Duki has transformed Argentine trap music and is now headed to the US for the first time on his ‘AMERI World Tour.’ The singer discusses his creative process behind his latest album, 'AMERI,' his recent hit, 'Barro,' his decision not to sign with a major label, and more!
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00:00Barro was a letter that I wrote to myself.
00:05Even though I'm very good at speaking and with words,
00:08it's hard for me to talk about myself, about Mauro and what happens to me.
00:11I was very motivated, but very little inspired.
00:14So I went to the studio a lot and I couldn't come up with things,
00:18but I really wanted to.
00:19My first meetings with labels and everything,
00:22I realized that what they offered me didn't work for me,
00:25because it restricted my freedom to make music the way I liked it.
00:29Hi beautiful people, I'm Duque and you're watching Billboard.
00:33Duque, welcome to Billboard.
00:35Thank you very much.
00:36Well, there are many things happening,
00:39but let's talk about the main thing for me,
00:42which is that in 2025 you come to your first big tour in the United States.
00:48Exactly.
00:49How do you feel? Nervous? Excited?
00:52Both things? With desire? What?
00:55Last year we had a very nice first tour.
00:58I had the opportunity to go from giant stadiums to smaller places,
01:03to reconnect with my audience, to get to know them too,
01:06because there are many people who had never seen me,
01:09or it was the first time they had the opportunity to meet me.
01:12And this second tour, a little more nervous,
01:15sand, a little more nervous.
01:17You have to be up to the situation, but super excited.
01:21Also knowing that I come from rap, trap,
01:25and being able to play here and have my show here,
01:28where everything happened and was born,
01:30it's a dream come true.
01:32Now I saw you in Buenos Aires playing at the River Plate stadium
01:37in front of 75,000 people,
01:40and with a very impressive, very beautiful staging.
01:50And with many invited friends.
01:52Now you are used to doing these big things.
01:56Now you go to Arenas, 15,000 people,
01:59but then it's more or less the same idea,
02:02but reduced a little bit, or not?
02:05Or do you have your own staging?
02:08Or are you always thinking big, no matter where you are?
02:11I don't know if you can explain it to me.
02:13Yes, no, no, it is understood, it is understood 100%.
02:15We always look to grow and do big things.
02:19Although the Arena is smaller in size,
02:23it gives you more possibilities,
02:25because it is a more controlled environment.
02:27You can use everything that is lights,
02:30everything that is scenery,
02:32it is all super more controlled,
02:34it is easier for connections.
02:37So surely for these shows there will be something armed too,
02:41speaking at the aesthetic and scenographic level.
02:44That is very important for you, right?
02:46I like to accompany it,
02:47because I feel that it is a way that,
02:49although Ameri is a record and it is music and it is listened to,
02:52I want you to live it as I lived it,
02:55as I imagined it.
02:57So we chose this, to use red and black.
03:01Well, I can't go ahead much,
03:04but we are going to use several resources
03:06to make people go to the Arena and feel that they are in Ameri.
03:09That they are part of the universe of the record.
03:12Exactly.
03:13Now, your fans obviously know your history of Peapa,
03:17and you have many fans.
03:19You also played in June,
03:21you filled the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid,
03:23that is, you are filling stadiums on both continents.
03:26Exactly.
03:27But you started doing trap in Argentina
03:32at a time when trap was not done in Argentina.
03:35Why trap?
03:36Why not reggaeton?
03:38Why not Spanish rock?
03:41Why not cumbia?
03:43Especially since you are a melomaniac
03:45and you grew up with so much music.
03:47The first thing that happened to me was that from a very young age,
03:49at 4 or 5 years old, I started playing basketball.
03:52And I already played basketball,
03:54and for me the biggest was Allen Iverson.
03:59And Allen was a very rapper, tattooed,
04:02he had his rap records, everything.
04:04So when I was little, I had that image that caught my attention.
04:08Then it happened to me that I started listening to the first songs of Eminem,
04:13I started listening to a little bit of Lil Wayne.
04:15So I always liked the whole culture of rap, hip hop.
04:20And it happened to me that I started,
04:24I connected a lot with, at that time there was Red Bull,
04:27which is like the competition of more famous battles, let's say, more mainstream.
04:39And one day I tried, I started improvising and it worked out well.
04:43And I had always wanted to connect with music,
04:45and trying the guitar, I didn't like playing the guitar, I didn't like the piano.
04:49And for the first time I said, uh, I love this,
04:52and I started rapping and I was rhyming for a minute or 40 seconds,
04:55saying things that didn't make sense, but rhyming.
04:58And it was like a new world opened up.
05:01I wake up and train, I wake up and train, I wake up and train.
05:06For about a year, I was figuring out, I said, ah, this is trap, this is what you call trap.
05:10Which were the faster beats, with the hi-hat, the cymbals with the triplet, the 808.
05:17And that's where I found my home, let's say, my place.
05:22Your groove. But you weren't looking for that, or were you?
05:27And I ask you because with J Balvin, we always talk a lot about how when he started in Colombia,
05:33he didn't have an established reggaeton scene.
05:36So it's this process of creating something that doesn't exist.
05:41It wasn't like you were doing a career in pop, that there was already a pattern here.
05:47Were you aware that you were creating it,
05:50or were you just doing it and finding your way?
05:54No, we, well, I say we, because at the time it was, as I was saying, we were a group.
05:59There were many, yes.
06:00Yes, I was also with Easy A, with Neo, CREO, a lot of the guys.
06:05And we said, we have to achieve that what happens in the United States with trap happens here.
06:11What is the way to connect with the public?
06:14And for us it was that, to start showing people that it is not that we lived the life that they lived here.
06:20No, we lived the life that was seen in Argentina,
06:23but we liked this music and we did it in our own way, you know?
06:27With our words, with our terms, with our shites.
06:32And people little by little were connecting.
06:35And that's where it stops being perhaps a cultural distance, right?
06:42And the language barrier or the culture barrier is broken a little.
06:51You are signed now, well, from very early, but not from the first album,
06:56but not from the first songs, but early in your career with Dale Play.
07:01Yes.
07:02Which is an independent label.
07:03What freedom has that given you and why did you do that versus signing with a multinational, for example?
07:09No, the first thing that happened to me is that I realized that today the artist could be his own distributor.
07:18I didn't need to sign with a label to sound.
07:22And my first meetings with labels and everything, I realized that what they offered me didn't work for me
07:28because it restricted my freedom to make music the way I liked it.
07:33What is like?
07:34Freely.
07:35It happened to me before that I did not plan the releases.
07:38And one Tuesday I made a song and I uploaded it at 12 at night, at 2 in the morning I uploaded it.
07:43And people loved that.
07:44It was finished.
07:45The song comes out when it is ready.
07:47This was not even ready.
07:48Uh-huh.
07:49They are very good at accompanying the vision that the artist has.
07:52Because sometimes it happens to you that you think that the label is the one who has to give the vision to the artist
07:58and sometimes there are artists who need company.
08:01Do you understand?
08:02That is, that you accompany them and that you cover certain gaps and that you follow them because they already have the vision.
08:07They know where they have to go, they know what they want to do and how they have to do it.
08:11And I think that today it happens a lot.
08:13Uh-huh.
08:14Now your new album is called Ameri.
08:18And the tour is called Ameri.
08:20So what did you want to do with this album?
08:22This album, what happened is that I was very motivated but very little inspired.
08:27So I went to the studio a lot and things did not come out.
08:31But I really wanted to.
08:32Because Ameri is a place.
08:34That is the place where you want to go.
08:36It is the place of the goals.
08:38It is the place where you find inspiration.
08:39That is, it is not a physical place.
08:40It is a place in your head.
08:42Exactly.
08:43And it started to happen to me that I was making this album and I said,
08:46Okay, on this album I want to have fun and I want to try and I want to pay more attention to these musical facets that I have.
08:54And not go so straight and straight for the trap and rap of always.
08:58And suddenly I looked at our continent, America, and that ability that in a couple of kilometers you go through several biomes.
09:07You have mountains, you have lakes, you have sand, desert.
09:11And I said, of course, everything that lives in America is what lives on my planet.
09:15All those facets of mine, Ameri.
09:17Now you have a song called Barro.
09:19Yes.
09:26That is very beautiful.
09:28Very personal.
09:29And you talk about your life, your childhood, your fears, being in love, not being in love.
09:37It really surprised me.
09:38I said, wow, I did not know that Duki was so sincere in the songs.
09:42Why?
09:43I feel that Barro was a bit of a letter that I wrote to myself.
09:49Beyond everything, although I am very good at speaking and with words, it is very difficult for me to talk about myself, about Mauro, about what happens to me.
09:55So in music sometimes I find that refuge, that catharsis, that almost even psychologist.
10:03And in that song it happened to me that at the time I downloaded what I really felt.
10:10And I also feel that it is good sometimes to get off the character of Duki a little, maybe.
10:16And the role of Duki, the tattooed face that raps, there it goes with the chains and everything.
10:20And be Mauro and show people that vulnerability that we all have, that happens to us all and that makes us human and makes us real.
10:28Doesn't it scare you a little?
10:30No, no.
10:31Has it been with networks and everything that people tell you things?
10:34No, because it is a war that I have already passed.
10:38I was always shy, I was always embarrassed.
10:41I say it on the subject, I was always afraid of life, I was afraid of death, I was afraid of everything.
10:45I already fought that war, I think I won it.
10:48And if I didn't win it, I'm standing here to keep fighting it.
10:51Because my mom did something to me, she was brave, but recognizing that there is fear, if you have to be afraid and it is normal.
10:58Thank you very much, good luck with Ameritour, there we will be in the front row.
11:04Thank you very much to everyone, thank you to the people of Eylor and thank you to you, Leila.
11:08Thank you for everything.