A producer explains how 'Despacito' has hacked our brains
But why has Despacito fascinated so many people? The producer and musician Nahúm García has shared a theory about it, revealing what he considers the secret after the success of the song. "You laugh at Del Despacito," tweeted, "but the way the rhythm breaks before the chorus is genius. The key to the topic. "
He also shared with his followers the following drawing.
I have made a sketch so that you can visually understand where the MAGIC of the Slowdown stop resides. You're welcome..
— Nahúm García (
Garcia showed us how, right in the "des-pa-cito", the song suffers a break, thus breaking the rhythm. He is out of tempo with the next bar, breaking the conventional metric of a song. According to the musician and the producer, something like this - making one key stanza fit the next in a random spot - could not happen by chance.
To reinforce his thesis, I shared this other image, this time with more zoom.
Look, so you can see that when he comes back he comes back in a random spot. Does not even fit the zoom
In the meantime, however, the compass is completely broken, allowing the "dis-pa-cyito" to move freely through the stanza, until it is installed in a chorus that, immediately after, has already been displaced. From there, that time never recovers.
After that first "des-pa-cito", the rest are in the right tempo, but the first mischief has already had its effect: Despacito has struck you, and it will take a lot of work to get rid of it. If a normal song loses our interest with repeated listening, in anticipating our brain parts we like it, Despacito and his refrain get away from that tendency by its rhythmic anomaly - somehow, it is as if you always listen to it for the first time time.
It is paradoxical for a song called Despacito to play in this way with its own internal rhythm, in a exercise of metalanguage so sophisticated that it will get rid of its haters. The only handicap, in this case, is for musicians who must play it live, since they can not be guided by the compass - in concert, this is solved by making the "des-pa-cito" sound with a pre-recorded voice.
by: PlayGround ,
Music video by Luis Fonsi performing Despacito. (C) 2017 Universal Music Latino