Karol G is, by any metric, one of the most popular musicians on the planet. Earlier this year, the Medellín-born singer became the first Latin woman to headline Coachella, a warm-up for her second international stadium tour of the last three years. Her fifth album, 2025’s festive “Tropicoqueta,” earned the 35-year-old star seven nominations for next month’s Latin Grammys.
With her Viajando Por El Mundo tour only a few stops old this summer, she then released a surprise new album, “No Me Arrepiento de Sentir Tanto.” It was a smaller, warmer post-relationship album that tempered its eccentricities (including collaborations with Cigarettes After Sex and Oklou) with A-list guest appearances from Drake and Bruno Mars. It also spawned “BbY WOW,” her highest charting hit on the Billboard Hot 100 to date.
“I don’t see the two albums as different things,” Karol G, born Carolina Giraldo Navarro, said on Popcast, The New York Times pop culture show, but as two sides of the same burgeoning superstar. “‘Tropicoqueta’ is the outside: the party, the outgoing, the happiness, the invitation to everyone. But ‘No Me Arrepiento de Sentir Tanto’ is inside here. It’s what she was going through and what she was feeling.”
Her breakup album following a split with the Latin star Feid, “No Me Arrepiento de Sentir Tanto” finds Karol G increasingly comfortable in a variety of modes — and even singing in English for only the second time. As Shakira did before her — and as other genre-agnostic Spanish-speaking artists like Bad Bunny and Rosalía are doing now — Karol G has become adept at mixing the sounds of her home country with a broader palette of Latin music, jumping nimbly from reggaeton to mariachi or merengue.
On Popcast, Karol G spoke to Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli about how best to deploy her fame for political causes; the growing overlap between Spanish-language music scenes from around the world; and channeling both love and letdown into stadium-filling hits.
JOE COSCARELLI You started this year headlining Coachella before your second stadium tour. What did you learn in a festival setting, where maybe not everyone is there to see you specifically, that you then brought to this tour?
KAROL G I was so nervous, being a headliner, [during] the moment that our community was having in the country. I felt a lot of heaviness to take the moment and make it count. It took me time to create the show for Coachella and all the things that I wanted to stand for and my message and how I’m going to present my community.
COSCARELLI This makes me think of Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl — you were there in the casita with him — and the historic nature of the moment. Wanting to, and feeling the need to, represent an entire swath of people, not only Colombian artists, but Latinos worldwide.
KAROL G Yes, it felt heavy. I was super overwhelmed because I wanted to put everything together. As a woman in the industry, there’s always going to be that message for me: How I can empower women to do whatever they want to do. But at the same time, I want to show the world who Carolina is. And at the same time, I want to represent my Latinos.
In the process, all the time, you’re questioning yourself: Is this good enough? Can I do more? I really want to do something big for my community. Latinos that have been struggling in this country, we stand for them.
JON CARAMANICA You said that there was social pressure placed upon you about how to speak about what’s happening in this country, and I wonder how your thinking on that has evolved over this year, especially as you’re going now to American city after American city.
KAROL G I understand why artists get the pressure to speak because, yeah, we have a lot of influence. It took me a lot of time to be where I’m at right now, a lot of hard moments, a lot of sacrifices, but at the same time, it’s that process that now makes me understand how important it is that I speak for things. So I take it super deep, sometimes it’s a bad thing.
COSCARELLI You put too much pressure on yourself?
KAROL G Yeah, I put so much pressure on me. I would love to use the influence that I have to change things completely. And sometimes you do things and they don’t change that much, but I just go to myself, I’m doing the best I can do. Even with my foundation, we have a very specific program where we help all the women and immigrants legally.
COSCARELLI Again, this mirrors, I think, what Bad Bunny did at the Super Bowl — which is to say, on this stage with the broadest possible audience, we’re going to be proud and welcoming and joyful, and maybe not going to specifically say anything about ICE deportations. But then, behind the scenes, that’s where we do our grass roots work. Is it important to you to keep those things separate, as opposed to speaking more forcefully from the stage?
KAROL G I think that there’s no way that they’re separated. I think people know what Latinos say — we’re all “[expletive] ICE,” you know? But on my stage, it wasn’t about just saying that, and what does it mean? Just that? No, I want to do something good enough and big enough for this specific stage.
COSCARELLI You build this big tent for all Latin music, but it wasn’t always that way. You come from a specific place at a specific time: the Medellín of the 2010s as reggaeton culture was moving to South America from Puerto Rico, where it began. What was the sound of Colombia that you came up in and how was it changing?
KAROL G It’s crazy because I started doing reggaeton when J Balvin was already a Colombian artist doing reggaeton, but all of us thought he was from Puerto Rico.
CARAMANICA Even in Colombia, you weren’t sure?
KAROL G Yeah, because he was sounding really good, and I was surprised. It was crazy. I really believe that Colombia has a really big participation in how big urban music is right now, globally. There were so many Puerto Rican artists that went to live in Colombia. For example, Nicky Jam. He always expressed his gratitude to our country because it was a moment. I had this conversation with Daddy Yankee, and he was saying the same thing.
CARAMANICA The artists of that era who were arriving at reggaeton had a lot of pop impulses. When the Colombian scene really started to take off, people were like, ‘oh, we can make it a little shinier, a little glossier, a little bit bigger, smoother and less rough edges,’ and then that travels globally quite well.
KAROL G I spent so much time going to the studios, just like, ‘can I be here while you work?’ I was just in the studio, seeing the producers, like, ‘they sound like this, but we don’t have that in our library.’ So they started trying to recreate it, but everything sounded a little different. So, yeah, Colombian reggaeton had its own sound.
CARAMANICA I’m old enough to remember when a reggaetonero would not make something with a regional Mexican artist, or a bachata singer would not do something in reggaeton. The scenes were very siloed off. Now, that’s not the case at all, because of the rise of streaming and what that did for Latin music. Can you talk to me about making songs in a bunch of different styles?
KAROL G I have to say that I was a fan of reggaeton since day one. But then when I started doing my thing, it didn’t take me that much time to start mixing it. I have really old songs that I mixed merengue with reggaeton. I have a song like “Así Es el Amor” that is a mariachi, literally mariachi with reggaeton [released in 2013]. So now I’m just doing the same thing on a bigger scale.
COSCARELLI But it hasn’t always been smooth in mixing genres or crossing cultures. There has been pushback sometimes from fans or fellow artists who say that it’s cultural appropriation for Colombian artists to make a Puerto Rican reggaeton song or a Mexican song. How did you face that criticism along the way?
KAROL G I would understand that if I did it because of any trend or any reason that is not honest. For me, it’s not a cultural appropriation, for example, with mariachi or Mexican music, because I grew up listening to it. I had a mariachi in my quinceañera. I grew up listening to that, being a fan, understanding the culture, learning about it, doing my research.
For example, with the mariachi song that I have [“Ese Hombre Es Malo”], I went to Mexico, I sat with the craziest, most amazing masters in the music. I’m a huge fan of Juan Gabriel, I’m huge fan of Rocío Dúrcal. And actually, Rocío is a great example because she’s from Spain. But she loved so much the music and the culture that she moved to Mexico. And if you love it, if you show respect for it, and if you do it in the right way, I myself, I don’t feel that it’s cultural appropriation. It’s like you were born in a world that is full of different cultures, full of different color, sounds. Why you cannot fall in love with something different from where you were born?
COSCARELLI It’s also bringing in the collaborators specifically, like on your Selena tribute song. You’re working with her co-writer and producer.
KAROL G Pete Astudillo. Selena Quintanilla, she’s been my ultimate Latina since I was a kid. So my way to just go and do the right thing was to bring the people that made it and that created the sound for the world to know it. So with Pete, we brought him to the table — he wasn’t doing music. He wasn’t writing songs anymore for no one after Selena. And I was like, ‘do you think he’s going to say yes or not?’ But actually it was a divine thing. He said yes. And if you listen to the song, you feel the roots. You feel — I feel like it’s real. It’s real, it’s special, it sounds like the cumbia that I wanted to represent. So my music has been a school for me. My own albums have been my school.
CARAMANICA You have the Selena tattoo, right?
KAROL G It’s me, it’s Rihanna, and it’s Selena Quintanilla.
COSCARELLI The holy trinity. Having a tattoo of your own face on your body, that’s pretty rare, I think. It’s like Steve-O from “Jackass.”
KAROL G Yeah, it’s wild, but my life has been wild, and I’m the only one that knows how wild has been my life.
COSCARELLI You earned that tattoo of yourself.
KAROL G Yeah, I earned this tattoo, and the thing is, everyone — they teach us all the time to just give the flowers to everyone else but not us, because it’s a modesta thing, but I don’t feel that way. I feel very proud of myself. I’m not going be able to explain to the world about my process but just to have it here, it’s like, I know, that girl is so tough.
CARAMANICA You’ve made some really intense breakup music over the last few years, and lived a lot of your life in public. Tell me about the decision to share the sentiments of going through the hard parts of that in song.
KAROL G Actually, that was the hardest part, to put the album out, because in this specific moment in my life, I’ve learned a little bit how to make my life a little more intimate. So for the last year, I started posting less, living in my life. The thing is, this album is not about anyone else but me. So that’s why I said, I’m going do it, because the album is about my feelings. Maybe lost, maybe confused, maybe angry and mad. I thank God when I have situations that I can make songs of, you know? If there’s no muse, there’s not good music.
So I actually thank God about this experience that gave me this new album, gave me this new way to connect with people and gave me a No. 1.
CARAMANICA There are many famous people who date other famous people and try to hide it. But you leaned in. We often talk after a breakup of a relationship like that, oh, that was a bad idea, but there have to be good things. Can you talk about what you found reassuring about being involved with someone living a similar life?
KAROL G First I have to say that it’s so hard to know people because I’m working all the time, and I’m touring, I’m doing music. So the people that I’ve known and I connected with, it was on the road doing our work together.
I think the good thing about it, in my case, is to be able to celebrate the success of someone that does the same thing like I do, but from a different perspective. I always say how people see me and what they feel when they see me in a concert, I can feel that when I see that person filling a place. I’m like, wow, this is huge.
CARAMANICA But does it minimize you and your ability to say, ‘I’m Karol G, I don’t need this guy?’ Did it ever get in your head and say there’s something actually that’s working against my ability to stand on my own?
KAROL G No, I don’t feel that way. I feel comfortable and secure, confident enough. But then at the end, if something happens, or when I’m losing that person, I say, I’m Karol G. I embrace that and I say, [expletive] it, I’m [expletive] Karol G!
Credits
Popcast is hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli and produced by Sophie Erickson, Kate LoPresti and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Lauren Pruitt, Bernardo Garcia Elguezabal and Pat Gunther. It was edited by Mark Zemel with help from Rebecca Blandon. Our theme music is by Elisheba Ittoop. Nick Pitman is our audio engineer and Amanda Webster is our photo editor. Brooke Minters is our executive producer. Header video cinematography is by Emily Kordovich.
Special thanks to Sarah Bonn, Dahlia Haddad, Mike Cordero, Nicole Huber, Aaron Byrd, Carl Mazurek, Zach Caldwell, Maddy Masiello, Brad Kimbrough, Craig Hettich, Andrew Wilcox, David Malitz, Elena Bergeron, Sia Michel, Nina Lassam and Sam Dolnick.
The post Only Karol G Knows How Wild Her Life Has Been appeared first on New York Times.
