The first Song Of The Day of 2024 on JENESAISPOP was ‘Airplane Tickets’, the airy afrobeat of Pharrell Williams, Rauw Alejandro and Swae Lee. In the last quarter of the year, Rauw Alejandro returns to the airport in his new single, ‘Pasaporte’.
‘Passport’ is Alejandro’s umpteenth leap to the dance floor of the eighties, after your fruitful experiments with the genre in ‘Todo de ti’, ‘Tiroteo’ or ‘Verde menta’. Together with his collaborator, Mr. Naisgai, Rauw Alejandro creates a clean and effective post-disco shot, illuminated with neon lights.
Rauw Alejandro and The Weeknd are neighbors in sound, but not in vital philosophy. While Abel Tesfaye lives in torment, Rauw Alejandro finds peace with himself. In ‘Passport’, after a breakup, Rauw sees new opportunities on the horizon. He advocates not suffering and living in the present. He, meanwhile, entertains himself traveling, looking at “the streets of Madrid”, the “cherry blossoms of Japan” or “the fashion of Paris”. Of course, “no one does it better” than Puerto Rico.
Although Rauw Alejandro mentions in ‘Pasaporte’ that he meets “the Martinezes, Skrillex and Tiësto”, in reality the one who co-produces the song – along with Mr. Naisgai – is none other than SG Lewis, one of the current revivalists of the synth-pop. Lately busy with his various adventures with Tove Lo, Lewis has found time to collaborate with the Puerto Rican singer.
Of course, Rauw’s appointment with Skrillex in ‘Pasaporte’ is no coincidence, as both have worked together on the wonderful reggaeton ‘Volver’, in which Tainy paired Alejandro not only with Skrillex, but also with Four Tet. The result was one of the best songs of 2023.
