Wiki:
Juan Luis Guerra Seijas (born June 7, 1957), known professionally as Juan Luis Guerra, is a Dominican singer, songwriter and producer who has sold over 30 million records,[1] and won numerous awards including 15 Latin Grammy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Latin Billboard Music Awards. He won 3 Latin Grammy Awards in 2010, including Album of the Year. Most recently, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Producer of the Year in 2012.[2]
Guerra is one of the most internationally recognized Latin artists of recent decades. His popular style of merengue and Latin fusion has garnered him considerable success throughout Latin America. Guerra is sometimes associated with the popular Dominican music called bachata, and while this association is partly true, his distinct style of Bachata has a more traditional bolero rhythm and feel with Bossa-Nova influenced melodies and harmony in some of his songs.[3] He does not limit himself to one style of music, instead, he incorporates diverse rhythms like merengue, bolero-bachata, balada, salsa, rock and roll, and even gospel. "Ojalá Que Llueva Café" ("I Wish It Would Rain Coffee") is one of his most critically acclaimed self-written and composed pieces. A remix of "La Llave de Mi Corazón" ("The Key of My Heart") with Taboo from The Black Eyed Peas is also an example of his fusion of genres.
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Singing in other languages
Guerra has recorded several songs in English, like "July 19th" on his Fogaraté release (1995), and more recently "Medicine for My Soul" and "Something Good" with Italian singer Chiara Civello. Some of his songs have verses in both English and Spanish such as "Woman del callao", "Guavaberry", "Señorita" and more recently "La Llave de Mi Corazón". Album Areíto featured two songs, cover-title song "Areíto" and "Naboria daca, mayanimacaná" which are sung in the Arawak language of the extinct Taino natives of Hispaniola. Juan Luis Guerra also recorded the album "Bachata Rosa" in Portuguese. He uses Japanese words in Bachata en Fukuoka (Bachata in Fukuoka), 2010 Latin Grammy winner for Best Tropical Song.
Lyrical style
Being a native Dominican, his music is heavily influenced by native Caribbean rhythms, such as merengue and bachata.
His lyrics are often charged with intentionally simple, heavily metaphorical, erotic, or popular expressions, such as "Burbujas de Amor" (Bubbles Of Love) or "El Niagara en Bicicleta" (Niagara on Bicycle), an idiom for something difficult to do. His lyrics also reflect in political issues, but from a deeply human perspective, that is, centering the lyrics in the human drama that social injustice generates. This can be seen in "visa para un sueño" about the broken hope of an American dream for the peoples of the Dominican Republic in particular and Latin America in general, "Niagara on Bicycle" about the negligence that destroy the social health services, "El Costo de La Vida" about the effects of global capitalism on the people or "Acompañeme Civil" about police and military corruption that leads to exploitation of the people that they should care for.
