Interview: Colombian Duo Cali y El Dandee Talk New Single “Despiértate”, Winning Grammy For Producer of the Year and More
Fresh off their performance at the Latin American Music Awards, Colombian sibling pop duo Cali y El Dandee are back for more with their new single “Despiérate.”
In our exclusive interview with Latido Music by mitú, Cali, born Alejandro Rengifo, and Dandee, born Mauricio Rengifo, shared their excitement over their new collaboration, how they started working in music. Dandee aka Mauricio winning the Producer of the Year award at the Latin GRAMMYs, and more.
“Despiértate” is their new collab with Venezuelan sibling duo Mau y Ricky and Puerto Rican singer Guaynaa.
The collaboration had been something the brothers wanted to do for a very long time. The creative process for the song started with Cali y El Dandee and Mau y Ricky in the studio working on half of “Despiértate” and loving the sound so far. But they realized they were missing something.
“We loved the fresh sound of the song and how the synergy we achieved with them (Mau y Ricky) and then we invited Guaynaa, who gave it an Urban spin and the Puerto Rican touch the song needed,” added Dandee.
They started writing and producing music while they were in school.
Their very first “studio” was just a desktop computer and a microphone they had back home. Dandee was always interested in production, and as their music evolved they started showing their friends what they were working on. Both of their stage names come from their childhood nicknames: Cali, for Alejandro and Dandee for Mauricio.
Going viral and building fanbases in places like Spain and Argentina.
While Cali y El Dandee had a solid fanbase in their native Colombia, they were not aware that their music was making waves in places like Spain in the early days of streaming around 2009-2010, when their music videos were first being shared online.
“Actually, it took us a while to realize that we were popular in Spain because our team would let us know about our music sales rising, but we had never been there before or knew anyone there from their local radio stations. When we finally went to Spain, it was a big shock, we realized that our music had an audience not only there, but also in places like Mexico, Argentina and it was truly exciting to see that,” Dandee said.
Cali y El Dandee credit Reggaeton for embracing this new wave of collaborations among artists.
Cali y El Dandee aren’t strangers to collaborations. The pair have worked with Danna Paola, Greeicy, Sebastián Yatra, and Reik to name a few.
When it comes to creating these collaborations, Cali shared that either they already have someone in mind that they think could be a good fit as they create the first drafts of the song in the studio, or they meet up with artists and create the collaborations from scratch.
“The collaborations have played a very important role for us and have allowed us to refine and change our sound, and I think that for Urban music, collaborations are what have made this genre last so long, and why it’s heard in so many languages and how the streams nowadays come from different countries,” Cali added.
Dandee (Mauricio) talked about winning Producer of The Year at this year’s Latin GRAMMYs.
“It was a moment I had been waiting for since I was a child, a dream come true”, Dandee shared. While Mauricio is aware that there are other producers who are doing an equal or better job than him, he takes this as an opportunity to keep working hard.
“I remember so many times watching the Grammys thinking to myself ‘one day I’ll win one,’ and using that as a fuel to know that one day you’ll be on that stage as well,” Dandee added.
Their latest album Colegio is a nostalgic homage to school days.
I asked the brothers if there’s something from their school days that they would bring back.
“Renting movies at Blockbuster,” Dandee shared. “That moment when you’d go on a Friday night to rent a movie and you had the weekend to watch it. Next thing you know, you’d rewatch the movie like 2-3 times because you had to return it. It’s unheard of now to rewatch a movie within a matter of days,” Cali added.
However, there’s one thing both brothers would definitely bring back:
“More than anything, we would want to bring back concerts, and seeing people interact with the music live,” Cali said.
