Christopher Rivera has La Voz… and the title to go with it.
The 14-year-old Puerto Rican singer has been named the winner of the fourth season of Telemundo’s La Voz Kids.
Rivera, who auditioned for the show for the first time in 2013, but back then none of the coaches turned their seat, walked away with the winning vote during the season finale.
With his win, Rivera’s coach Natalia Jimenez earns her second victory on the show.
Natalia Jimenez is preparing for a new role…
The 34-year-old Spanish singer has announced via social media that she’s pregnant with her first child with her agent and husband, Daniel Trueba.
“Surprise! Guess who is going to be a mom? We are very happy to share this story with everyone,” wrote the singer on her Twitter and Instagram accounts.
To illustrate the announcement, the Madrid artist published a photo of her with two giant safety pins, although one of them has another smaller one inside it.
The former vocalist with the group La Quinta Estacion, who has lived in Miami since 2009 after residing in Mexico for seven years, said that she and her husband still don’t know the sex of their baby.
“We still don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, but we’re happy with whatever comes!” said the singer in response to a congratulatory message from Spanish music producer Tinet Rubira.
Jimenez two days ago posted on Instagram a photo showing almost her entire body and in which not the slightest sign of her pregnancy can be seen.
Last January she had announced her marriage to Trueba via social media with two photos, one of her with a wedding bouquet and the other of her hand with the wedding ring upon her finger.
Jimenez, who will perform on April 28 at the Billboard Latin Music Awards ceremony, and Trueba began dating in 2009.
That same year, the singer had canceled her wedding to Antonio Alcol just hours before the ceremony in the outskirts of Madrid.
Daddy Yankee is ready to kid around…
The 38-year-old Puerto Rican singer is returning as a coach for the fourth season of Telemundo’s La Voz Kids alongside fellow returning coaches Natalia Jimenez and Pedro Fernandez.
La Voz Kids, scheduled to air this spring, features the young voices of the nation.
The new season, filmed at Universal Studios Orlando, offers the audience the opportunity to witness the development of future stars.
Last year, Jimenez’s team had the victory, when Jonael Santiago was selected the winner of the third season. Winners are determined by the audience and Santiago got votes from more than 1.2 million viewers.
Like The Voice, La Voz features three rounds: Blind Auditions, Battle Rounds and the Final Stage. This season, the coaches will have the opportunity to save a contestant from the audience during the Battle Rounds with a new “Wild Card” system. During the final stage, viewers have the opportunity to vote for their favorites and, with the coaches, will decide who continues in the competition, who will go home and who will be the winner of La Voz Kids for the grand prize: a recording contract with Universal Music Latino.
Ally Brooke Hernandez, Camila Cabello and Lauren Jauregui are ready to make their Latin Grammys debut.
The Latina singers and their fellow Fifth Harmony members have been added to the performance lineup for this year’s awards show.
No word on what song the all-girl group, named to this year’s Billboard 21 Under 21 list, will perform, but the ladies did release a Spanish version of their hit single “Worth It.” Entitled “(Worth It) Dame Esta Noche,” was released earlier this summer.
In addition to Fifth Harmony, the Latin Recording Academy has booked OMI, Ricky Martin, Espinoza Paz, Maluma and Banda el Recodo to take the stage at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas on November 19 for Latin music’s biggest night.
Six-time Grammy winners Banda El Recodo, Latin urban phenom Maluma and regional Mexican star Paz each received one nomination this year — best banda album for Mi Vicio Más Grande, best urban performance for “El Tiki,” and best regional song for “Perdí La Pose,” respectively.
Pop idol Martin is also among this year’s nominees, having scored three nods: record of the year and song of the year for “Disparo Al Corazón” and best contemporary pop vocal album for A Quien Quiera Escuchar.
Previously announced performers include Julión Álvarez, Bomba Estéreo with Will Smith, J Balvin, Choc Quib Town, Silvestre Dangond, Nicky Jam, Natalia Jiménez, Natalia Lafourcade, Juan Luis Guerra, Major Lazer and mØ, Matisse, and Raquel Sofía.
Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year Roberto Carlos will also grace the stage for a special performance.
Natalia Lafourcade is certain to take the stage at this year’s Latin Grammys.
The 31-year-old Mexican pop-rock singer-songwriter, a five-time nominee for this year’s awards show, including nods for Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Record of the Year, has joined the list of performers at the Latin Grammys on November 19.
Lafourcade, a three-time Latin Grammy winner and two-time Grammy nominee, will take the stage of the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. There’s no word on what song she’ll perform.
She joins a growing roster of performers that includes Julión Álvarez, Silvestre Dangond and Nicky Jam, along with a special performance by this year’s Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year Roberto Carlos.
Julión Álvarez y Su Norteño Banda and Silvestre Dangond each received one nomination. In the best banda album category, Julión Álvarez y Su Norteño Banda are nominated for El Aferrado. Dangond is nominated with Lucas Dangond in the best cumbia/vallenato album category for Sigo Invicto.
Nicky Jam has two nominations for best urban performance: “Una Cita (Remix)” with Alkilados featuring J Alvarez & El Roockie, and “El Perdón” with Enrique Iglesias.
The show, co-hosted by Devious Maids star Roselyn Sanchez and Mexican model and actress Jacqueline Bracamontes, will air live November 19 on Univision.
Raquel Sofia is ready to make a big splash at the Latin Grammys…
The Puerto Rican singer-songwriter has been added to the roster of artists scheduled to perform at the annual awards show.
Sofia, who is nominated for Best New Artist at this year’s Latin Grammys, joins a list of performers that includes Juan Luis Guerra, J Balvin, Cho Quib Town, Natalia Jimenez, Will Smith and Bomba Estereo, and fellow best new artist nominees Matisse.
Sofia’s debut album, Te Quiero los Domingos, was released in July.
Sofia, who recently received a Vevo Lift nomination, previously performed backing vocals for Juanes, Shakira and Jean Carlos Canela, before making a name for herself.
Smith and Bomba Estereo will perform their version of “Fiesta,” which is nominated for record of the year in its original version. Balvin is nominated for best urban performance and best urban son for his hit “Ay Vamos” while Guerra is up for four awards, including album and record of the year.
The 16th annual Latin Grammys will air live on Univision on November 19 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Daddy Yankee is bringing out some big guns for his upcoming all-star concert.
The 38-year-old Puerto Rican reggaeton singer, songwriter, producer and actor is gathering an A-list squad for a special, one-night only engagement during his King Daddy tour.
Scheduled to take place on October 17 at Los Angeles’ Staples Center, the stellar line-up for Yankee’s concert includes Prince Royce, Yandel, Natalia Jimenez, Arcángel, Plan B and others to be confirmed soon.
Tickets for the concert, produced by Cárdenas Marketing Network, in association with Pina Records and AEG Live, will go on sale Sept. 3 on axs.com.
Having just trekked across Europe for a 19-date tour, Yankee has a busy two years of touring ahead of him.
His recently announced 60-date joint tour The Kingdom with Don Omar kicks off on December 5 in Puerto Rico and will run for two years.
The partnership also includes a joint album and a TV show for the two reggaeton superstars.
Jonael Santiago is the pint-sized voz of the season…
The 11-year-old Puerto Rican dynamo with an outsize personality was declared the winner of the third installment of La Voz Kids, the Spanish-language kiddie version of The Voice on the Telemundo network.
Santiago’s win — determined by audience voting from more than 1.2 million viewers — was not a slam dunk by any means. This third season boasted a particularly talented lineup of finalists, including 11-year-old Shanty Sumaya, a Mexican American from Texas who already plays gigs in her home state and is particularly good at grupero; and 14-year-old Franser Pazosa, a Cuban-born 14-year-old from Portland, Oregon, with a stunning, versatile voice.
Santiago, a diminutive boy who looks younger than his years, couldn’t match their vocals, but he made up for it with stage presence, attitude and dance moves that evoked Bruno Mars and Michael Jackson. His grand finale was Mars’ “Treasure,” a song chosen for him by coach Natalia Jimenez.
“He’s an amazing package,” Jimenez told Billboard after the win. “He can dance, he can sing, he can act. I wanted him to sing something he can move with. He’s really good at singing ballads, but the most impressive thing is seeing him dance and sing at the same time.”
Even Daddy Yankee, a competing coach, agreed. “It’s so entertaining to watch Jona onstage,” he said after Santiago’s final performance.
Santiago competed against contestants coached by Jimenez, ranchera singer Pedro Fernandez and reggaeton star Daddy Yankee, who shared the stage as coaches for the first time in this third season of La Voz. The show, whose previous coaches have included Paulina Rubio and Prince Royce, has become a ratings success for Telemundo.
La Voz Kids is a variation on The Voice’s format that features kids as contestants, major music stars as coaches and big-name guest performers. For the Sunday night finale, held — as the entire season was — at Universal Orlando, featured performers for the evening, beside the contestants, were Marc Anthony and Gente de Zona, Mexican singer Lucero and La Voz coach Fernandez.
The winner of La Voz Kids gets a $50,000 cash prize from AT&T that goes toward their education, and a recording contract from Universal Music Latino for the production of a song and video. That could go in different directions for Santiago, who moved from Puerto Rico to Miami two years ago to further his training in music and dance and sings equally well in both languages.
“I felt comfortable with ‘Treasure,’” he said of his final performance. His favorite acts, he says are “Demi Lovato — I love her — and Tori Kelly. I really want to record in the studio ‘All In My Head’ by Tori Kelly; she’s awesome.” However, he added, “Spanish is my first language and I came to Miami two years ago and I’m not perfect [in English yet]. I’m Puerto Rican and I always will be and I’ll talk Spanish forever.”
It’s been a long time coming, but Juan Gabriel is back at the top of the charts…
The iconic 65-year-old Mexican singer/songwriter climbs to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums (dated March 7) with Los Duo, scoring his first chart-topping set in 18 years, after debuting last week at No. 2.
The new duets album — which features a variety of guests like Juanes and Marco Antonio Solis — is helping Gabriel cover his own classics — sold 9,000 units in its second week, according to Nielsen Music.
Rising to the top despite a 61 percent decline in sale, the album opened with 23,000 copies (Gabriel’s biggest sales week since Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991) but was bested by Ricky Martin’s No. 1-debuting A Quien Quiera Escuchar, which arrived with 25,000. Both sets saw an expected second-week dip, with Martin dropping 72 percent (to 7,000), allowing Gabriel to take the top spot with the smaller sales decrease.
Gabriel, whose career launched in the early 1970s, last claimed the top spot in 1997 (with his only other No. 1 album) when Juntos Otra Vez, a collaborative set with Spanish singer Rocio Durcal, spent a week at the top.
It garnered a similar second-week climb to No. 1 after debuting the prior week at No. 7. (The Top Latin Albums chart launched in July of 1993.)
Over on Latin Pop Airplay, the new album’s lead single “Querida,” featuring Juanes, steps 26-25 with a two percent increase at the plays-based format.
Among Los Duo’s collaborations is “Se Me Olvido Otra Vez” with Solis, as the pair team up for a cover of Gabriel’s classic song that was first released in 1974.
Other artists from multiple Latin genres that join Gabriel on the set include regional Mexican singer-songwriter Espinoza Paz (duetting on “Siempre En Mi Mente,” the title track from Gabriel’s 1978 album) and Italian pop star Laura Pausini. The latter lends her powerful voice to “ Juan Gabriel,” the title track from a No. 2-peaking Gabriel album released in 2000.
Additional duets with the likes of Vicente Fernandez, Natalia Jimenez, Alejandra Guzman and Fifth Harmony also help to shape Gabriel’s chart-topping set.
Daddy Yankee is ready to kid around with the next generation of Latin singers.
The 37-year-old Puerto Rican reggaeton singer will serve as the newest coach on La Voz Kids, Telemundo’s singing competition for children that has soared in ratings in the past two years.
Yankee, whose stint in the judge’s chair begins in spring 2015, will be joining last year’s returning coach, Spanish singer Natalia Jiménez, to judge singers between 7 and 15 years old.
“I’ve been a coach in the studio all my life,” Daddy Yankee tells Billboard.com. “As a producer, I have to create music and direct talent. It’s just something people have never seen me do publicly. Now they will.”
The “Gasolina” singer-songwriter may be seen as more of a rap artist, but he also knows music, making him an ideal coach.
“I know about registers, scales, tone,” says Daddy Yankee. “The fact that I rap doesn’t mean I don’t understand what needs to happen vocally. That’s what makes me a producer. What we’ll be doing in the show is guiding these kids in a coherent and intelligent fashion and maximizing their talent.
The winner of La Voz Kids gets $50,000 and a recording contract.