Juan Luis Guerra, Grupo Niche and Gilberto Santa Rosa, guests on Fonseca’s most recent album

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Colombian singer-songwriter Fonseca creates his own universe on his album “Tropicalia” with guests like Juan Luis Guerra, Grupo Niche and Gilberto Santa Rosa, as well as a touch of ranchera music.

The title immediately refers to the Brazilian musical and cultural movement of the late 1960s and early 70s, Tropicália, represented by artists such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa, but Fonseca realized that there was more.

“The first time I heard about tropicalia was precisely because of that Brazilian movement of the 1970s,” Fonseca said in a recent interview in Mexico City. “And it turns out that no, in fact, tropicalia has been many things from environmental movements, music festivals, types of food… There is a book called ‘Tropicalia’, there is even coffee.”

In Fonseca’s “Tropicalia”, the main thread is the warmth of percussion, accordions and Colombian strings, but there is also salsa, merengue or bolero.

“A tribute to those tropical genres that I have drawn so much from as a composer,” said the eight-time Latin Grammy winner.

In “La tequedad”, he even gave himself the freedom to include ranchera music.

“It is my interpretation and my proposal of what my tropical world is,” he said. “What I ended up doing was in some way a musical introspection: I went to the genres that I have liked the most, influenced, marked or nurtured throughout my life and the rancheras are there.”

For this project, in addition to genres that move him, Fonseca partnered with great masters of Latin tropical music such as Gilberto Santa Rosa, Juan Luis Guerra, Grupo Niche and Chucho Valdés. The first of these collaborations was “If you want me” with Guerra, whom he considers one of his great influences, under the production of Juanes.

“Juan Luis’s song was initially going to be from my previous album, ‘Viajante,'” Fonseca recalled. “When I extended the invitation to Juan Luis, he was on tour and couldn’t record yet. I decided to keep the song quiet and not release it, but simply have it there until Juan Luis could record.”

Finally, they released it in April of last year and in November it won them the Latin Grammy for best tropical song.

“As they say, things in life happen for a reason or things happen when they have to happen or God’s timing is perfect. There are a number of sayings that one could say…”, he noted. “Never in my life had I released an album that already had a Grammy under my arm. Imagine what a great honor.”

Guerra has a reputation for being reserved and calm, something that Fonseca sees as a positive way to lead a decades-long career. “I love this way of handling music and its lyrics,” said Foseca, who is the father of Paz, Manolo and Agustín with his wife Juliana Posada.

Once “If you want me” was released, the song marked the path to follow in “Tropicalia”, which with its release on Thursday, premieres the video for “With money and without money” with Grupo Niche. It was filmed in the Dominican Republic.

“We went to a beach in Santo Domingo, a beautiful beach, La Romana, and I dared to do something that a few years ago, if you had told me, I wouldn’t have done: to do a salsa orchestra-type choreography, the five of us standing at the front with the salsa step,” said Fonseca happily, who highlighted that he grew up listening to this Colombian salsa group. “Having them on my album is really a great gift.”

In the case of Niche, which last year won the Latin Grammy for best salsa album for Niche Sinfónico with the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, this is one of its few collaborations since its founding in 1979. “A tremendous medal that they gave me they gave for life,” said Fonseca.

After finishing “Collection of Memories”, with Gilberto Santa Rosa and Chucho Valdés, as well as the composition of “Qué luck tenerte” with Elena Rose, the last one to join the album was Cuba. His song is a fusion of the music of his countries.

“I love what Alex does because it is literally a meeting of two worlds,” said Fonseca. “We wrote the song together, from a distance; first Alex started working on the production of the song, very Cuban, he sent it to me and I went into the studio and added guacharaca and accordion.”