Fonseca Breaks Down 5 Essential Tracks From His New Album ‘Antes Que El Tiempo Se Vaya’

“Antes Que El Tiempo Se Vaya” was born, I believe, from that feeling you increasingly get that the year passes by in the blink of an eye. That, to me, is like the seed of the song: one day you’re in January and the next it’s Christmas. I remember when we started writing it with Andy Clay, before Juanes joined the track — it was late November last year, and the conversation started like: “It’s incredible that we’re already in November! 2025 is about to end.” That’s how it began. Then, when Juanes joined, he also wrote a part of the lyrics.

Musically, I felt that merengue done in my own way — because I wouldn’t say it’s pure merengue — was the right way to talk about something so transcendental and reflective with joy. It has a mix of accordion, Juanes’ electric guitar solo, along with horns typical of merengue.

I’ve been away from Colombia for 14 years, but every time I go back and start walking through the city, and every time I land, I have this feeling that I never left. That’s the inspiration behind the song.

But mostly, because I think music has the power to transport you — it happens to me that if I’m anywhere and I hear “La Tierra del Olvido” [by Carlos Vives], it immediately takes me back to that time in school when I dreamed about so many things, and it brings me back to very special moments of my homeland, of my country. I wanted to create that same feeling for people who are away from their country, who are chasing their dreams, often in difficult situations, but remembering that sense of belonging and nostalgia. I’m sure that brings hope and good feelings.

When the song was almost finished, I managed to send it to Rubén Blades, and it was incredible because he quickly accepted the invitation. The following week, he was recording in the studio. He was so generous that I later told him, “Hey, I think it might work better if you sang this part and I sang this other part instead.” And he said, “Perfect.” He went back to the studio and re-recorded it].

He recorded in New York. He also wrote some parts of the lyrics, suggested other things for the arrangements. Honestly, he gave me incredible peace of mind while working on it, because you approach working with a master like Rubén Blades very carefully, and then you find yourself with such an easygoing, relaxed person, which made the process even more inspiring. No egos, just, “I love the song, I love the message it has” — because that’s what he told me — “and I love participating in this, so let’s do what the song asks for.” That’s basically what he said.

“Nunca Me Fui” is quite unique because, of course, it has salsa, but it also has accordion. It’s not that the rhythms are vallenato or vallenato percussion, but it’s like a hybrid between my tropical Latin sound and a more classic salsa. And above all, it has a lot of melancholy. It has a string arrangement in the middle that I love, and it’s very Rubén Blades in that sense. From the moment we started writing it, we almost wanted to pay tribute to his music — and then we ended up having him on the track.

Listen to the song here

It is a song that is very much Latin pop, written out of gratitude to life — and to God — for guiding me through a difficult personal and family time. I thought long and hard about whether or not to write it, because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put that into words; however, I eventually found the right language to express it without delving into details that, ultimately, concern only me. It was a major challenge in that sense — finding a way to put it out there as a personal necessity, yet without getting bogged down in excessive drama.

On this track, I had the wonderful opportunity to write once again with Sara Schell — as well as with Andy Clay, who produced the entire album. But working with Sara — given her unique sensitivity, and the fact that we’ve been writing together since my previous record — we were able to achieve exactly that. And yes, for me, it is a song that carries significant sentimental weight, and holds a deeply personal meaning within this album.

It’s a merengue apambichao, yet it features the very sound I associate with the beginning of my career. Let’s just say that for this album, I wrote nearly 30 songs, and ultimately narrowed it down to the 12 tracks included here. When I began sifting through the demos and figuring out the direction I wanted to take the album, “Loco Enamorado” seemed to reconnect me with that specific moment — a time filled with immense excitement and dreams of building a career and forging a sound of my own. I feel that “Loco Enamorado” serves as an essential piece of that puzzle, embodying the very sound I first began cultivating with tracks like “Te Mando Flores,” “Como Me Mira” and “Arroyito.”

Of course, I’ve explored other genres, and experimented with various sonic styles throughout my career, but that particular sound — that seed first planted with “Te Mando Flores,” which invariably resurfaces across my albums, sometimes more prominently than others — feels undeniably present in “Loco Enamorado.” That is precisely why I chose it to be the opening track of the album. I co-wrote it with Nabález — a brilliant Colombian songwriter and artist — and Andy Clay.

It’s one of my favorite songs on the album. It has a very unique backstory because when we first wrote it — I wrote it with José Luis Roma from Río Roma and with Andy Clay — we initially created a guitar-and-vocals version. It was so raw and painful that one day I told Andy: “No, we have to take it in a different direction.” The song is about missing someone who is no longer around… “Today I sat down to write a list of things I miss/ I have so much inside me that I don’t know where to start/ And the road hasn’t been easy this past year,” [goes part of the lyrics]. When I heard that guitar-and-vocals version, I told Andy: “I think this song could be the kind of thing that, if it really strikes a chord with someone, might hit them so hard that they wouldn’t ever want to hear it again.”

So I told him: “No, let’s take it somewhere else — somewhere that also brings a sense of hope, good memories and joy amidst that melancholy.” And that eventually led us to salsa. We only changed the rhythm. We didn’t touch a single word of the lyrics because — well, I love them, and they touch my heart every time I hear them. Without a doubt, it is one of the songs I cherish most on this album.