It was a sultry Miami evening at the Premio ASCAP 2024 on Tuesday night (April 2), which celebrated top composers and publishers at Vizcaya Palace at the seashore in Miami.
Among the winners on site were Keityn, who won Composer of the year for the second consecutive year; Feid, who won composer/artist of the year; Yng Lvcas, who co-wrote “La Bebé,” the track he performs with Peso Pluma and which won Song of the year; and Carlos Vives, who received the coveted ASCAP Founders Award.
Keityn’s win came as a result of working on some of the biggest hits of the past year, including “Monotonía” and “Acróstico” by Shakira and “Amargura”, “Cairo” and “Mi Ex Tenía Razón” by Karol G among many others.
When asked by Billboard which in the list of 10 of hits was his favorite, Keityn — who recently had a baby boy — paused for moment.
“I’d have to say ‘Acróstico,” he finally said. “It’s an extremely personal song, and I feel it’s so important that it’s a song where everything she wanted to say felt genuine. Plus, when I was little, my mom used to make acrostics with our names. And ‘Acróstico’ is literally an acrostic with Sasha and Milan’s names. So, to be able to contribute such a personal song to Shakira is really a gem in my career.”
Keityn’s countryman, and friend, Feid, spoke to Billboard about his soon to be released album with Yandel, which he says came together in a mere two months, after the two of them met at a radio show in Los Angeles.
“I told him, ‘Let’s do an old-school album of five songs. I don’t want filler tracks,” Feid says. Despite the fact that he was on the road in the middle of his tour, the Colombian star found the time to finish. “I love to be inside the studio. It’s the first thing I do when I get up in the morning,” he explains.
Picking up his award, Feid reinforced the team mentality that has been part of his success.
“I may be the face of this project, but we’re a team behind this musical project,” he says.
Vives was the last winner to pick up his award, given for his career trajectory.
When he started as a singer in Colombia, Vives said, “Commercial music had pop music and tropical music. 30 years ago, we started to electrify the percussive patterns of that music, not Cuban style – which is a music we admire and with which we have many similarities, but also many differences. They called it tropipop, and it became the new Colombian pop.”
On his end, 24-year-old Yng Lvcas picked up his award for one of the biggest bangers of the year. “La Bebe” topped Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart, reached No. 2 on the Billboard Global 200 and No. 11 on the Hot 100.
