PERMANENTE

“I'm my biggest fan,” Justin Quiles tells Apple Music. “It don't matter what happens. I'm always rooting for myself.” Given the Puerto Rican artist’s decade-long career as a singer, songwriter, rapper and producer, he has good reason to champion his catalogue. Coming off recent hits both with KAROL G and as part of the Latin supergroup The Academy, he knew his next album needed to stay current and progress from the preceding La Última Promesa from three years prior. To this end, he set up two different writing camps, in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, and Santa Marta, Colombia. “I like creating my albums close to the ocean,” he says. “This is my passion, so for me it is very important to have a good vibe [and] to be in a place of peace.” From familiar producers like Dímelo Flow to relative newcomers like MvilliW, the resulting PERMANENTE both adheres to and updates Quiles’ sound. “It's very important to use these key people that I always work with, because we have already a formula that works,” he says. “But also I'm trying to find a different feel with these new producers I'm bringing in my projects.” Read on to learn about some of Justin Quiles’ favourite songs from PERMANENTE—in his own words. “PERMANENTE (INTRO)” “The intro is very important for people to connect with me and see the struggles. I describe from the beginning of how I was born, how I grew up. A lot of people don't know that for the first couple of years I lived in a shelter with my mom. I talk about my ups and downs, and how hard it sometimes is. We were poor. We struggled a lot.” “SU ROPA” “‘PERMANENTE’ talks about a little bit my life, but then you’ve got to give people joy. We want to live, we want to be happy, go to the club, experience life. And I feel like ‘SU ROPA’ has that type of vibe where you want go and listen in the car with your friends and scream the song. I feel like it's like old-school with new-school reggaetón. The melodies are a little mix of both worlds.” “WHITE TEE” “I'm looking for different sounds and looking for something refreshing. We wrote the song with MvilliW. He's 19 years old, lives in Puerto Rico, so we got together. It’s like trap R&B, and it goes to reggaetón. The song is a vibe. I got that feel from Puerto Rico, of what is going on right now on the island in the music industry.” “LIKE YOU” “Lately I've been listening to a lot of Afrobeats. It is a new wave that's still catching on in Spanish. I just fell in love with the beat and I started writing from the top of the head. I literally improvised half of the song immediately; I just pulled my headphones on and I started mumbling the melodies and putting words to it. Basically, all the words were there. Whatever came through my mind, I put it on mic. I fixed a couple things and that was the song.” “PLAY BOY” “Dímelo Ninow produced it, and he's usually working with a lot of trap artists and artists that do drill in Puerto Rico. I gave it a feel of R&B. I mixed my melodies in there and made it my own sound. That's very important, not to try to be somebody that I'm not. I always put in my music what I feel, what I want to be and what I want to portray. Some people don't know that I started my career rapping. I was a rapper before being a singer, so I love rapping. It's part of my DNA. I'm representing something that probably a lot of people haven't heard from me.” “SE PRESTA” “I call it Puerto Rican vibes, because [when] you go to the island, that's what you listen to. You listen to trap mixed with reggaetón. They on that wave heavily right now. I went to Puerto Rico to get all that energy, and ‘SE PRESTA’ came out from the streets. This album is a lot of mixing, a lot of experimental stuff. The song continues the wave of ‘White Tee’, that type of reggaetón that you want to dance and you want to listen to in the club as well.” “DIAMANTE” “It's very interesting going to different countries and learning what the local artists do over there. My people from Panama love dancehall. They got their own sound, so it's very particular. I feel like Dímelo Flow gave me something different here. It's still danceable; it still feels like reggaetón, but it's not really reggaetón. And it goes back to my roots, the way I write romantic songs. Arcángel one time told me in the studio, 'Diamonds are done with pressure.' I used that in the song like, 'Sorry I'm pressuring you, I just want to see you, but that's how diamonds are built.'”