Nicky Jam has dropped his new song “La Foto” in collaboration with El Shadow, and it premieres exclusively on Billboard Wednesday (Aug. 12).
Released via Plus Media and EMM, the track blends acoustic guitars with rhythmic Afrobeats, charged with Caribbean breeze and feel-good melodies. Lyrically, the track composed by El Shadow (real name Raudel Gómez Hernández) is about crushing on someone and finding the courage to make the first move.
“Nothing is impossible here/ I wrote to her that I liked her,” chants the Puerto Rican artist in the opening verse. The chorus further cements that sentiment of infatuation and uncertainty: “You’ve got me liking your photo/ You’ve got me losing my mind.”
Nicky Jam — who has a 30-plus year career, various No. 1 Billboard hits and collabs with Enrique Iglesias, Bad Bunny and Romeo Santos, to name a few — is now supporting up-and-coming talent such as El Shadow, a Cuban newcomer who has 15,000 Instagram followers at the time of publishing.
The most curious thing about this collaboration is the way it naturally happened: El Shadow shared a snippet of the track on his Instagram in February and invited his followers to tag Nicky Jam in the comments. Nicky replied within hours, and the rest is history.
“I’ve done all my releases almost completely solo, but that day I wanted to upload a reel and tag an artist I know fits the song perfectly,” El Shadow tells Billboard. “Nicky popped into my head, and I knew he could hear it because he already had Cubans in his algorithm.” (Nicky previously collaborated with Cuban duo Charly y Johayron.)
He continues: “A week later, he called me to say he was laying down the vocals, and I thought, ‘Wow, it’s actually happening!’ It’s amazing — especially considering the situation on the island. Our country is facing so many problems — there’s no power, no internet connection, everything is a struggle, but Nicky showed his humility and his value to me.”
Residing in Camagüey, Cuba’s third-largest city, El Shadow is a 26-year-old artist who kicked off his career when he was only 15, creating urban music. In recent years, the Billboard On The Radar Latin artist has found his lane in the Latin Afrobeats realm, lacing it with his husky yet crisp and dulcet vocals.
“My idol is Kapo,” he expresses of the Colombian hitmaker. “I watched his interviews and was really inspired by his story, and that’s the same message I try to convey to new talent: that it is possible. If you focus and do things with love and passion, you can make it.”
Watch the music video for “La Foto” below:
