a lot of options out there being made for us.

Okay, I just looked it up and the entire movie is available on YouTube. I'm going to need a lot of edibles for this.

One, really, like not you normally need more.

I mean, just what's two extra chocolates for this one?

I also feel if you watch the movie, YouTube pays you. Hey, Robbie Rosa plays an important role very soon. So Ricky leaves Manudl at seventeen. Well, he kind of aged out true either way. He says he wants to focus on resting and evaluating his career path. Wait, what happened to Manula Drums? They get embroiled in some drug issues, accusations of abuse towards the producers and slowly but surely, the band just kind of fell apart.

Rest in peace Manulo.

Ricky, on the other hand, well, he turns eighteen and realizes that as a minor, he was never allowed to control his own bank accounts. Turns out, bitch is rich.

So Ricky says bye bye bye to Puerto Rico and moves to New York.

Ricky is accepted into NYU's TISH School of Performing Arts. Side note here, you guys. TISH is one of the most competitive and highly regarded performing arts programs in the world. Either this isn't like going to like some little school like in your hometown. This is TISH, so bad school. It is the school. So many incredible alumni have come out of this program that you and.

I know, and you automatically become the Tish backwards. I don't know, I don't know. Shit, you become the shit. It'sish.

You become this shit when you graduate from TISH is basically you're literally But anyway, he was accepted into this program, but days before school was about to start, he goes to visit a friend in Mexico City to see a musical rock comedy that she's starring it.

He didn't want to watch the play, he wanted to be in it.

So while in Mexico City, one of the producers of the play offers him a role, and Ricky drops out of TISH moves down to Mexico City to start his career. Anew, what a turn of events for mister Martin. Megusta same because he followed his passion, which I think is important and a theme that we can hearing over and over again.

You know, when you were enlightening me with the Tish commentary, I was like, of course he fucking went to TISH, and no, bitch, he didn't. He went to Mexico.

I mean, think about how different his life and our lives as lifelong Ricky Martin fans would be if Ricky had gone to TISH. I'm not saying Ricky wouldn't have the same success and career, it would just have been very different. And I also think that a lot of actors say this, like they go to Juilliard, they go to TISH, they go to the Yale School of Drama, they attend, but they don't finish because their passion and

And also, you know, being in a boy band at such a young age, you know, he had this like crazy discipline. He's just saying, I'd never moved out of place again.

Yeah, exactly. Not only was he insanely talented, but he was incredibly disciplined. And sometimes I think that's the hard part to learn. But Ricky had learned this at a very young age. So here he is skips out on tish. He's in Mexico and ladies and gentlemen starring in Mama AMAI Rock Ricky Martin.

Wait, was that really the title of the show? For real? It was?

And Ricky was so good that within a couple months another producer saw the show and offered him a role on the Mexican felen novela Thank You or the Mexican soap opera Alcanzarnastrea. Producer see Ricky once, and they're just throwing roles at him left and right. That's what makes Ricky larger than life. Alcanca is such a hit that they make a second season and then a film based

Shut your butts.

Okay, wait, you think that's bad. Ricky took the deal. He said of the deal, I was so excited about getting back into the music world that I didn't care what the conditions were. All of the hard work and passion I had exerted was finally now starting to come to fruition, and music came back to my life powerfully and definitively. Ricky wasn't going to be deterred, and he worked day and night to produce his debut solo album, Ricky Martin and you guessed it. It was a hit.

He was barely nineteen and he was a star all over again.

What were you doing at nineteen?

I can't even tell you on this podcast, and I'm dead serious, like it was shit show.

I wasn't you know, No, No, that's insane. A pop star twice.

After touring all over Latin America, Ricky heads to La to try his hand at acting all over again and at Joseph what are they called No reay Las soap Operas?

Miguel Morris.

I loved Miguel.

Of course you did, and that's what makes you beautiful.

On General Hospital, he plays a Puerto Rican bartender and singer on the lamb from his lover's criminal mastermind father. Soon though, his flowing hair becomes irresistible and a steamy love triangle rages across port Charles Lill's don't hurt him, Sonny, I love him.

Sonny Lil's You're in the studio with me?

Come back, bitch, Okay, okay, okay, I'm here. Hashtag justice for Nia. Ricky stars on the show for two weeks, and he becomes one of the most talked about soap opera actors ever ever. Ricky, though he doesn't feel comfortable on the show and has trouble developing chemistry with the cast. Agents and producers suggest he take an accellent reduction course, but Ricky says no thanks, and soon he quits the show.

He makes a brief stop in New York to start in lem Is, where he is tre miserable.

Ricky breaks my teenage heart and leaves General Hospital for his one true.

Love, Oh Jim, Daddy's, Zaddies, Otters, Twinks, Polar Bears, Dolphins.

Okay, stop, you're making it up.

No, that's a real one. Okay, I'll tell you later.

All of that comes later in the episodes. He leaves to restart his music career. We already told you that Ricky was a major pop star in Latin America after his first two.

Albums, which they literally paid him pennies for yep.

So now he was back in the studio. But he wanted to do something different. Here's the thing. In the nineties, Latin pop music was dominated by ballads. Luis Miguel Cheyenne, Juan Risquerre.

All my Latin pop stars were up in their feelings in the nineties.

It was the easiest way for them to find mass appeal, write a tender love song and let everyone get in their feelings about it. It is a tried and true pop tradition. Ricky, though, he wanted to do something different. Even the biggest songs of Manudal were just pop music from the States with Spanish lyrics. During his time in Mexico, Ricky saw how proud Mexicans were of the mariacci So he said to his friend and now producer Robbie Dracuarrosa, we have to be proud.

Of who we are.

They have their thing in Mexico. Let's go with what we have in Puerto Rico. And the result was Maria, that's right, Maria, whoa, take me back.

I didn't really know that.

That's where he got that in Spo, like seeing Mariachi's and how because in Puerto Rico, I mean, do you guys, is there like a like we have Mariacci's, you guys have reton we got a lot.

Okay, don't say it like we don't have ship? What is what like we're I mean we are suffering for other political reasons. But don't look at me like traditional music like what like you know mariachis isa yeah, okay, I mean yes, I mean any of the Caribbean sounds. I also feel that's the thing about being Dominican or Puerto Rican or Cuban, like there is a sound that's pervasive and then each island makes it their own. For me, it's salsa music and band and like gatherings of people.

And I'll passo there.

Let me tell you this, okay, But then everybody comes out to watch and sing along, and it is a community experience. I feel the same thing with Sasa music. If someone's playing, people gather around, they dance, they're singing. It's like kids, it's grown ups, it's everybody. It brings a community together.

Speaking of bringing the community together, this song fucking brought everybody together.

Maria is a song about a dangerous woman by the name Maria or I already know what you're gonna say.

Oh, it's about cocaine.

Okay, Joseph, you saw one movie about a bear who eats some coke, and now everything in this world is about cocaine.

Think about it.

The lyrics translate to this is Maria white as the day, but it's poison if you fall in love. This is Maria so hot and cold. If you drink it, it will surely kill you.

Come on.

So you're not the first person to say that, And I agree that the lyrics do suggest a little bit of a double on tongdre.

Oh, it's about sex too, I like it.

No, it's a double meaning that Ricky has always flat out denied, saying I will never exalt drugs. Maria is a song that talks about Latino women and how addictive they can be, but does not mention or allude to drugs.

Sure, Ricky, bomb bomb bomb.

So they finished the song and then they bring in a Puerto Rican DJ named DJ Flores who changes it from a flamenco bee into an up tempo dance song, and it was fire. Ricky loved it. His record label not so much. When he first played the song for his label, one record executive shouted, are you crazy? You've ruined your career. I can't believe you are showing me this. You're finished. This is going to be your last album. This is the end of your career. You do ballads

Okay, okay, cool it now, mister Ricky executive.

Ricky was devastated, but he knew the song would work, and his belief changed his entire career. Madia would become a number one hit in over twenty countries. In nineteen ninety six, it was named as the song of the Summer in Spain. In nineteen ninety nine, the Guinness Book of World Records named it the number one Latin song of all time. It even went to number one in Australia.

OSSI's love Some Ricky.

The whole world did, and soon record executives were lining up for this sound, including the producers of one of the biggest events in the world. But we'll get to that in just a little bit. Madia was released on Ricky's third studio album, I'm Medio Vivier. Maria was the stoundout hit, but if you listen to it, you could see that Ricky is perfecting the sounds in style that would make him a worldwide superstar, the.

Right mix of ballads, samba, salsa and the Afro Latino rhythms. It was a mix he would perfect on his next album welve.

On am Merio Vivi, Ricky had silenced all the doubters by believing in himself and in his instincts. So for the follow up, he got rid of all the extra producers and went to work with Desmond Child and his childhood friend Robbie Draco Rosa.

He told all the other producers bye bye bye.

You already did that one.

Oh you're right. Hold on a second, he told the producers, this is the end of the road.

Very nice, Save joseph On. Ricky wanted to embrace the sounds of Puerto Rico, and he did just that welve. I know, people, it's everyone's favorite album. It's like the album that defined Ricky, and everybody has their own favorite song, including which is like, not one of my favorites, but that's okay, don't judge me for it. Shape the shade La Bomba is just like a rhythmic and explosion. I'm going to use the word infectious because this is how

One million percent they were shaking it. I remember La Bomba, just because of how freaking gore GISTs that locks.

It didn't even matter what Ricky sounded like. It didn't matter if you liked Spanish music or not. If you caught a glimpse of one frame of Ricky Martin in the video for La Bomba, you were a Ricky Martin fan because he is the most beautiful man. Not that he's not all the time, but in that video, I am going to say it, that was peak hot for Ricky. He was damn shiny.

Remember it's nineteen ninety eight, so like there weren't a lot of like I feel like the guys we were seeing were a little bit older, like Cheyenne was a little bit older. Like he was like a hot soccer player that could see herself and dance.

Yeah, you know what I mean. And that's what I think. Like when you were seeing him, you're just like, oh.

I just remember how beautiful he looked in this video. And by the way, fun fact for all of you Ricky super fans, do you know where that video was shot? The exterior? And I also believe a lot of the interiors do you know, do.

You know I don't tell us tell us that people need to know.

It was shot in Miami. Oh, of course at the Delano Hotel, which anybody that spent any portion of the late nineties or early two thousands in Miami knows. The Delano was like the hot spot to be, so I.

Know exactly where you are. Bish.

I was that the Dilano. I had one of the best nights of my life.

At the Dilano, I'm not even going. We're not doing that. We are not doing that.

We are not parents are listening, children are listening.

Anyway where they dropped six songs that went number one on the Latin charts.

As Ricky told CNN, he wanted WEDVI to reaffirm the internationalization of my career, and I know that it will help me a lot to destroy the stereotypes that may exist with my culture. It was a smash and he had conquered every country in the.

World except for one.

Joseph, Are you a big soccer fan?

Do you mean football?

Fine?

Yes?

Sure? Are you a big football fan? No?

Not really?

So why did you you know what?

Never mind? Never mind?

Every four years there's a World Cup held in a different country around the world. It's a soccer tournament, but it's also a month long celebration.

And every celebration needs music exactly.

So in nineteen ninety, the World Cup decided to commission an official anthem, a pop song that would play everywhere and be associated with the World Cup. In nineteen ninety it was an Italian pop song.

Nineteen ninety World Cup was the one that West Germany won on a late penalty versus Argentina.

Wait so you are a fan?

No, well not really.

In nineteen ninety four, the World Cup was held in the US and the song was by none other than Daryl Hall of Hallan Oates.

Oh my god, that's a cough drop brand.

Right, this constant disrespect of Hallan notates. I've had enough of this. Moving on, So the ninety eight World Cup was quickly approaching and the organized France. We're looking for an artist to write the official anthem, the number one song in France in the summer of nineteen ninety six. Ooh no tress yep. Maria is everywhere and everyone wants to get some of that sound. So they approach Ricky and Draco Rosa to write the song, and at first Ricky isn't so sure.

He said, I have to.

Admit that the challenge made me a bit nervous, but the massive growth potential for my career was such that I decided to accept.

Accept he did.

Rosa and Child went back to the studio and cooked up what they said was a mix of salsa, Gumbia and funk over a Brazilian beat that sounds like a dish. I want to eat.

Of course, football, the World Cup and five time World Cup champion Brazil go hand in hand el Jogo bonito.

Can you just stop the lies and admit that you are a football fan?

I've dabbled.

I bet The song is an infectious celebration. It keeps building until you're just out of your seat dancing.

Nicole A.

Sevilo from NBC News described the track as a world famous mega hit. E wrote that there was not a minute in the whole year that the song was not played and emphasized that it was obviously one of the big must do hits at parties.

It was a party mother effing jam.

Scott Rocksborough from The Hollywood Reporter wrote, this is the song that set the musical template for the World Cup anthems to come. Martin got the world shimming and shaking to the Cup of Life, and yes.

I am shimming and shaking right now thinking about the song because it was one of my favorite songs. I mean, it could come on right now and I could gem out like I'm not tired of it at all.

You could be a death metal devote and the Cup of Life came on and you were like salsaing in your combat boots, like it did not matter what musical genre you preferred, the genre that we preferred that summer.

Was shaking Dad, it was Ricky. Martin was Ricky.

It was Ricky.

I was drinking out of that cup.

I wish that I drank out of that cup. I wish I'd been I wish I'd attended a World Cup. And you know what's crazy is that he was becoming a household name globally here in the United States and he wasn't even singing in English. I mean, here we are twenty years later, and you know else, don't don't you bring that shit up. Listen, I look for any and all reasons to bring up bad Bunny. All I'm saying is that here we are twenty years later as deja vu Puerto Rican stop it icon, but no songs

Mmmmm.

So when Veeve was nominated for Best Latin Pop Performance at the forty first Annual Grammys, fans were hoping that Ricky would.

Perform that performance would go on to change pop history forever.

But it almost didn't happen.

In nineteen ninety nine, the Grammys didn't really care about Latin music, typical lame. So here's what you have to know about the Grammys. They're hosted by the Recording Academy and they were founded in nineteen fifty seven to honor the best popular songs worldwide. So why do I bring this up? That is a good question, because in nineteen fifty seven that wasn't that far from nineteen ninety nine.

But in nineteen ninety nine, these old white folks didn't want to see Ricky shake his bond bond on stage.

Which is when Tommy Montola stepped in.

Oh yeah, I know.

We have major issues with Tommy, but in this one isolated incident, he was right. He knew that Ricky was a sensation, and he pushed the Academy hard to allow Ricky on that stage. During an interview with Billboard, Matola told the magazine about it, there was tremendous resistance from the Grammys. They did not want a quote unknown to perform, yet he had already sold ten million copies of welve worldwide. To me, that was absolutely unacceptable. The Grammys finally cave.

Damn right, they did. My boy brought stilts onto that stage.

That performance was pure music magic. I have a feeling that you and I are not the only ones that remember that song. I mean we talked about this back in our j Low episodes. But how impactful do you think that performance was to every Grammy show going forward?

I think that people just couldn't take it. It was like too much you It's nothing you've ever seen.

It was nothing they had ever seen. As Latinos were like, y'all, this is happening at the Goatna Sada, like my aunts do this like for us? He brought I think, the essence and the spirit of our culture to the stage. I don't know who followed that performance that night, because I think I tuned it all out. But sucks for them who wants to follow Ricky After the performance? I mean, there was like big band coming through the aisles, like all these people in tuxedos that were mainly white were like.

What is happening here?

The over stimulation in that room. I would have loved to have been there, just people just being like are we being invaded?

I love that you say that, And you know, it just felt to me like a party and it was the secret sauce that the Grammys had been missing for years, Because after that you really started to see these much more elaborate performances stage presence. I mean, they finally realized that they had the world's greatest musicians there once a year put on a damn show. Think about Carti's performance

Mean, with his performance that night, Ricky had arrived.

If you've been following along closely, Joseph Is found a way to work six different boy band titles into the script. Any that you didn't get to work in.

I never found a way to make mum Bop work.

Yeah, that one's not easy. I bet it had you burn it up.

Jonas brother is well done.

Yeah, if you give me just one night, ninety eight degrees on the next becoming an Icon, we.

Take you from Grammy Night nineteen ninety nine.

Through the Latin Explosion, Yes, the Latin Wave of the late nineties, Ricky's career and the career of the stars. Ricky helped launch Becoming an Icon is presented by Sonodl and Iheart's Michael Duda podcast Network. Listen to Becoming an Icon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast