'What's coming is way better': Healing and dancing with Karol G at ACL 2021
Early Sunday on the Honda stage, rock band White Reaper said it was changing its name to Reaper G. The Kentucky bar band was riffing on the back-to-back billing of hip-hip artist Polo G and then Karol G after its slot. They wish.
Carolina Giraldo Navarro is a Colombian rapper and singer who blends reggaetón and brooding, soulful trap beats into a Grammy-winning sound that’s proved widely heralded since storming on the scene with a best new artist Grammy in 2018 and performing alongside genre superstar Bad Bunny on 2017’s “Ahora Me Llama.” Since, the Medellin artist has engineered giant singles with the likes of Nicki Minaj and Daddy Yankee. If that doesn’t paint a sonic picture in your head, well, I can safely assume you didn’t pop for the J Balvin meal while it was on the McDonald’s menu — this stuff is big, particularly among Austin’s Latinx households.
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While the Sunday crowd was modest by big stage standards, it was vibrant, diverse and infused with dancing so second-nature and smooth that you felt awkward just standing near it.
Karol G is at ACL Fest on the strength of her third studio album “KG0516,” a streaming blockbuster that’s produced seven hit singles since its March release.
Rocking long, green hair; pink tights; pink baseball cap; and a matching pink microphone, Karol G led a crew of six pink-clad backup dancers through a hypnotic neon-green light show that seemed futuristic in its pan-American interpretations of hip-hop.
Karol G’s set was for the converted. She stuck to Spanish-language banter almost exclusively between songs. She paused to roll-call patrons from Latin American nations, shouting-out Colombian flags and fans present from Puerto Rico and Mexico.
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She dedicated acoustic guitar breakup ballad “200 Copas” to anyone who has an abusive person in their life, noting to patrons in Spanish: “Turn the page because what’s coming is way better.” Then she took a shot onstage of brown liquor in solidarity with any lonely hearts in the house.
Her 45-minute set closed with “Tusa,” itself Colombian slang for heartache, Karol G told Billboard in 2019.
Save for the Nicki Minaj vocals on “Tusa” — piped-in at Zilker — and Karol G’s English-language vocals from techno crossover hit “Don’t Be Shy,” it was regionalized fare for the culture almost entirely in Spanish. The good news is that afterward ACL Fest patrons seemed curious to know what “bichota” means.
