He arrives wearing black sunglasses, sneakers, pants, and a white tank top that says MYT. A cloud of companions surrounds him. “That’s how I can feel in my living space,” he admits. On the day we meet in Madrid, Myke Towers’ Praetorian Guard (29 years old, San Juan, Puerto Rico) consists of seven men and one woman. “Some are childhood friends,” he says and continues: “I know that they are people who will be with me when I stop.” Next to him, one of his friends remains silent, apathetic and thinking of the make-up. up artists, photographers and stylists accustomed to surrounding the towers. “Goldo, make some salsa,” the singer tells him from his makeup chair. The friend manipulates the cell phone and a Caribbean melody plays from the speaker in the hands of another of his companions. “I’m the singer / because it’s my thing to sing / and the audience pays / to listen to me.” Towers laughs. “You’ve become primitive, Goldo,” he says to his friend on the cell phone. The song being played is “The Singer” by Puerto Rican Héctor Lavoe from 1978, which was so successful at the time that it earned the artist the nickname “Singer of Singers”. Primus inter pares. A title whose rightful heir is Towers.
Myke Towers, with Louis Vuitton jacket and trousers, T-shirt and glasses. The boots are from Timberland. Adria Cañameras
The artist has the strange ability to turn almost any song he collaborates on into platinum; accumulating songs with other current singers like Sebastián Yatra or Bad Bunny or Quevedo or one of his idols, Daddy Yankee; liking it, liking it a lot, and reaching number one on all the lists that try to put numbers to music. He also has the privilege of having provided the soundtrack to this summer with the song “Lala”, the song by a Latin solo artist that stayed at number one on Spotify for the longest time in the world, reaching the top just 11 days after its release.
Despite the record numbers and fame, Towers appears withdrawn and cautious from the first moment of conversation. He doesn’t take any wrong steps. It is clear in his interviews that he has no inclination to confess or divulge matters of his private life. There’s Myke Towers and there’s Michael Anthony Torres Monge. And they are not the same person. “I don’t like being called Myke in my family. Myke Towers is my superhero uniform. For the street, to go outside. At home I’m Michael and outside I put on my uniform,” he says.
Myke Towers, author of “Lala,” the song that defined summer, wears a Prada jacket and pants. Adria Cañameras
Unlike other singers in his band who share the hits podium, Towers doesn’t usually talk about his childhood. Remember that there isn’t much to say. “I was a normal child. I didn’t have a lot of expensive things, I didn’t have luxury, but I wasn’t poor either. I am the product of the whole environment that existed in Puerto Rico, my flow, my style, who I am. “Puerto Rico made me.” Before becoming Myke Towers, Michael Torres was born and raised in the Quintana neighborhood of San Juan. With a separated father, he grew up with his mother, his sister, his little brother and his grandmother. It was his grandmother who instilled in him a love of music. “Everything sounded at home: salsa, merengue, bachata. I have cousins who like to sing. My grandmother too,” he says. The music that was played back then is the same that the singer returns to again and again in search of inspiration. “I don’t like following trends. To be a trend, you have to isolate yourself. Yes, I listen to the new one, but I listen to it once and that’s it. I like discovering people from other countries and getting out of Puerto Rico, but the old ones are always on the playlist,” he says.
At some point the music from the speaker drifts away from the Caribbean and into the concrete of the American suburbs. Rap starts playing. Towers, who claims his influences range from Tego Calderón to 50 Cent, didn’t actually start out singing the reggaeton that made him famous, instead making a name for himself on the streets of Puerto Rico by throwing bars. After graduating from high school, the Puerto Rican began studying business administration at the University of Puerto Rico. At this time I was spending more and more time with friends who played music. But unlike them, he did not write or sing. “I started working on his rhythm and teaching it to people who could benefit from it. But I didn’t want to sing. For me it was more about pushing the music and the business forward,” he remembers. Perhaps it was those early beginnings of helping others and learning how the industry works that led him to decipher the process by which a song mutates to number one.
Oversized cardigan and sweater, sweatpants, G Ride sunglasses and leather lace-up boots, all from Givenchy. Saint Laurent long felt coat for Anthony Vaccarello.Adrià Cañameras
The time he spent with other singers eventually led him to record himself. He had never received any musical training (he now claims he only took classes to learn how to breathe and better modulate his voice) and he wasn’t even convinced he wanted to sing. “When I started to have more confidence, when they played something, I sang it and people started taking advantage of it and motivating me, but it’s only when you decide to do it that you do it.” It’s not easy . I didn’t dare. As I thought about singing, I felt insecure. At first I was worried about what they would say, but I no longer cared. I said: If people like this, I will continue to improve. And that’s exactly what I planned to do,” he says. A star was born. “I see it as necessary. Mine was like this: One day I was struck by lightning without realizing it, and I had to prepare for it. Now I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. Before I felt like I was doing the things that would lead me to this. Like a way. Like in a labyrinth. Sometimes I had déjà vu and thought: That must have already been written,” he admits, remembering those days.
At the time, he was also working as a clerk at a sneaker store in San Juan and went straight to college after his shift ended. He used the little time he had left to make music. The full realization that he had found his path led him to drop out of college his sophomore year. “Maybe it’s my fault, but I prefer to help my cousins who are studying. Thank God I was good at it because I saw that exit and said I was going to give my full effort here. I continued studying but gave up. “Who knows if I’ll come back,” he says now.
He started uploading the songs he composed and sang to SoundCloud. He still wasn’t Myke, he was Mike, and most of the time not even that. He called himself Young King, a nickname he kept and continues to use – today with a final Z, Young Kingz – to describe someone with integrity describe. Over the Internet, Towers debuted his first mixtape, The End of the Beginning, in 2016. Then came the hits: Si se da, with Farruko; Dollar, with Becky G; Couple of the Year, with Sebastián Yatra; Playa del Inglés with Quevedo; Ulala, with Daddy Yankee. Towers began to have something that all singers wanted. And also 46 million monthly listeners on Spotify. “I don’t measure how my fame grows because tomorrow the fame may be gone, but I want to be financially healthy.” What does it mean to be financially healthy for someone who sang, “I want to be a millionaire” in 2016? . / I want to fill my closet with tennis shoes. / I won’t stop until I’m legendary”? “Don’t miss anything. Not just the material. I don’t have the stress of thinking about how I’m going to live tomorrow. I had it. Now there are many who want the position that I have privileged, but you have to work hard for it,” he explains.
The singer was born and raised in a San Juan neighborhood. “Puerto Rico made me,” he says. In the photo he is wearing a jacket and pants, a T-shirt and CD Diamond S3F glasses, all from Dior Homme.Adrià Cañameras
The fame in which the singer is swimming does not seem to have surprised him. In fact, when he talks about them, he only does so to make it clear that theirs is not a romantic idyll, but a marriage of convenience. “You can’t love fame. “Respect, yes.” He is jealous of his privacy and is not inclined to show himself on social networks. “I don’t particularly like her. “I’m a bit old-fashioned, analog.” There are almost no photos of his wife on the Internet. It is known that they have been together since before Towers became world famous, that he lives in Puerto Rico and that they have a three-year-old son together named Shawn. The boy appeared in the video for the song “When they see me” from the album “Like Mike,” in which Towers returned to his street rap roots. “This boy will sing if they let him. “The little guy goes very fast,” he says of him.
During the conversation, Towers gradually subsided from the initial nervousness that caused him to bite his lip to become more comfortable with the questions. His team is still floating around. He interrupts the conversation to ask for directions to a good spa in Madrid and to tell the stylist he likes her sandals (“those Diol sandals are really tough”). He’s tired because of jet lag, but doesn’t ask for coffee (“For me, I drank too much as a kid out of rebellion and now aggg,” he admits with a disgusted face). He claims that the smoke from the stages spoils his voice and forces him to drink tea. Ask for natural makeup for photos, and when it’s time to put on clothes, ask, “What flow should I wear?” When the questions are over and he’s in front of the camera, he completely relaxes. He takes control of the situation. Control your gestures, your expression. The facial muscles only respond to your commands. He doesn’t ask for advice. After a series of shots, look at the photos on the screen. “The first is the good one,” he says when he sees her.
– You like to control everything.
– At least what I can do.
-In your life?
“Whatever I can, as long as I can, I’ll try to stay in control.”
—Do you check everything?
– Deal, yes.
One of the peculiarities of Towers is that millions of people listen to his songs every day and it is practically impossible to access him. He has three cell phones. If you don’t find him in two of them, you’re unlikely to find him in the third. It’s just for the family and sometimes he admits he turns it off too. “You have to fulfill for one and then for the others. I won’t please everyone. Anyone who tries this loses themselves as a person. Thank God I haven’t reached that point of breakdown yet. When I feel like this, I cut everything off. “So my method is to leave everything behind, clear my head and then get back to work,” he admits. He often uses his country as a starting point and claims that Puerto Rico is always the coast to which he returns before heading out to sea again. The same thing happens with his family, whom he asks not to see him as a singer. “They are my motivation and I am their pride,” he says.
After reaching number one on all charts with the songs from his latest album “Life is One”, Towers is thinking about other horizons. Maybe even Hollywood. “I would like to make films. Be an actor or producer of great films,” he says. Still, he doesn’t set any dates and says he enjoys it day by day. “As Kobe Bryant said, ‘Play by play.’ At the moment, the singer is in a sweet moment. With his words, he is no longer a normal child. “I thank God every day, even for the bad things. I am grateful to life, God and my family. There are times when you don’t realize how much you have because you want more, but you have to be grateful for everything,” he says. “Lo I Achieved,” the final song from his latest album “La vida es una,” is a self-rewarding anthem. The normal kid who grew up on the streets of a Puerto Rican neighborhood and “did bad things”; the singer who was afraid to sing, the artist who felt like he had been struck by lightning. Michael or Mike or Young King or Myke Towers did it.
Production credits
Styling: Juan Cebrián
Makeup and hair: Carmen de Juan / @ Another Agency.
Styling assistant: Paula Alcalde.
Photo assistant: Edy Pérez.
Production: Maia Hoetink.
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