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Demi Lovato‘s Spanish is limited, and Grupo Firme‘s Eduin Caz says his English is “limited and a half” — but somehow the artists were able to make musical synergy with their dance-pop collab, “Chula,” which dropped Thursday.
“This is completely out of my comfort zone but I love that,” Caz tells Rolling Stone. “We had a really great guide with Demi.”
The pair of artists met in the studio in Los Angeles to record the song after Lovato expressed interest in doing a bilingual track. (She last collaborated with Luis Fonsi on “Échame La Culpa” in 2018.) Since both Grupo Firme and Lovato share a distributor, they were able to carve out a time to get together to record the song. Both artists were immediately down to work together.
“I would see Demi on TV! And now look at us with this collab,” Caz says with a chuckle. “We got along super well. I love her.”
“It’s really cool to showcase that side of me in my music,” Lovato, who is of Spanish and Native American descent, tellsRolling Stone. “That’s what I love about singing in Spanish: It goes back to my literal roots.”
The pair of artists had some of their co-writers and producers double as translators so they could write the song and communicate. Lovato brought Oak Felder, while Caz brought his own team to “make the song sound more authentic to his genre,” says Lovato.
Caz says he was wowed by Lovato’s vocals in the studio and heard her record her part of the song 10 times. “The engineer would tell her to record it again, and I was like, ‘What?! Why?’ Every time it was perfect,” Caz says. “She has an insane voice, and she would do it like it was nothing.”
Last week, Lovato joined Caz and the boys of Firme onstage during the band’s show in Austin, surprising the predominantly Latino crowd with the debut performance of the song. The track arrives amid Firme’s La Última Peda tour, which has seen the vocalist reunite with old bandmates after considering retiring from music altogether.
“I was really stressed and angry with everything. I never imagined things would get so hard,” Caz says candidly, adding that he also had to address a “serious health condition” that pulled him from performing for six months. “My oldest son would ask me, ‘When are we going to a concert?’ And I’d say, ‘There aren’t going to be any more concerts, mijo.’ It was the truth.”
Ultimately, Caz decided to reunite with Firme to “make my son happy” and help out his Firme “brothers,” since they needed the work. This time, his lifestyle has changed, since he’s only agreed to do one or two shows a weekend so he can rest. “Sometimes after our concert ends, I’ll just go straight home,” he says. “I’m becoming much healthier. I’m super happy and feeling really good.”
As for Lovato, she’s set to release her film directorial debut, Child Star, on Sept. 17 via Hulu. “It’s not a cautionary tale but it’s something that I want people to watch if they’re thinking about getting their children into acting, modeling, singing, and on TikTok,” she says. “I wanted to make a film that delved into the history and talked about how we can protect future child performers.”
She’s also been spending time in the studio “exploring with a bunch of different sounds” to see what will come on her next album and that she’s made a “couple of songs” in a certain genre, but she doesn’t want to limit herself. to one sound.
“I can say that I’m pivoting from the rock era,” she says. “I just don’t know which direction I’m going in yet.” (Her last LP, the punk-rock LP Holy Fvck, came in 2022. She also dropped a rock reimagining of her pop hits, Revamped, last year.)
“I started writing my album a year ago and have explored for a few months in different genres at a time,” she says. “I’m still figuring out my sound and I think I’m committed to what I’ve made because I’m really excited about it, but I don’t want to cement myself with a specific genre in the public just yet.”
She’s also been listening to a lot of new music. Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Raye, Lucky Daye’s Algorithm, and Kesha’s “Joyride” are on her playlist. “I am obsessed with that song,” Lovato says. (Both Lovato and Kesha are set to perform at Mexico City’s Festival Hera HSBC next weekend.)
“For this end of 2024, I’m manifesting that I finish an album,” she says.
