Residente Says J Balvin Made Fun of His Lack of Hits & That’s When Feud Really Began

Yes, Residente is still going on about J Balvin. He’s now doing interviews on why he released the track in the first place and detailing every moment leading up to it. If you haven’t heard, Residente’s epic 8-minute music session with producer Bizarrap that dropped last Thursday (March 3), you’re missing out on one of the most recent divided conversations on the Internet. The music session got so popular that it is currently at No. 2 trending on Youtube’s music category.

However, what we didn’t know was that the feud goes back to when the “Atrévete-Te-Te” lyricist met Colombian artist J Balvin. In a conversation with Rolling Stone En Español, Residente said:  “The first time that J Balvin met me, he started making fun of me because I didn’t ‘have hits on Spotify.’ I was talking to Daddy Yankee and after that, I didn’t say anything,” Rolling Stone translated. What might’ve been a joke to J Balvin was a strike-one to Residente.

Later on, that’s when J Balvin’s whole “boycotting” the Latin Grammy awards issue arose, something that Residente took personally since he knows the career opportunities that a Grammy award can bring to those who actually need the award to further their musical career. “People [who] depend on a Grammy to organize a tour, and this guy who’s already a millionaire… gets involved to try to boycott this,” Rolling Stone translated from the conversation Residente had with Molusco. 

What was also not publicly known is that after the “hot dog” comparison occurred, the two called a truce — that is until J Balvin decided to devalue it and publish an Instagram post picking again at the so-called dead situation. In doing so, J Balvin was dragging the “hot dog” joke and changing the narrative into a marketing opportunity. That’s when Residente got heated and decided to take things to another level.

That led to this diss track, which was supposed to come out last Dec., but it kept getting pushed back for one reason or another. And when J Balvin’s team heard of it, they went well beyond their efforts to try to stop the track from coming out. We knew about the alleged lawsuit threats that Residente received based on his previous Instragram post, of which he claimed Sony Music had his back on. The rapper said the president of Sony Music encouraged him to take out the diss track: “si te demandan, yo voy contigo [if you get sued, I am with you].”

But it didn’t end there! Residente then claimed that these calls involving Balvin’s team got so deep that even a friend of Balvin’s psychiatrist called Residente, warning him that he was worried about the outcome and how it would affect his mental health. In saying this, Residente acknowledges that the “In da Ghetto” singer used all the tools he had to stop the track from being released.

Well, now we know Residente’s side of the story. But at almost a week since the track’s release, is it possible that Balvin is pretending it doesn’t exist? I mean, he’s still promoting his advertisements on social media as if nothing’s going on. Based on these two interviews, it seems that Residente is beating him to the punch before Balvin could think of a marketing strategy for this public feud. But only time will tell.