Welcome.

To South Beach Sessions. We don't usually have this fame around here. There's a lot of bustle around you. It seems like a lot of responsibility to be Nicky Jam. I can say a Reggaeon pioneer, correct? You feel like a pioneer. You don't have to be humble here. You can feel like you helped to introduce this music.

I knocked a lot of doors for this music to be where it is today. I'm one of the ones. I'm one of the guys that knocked on a lot of doors. I can't take all the credit, but there's a lot of reggae-tong artists that are not active today that started with me back in the days. It's been almost 30 years.

Your journey is fascinating. I'm curious what you think is most interesting about your journey, because I don't know if it came with all of the expected things. What's happening around you? I don't know how comfortable you are in it. Certainly, you're used to. But the bustle and the economy around you, the number of people around you, buzzing around you, it seems like a lot.

Yeah, it seems like a lot, but most of the people that's around me, they're family. They're family. They've been with me for more than a decade. Some of them have been with me for more than two decades. I feel good. I feel good with the people I'm with. The most, I could say, crazy thing about my my career is the comeback. I started in 1994, my first album. I was discovered at a supermarket. I used to pack groceries and free style while I pack groceries. This lady heard about me, and then she took me some weird... She took me that same day. She heard me. She took me to her husband. He worked for a record label called MP Records back in the days. I don't know if that record label still exists, but...

Literally bagging groceries. You were discovered bagging the groceries for a customer?

Yeah, that's the way I used to make money when I was a kid. I make $20 a day, and with that, I would buy bread, milk, Coke, ham, cheese, and bread, and cigarettes for my dad. That was my job every day. If I wanted to go to the theaters with a girlfriend or something like that, I would make $20, and I would hope that she won't ask for more than $20 in the theater because that's sometimes you with your girl, and she wants popcorn, she wants this, she wants that.

You were sweating.

Oh, my God! It was stressful, but it's good to go through that because it makes you value life way more when you get more money or whatever.

But you were dreaming back then. You were thinking to yourself, you're freestyling, you're doing it out loud while you're doing your job, and you're discovered.

By somebody who just- Yeah, I became like a celebrity, a small celebrity there at the supermarket. I'd be like, Oh, have you seen this kid that he'd be rap while he's packing groceries? Back in the '90s, in Puerto Rico, rap was something that was new. For everybody, it was like magic. I've always been really good when it comes to freestyling. I would freestyle. I would freestyle about the letters, the tomatoes, the bread, and all that with the client that was there. They give me two dollars, three dollars. That's how the came to me. They told me, You rap. You're not going to rap for me. Then I started rap for her. Then she took me, she asked me, Can you come home with me? I'm like, No, because I didn't know her. I was only 11 years old, 12 years old. I did that album. From there, the album sucked, to be honest with you, because how creative can you be when you're 12 years old? But the reality is the DJs from the underground world, the mix tapes, they like my style. They're like, Yo, he's a young kid, but he could rap. He has a good delivery.

I started recording and mix tapes, and I became one of the biggest mixed tapes singers in the industry.

No preparation for what it would bring, right? What training? What adulthood? What practice did you have with what success brought?

I mean, no. I mean, you never prepared for all this. But the reality is I didn't know it was going to be as this big. Back in '94, we were 93, we would just go to a Sweet 16 and just ask them if we could perform on stage. From dreaming to go on stage and letting people let us perform to becoming somebody that people will pay you to perform, that's a new ball game. But the reality of everything is I was very young, and I came from a really dark past. My mom was a drug addict, my dad was a drug addict as well. When we were really poor in Massachusetts, my dad, they locked him up because an undercover cop caught him with 25 kilos of cocaine. He paid bail instead of fighting in court for the case. He just took us as a fugitive to Puerto Rico to raise us because he was scared because my mom wasn't in condition to raise us. He knew it was something that was going to happen. He took us to Puerto Rico. That's how I got to Puerto Rico when I was 10 years old. I was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

What chance do you have of being stable when your life growing up in the formative years is that unstable? Because I cannot imagine what the details are of both parents being addicted to drugs.

Well, the reality of everything is I'm still not stable. You're never going to be stable. It's a trauma that's going to haunt you the rest of your life. But the reality is I'm a happy guy. I'm always joking around. I have good energy. I let that take over, and I think music helped me a lot, and music stabilized me a little bit. I can't say I'm full stable. I can't say I'm full happy. I can't say I don't have my demon from the past. My skeletons in the closet. I do have them, and I fight with them every day. I think that's just something that a lot of people won't say. A lot of people see me and they call me the Phoenix because I came from the ashes and I did a comeback in my career. You'll probably go there later. But the reality of everything is they probably expect me to be in a perfect moment because I did a comeback. My career is really good, and I've done so much. I did my Netflix series and that talks about my life and all that. Obviously, it's a beautiful story, but the story never ended.

I'm still here. I'm 42 years old. I'm still performing. I'm still singing. I'm still touring. I'm still fighting with these demons from the past. What you do is you try to get better and better every day to take it day by day. But if you ask me how I am now, if I'm better than when I was 20 years old, 100%. If you ask me if I still make the same mistakes that I made back in 20 years ago, of course not.

Well, you know.

Yourself better, right? 100%.

It also sounds like what you're saying is the comeback as improbable as the original Phoenix story is. Exactly. It sounds like the comeback was even harder if you're saying that's.

What- 100%. 100% it was huge. I had my hits before my downfall, before I got in jail, before I fell off on drugs and all that. But when I came with the comeback, it was like global hits. I'm talking about back-to-back five songs number one in the whole world, global songs would be more than 1 billion views each. It's like something that is crazy. It's something that was never seen before in the music industry in that time. Now, today is different because we opened doors to great singers like Bad Bunny and all these great superstars that are making all these numbers because you had all these old-school cats opening the doors and making the way.

This is a broad question, but what did the Downfall teach you?

It teach me that discipline is everything. Discipline is everything and a good mentality, a good energy is everything. Because if you think to yourself that you are just trash, you are going to be trash. If you have a mindset that you are a diamond, you're going to be a diamond. If you have your mentality, everything's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. But another thing that I learned is when you do good, when you're a good human being and you're genuine and you do good things, bad things can happen, but more good things are going to happen. When you do bad things, it's going to be a train of bad things coming for you. You know what I'm saying? You're bringing that bad energy. You're bringing that dark cloud to yourself. That's what I do. I try to have a good mentality. I try to have good energy and try to do good. You know what I'm saying? Help people. I needed that downfall so I could fix myself as a human being and become the human being that I am today.

What needed fixing?

A lot of things. First of all, just because I didn't have my mom, I didn't see my mom for more than 15 years, I fell abandoned. I was a rebel. I didn't care about life. I didn't care about dying. I didn't care about doing anything. I didn't care about going to jail. I didn't care about taking somebody's life. I didn't care about nothing. Nothing. My mentality was like, I don't care because- Unloved, right? Unloved, yeah, 100%. But once I went to Colombia, the country that gave me everything and gave me that comeback that I felt that the country gave me, they backed me up and they told me, You're a legend. We love you. We back you up. You know what I'm saying? You're everything. They gave me that love that made me love myself, and they made me change my way and my mentality. Because this country, specifically, Medellina, Colombia, the people are so humble. These are people that if you ask them, Do you know which street? Where's this street? They will stop doing whatever they're doing to take you to that street. These are the people that you go to a restaurant and you ask them if they have this particular plate, and they're like, No, we don't have that here, but we'll go buy the stuff and we'll make it for you.

This is a country where for them, buying the new clothes they're going to wear for Christmas is so big. In the states, it's not even like that. You know what I'm saying? They'll tell you, Is that brand new? They'll be happy with that. In the States and Puerto Rico, you would never say it's brand new. Is that brand new? No, I've had this. Because that's the mentality we have, the Puerto Rican mentality specifically. If I was already a humble guy because my dad showed me that, Metha Jean made me way more humble. I transmitted that on social media as soon as Instagram was available. As soon as they gave those 15 seconds of video on Instagram, I was probably one of the first influencers known in the Spanish world, and that's why I became so famous. I have almost 50 million followers, and I don't even post anything anymore. I've stopped posting on Instagram. All those followers, because of the impact I caused in that time that I was showing my life and showing people who I was really in the new Nicky Jam and the new mentality and the new energy I had, and I showed that to the world, and that's what made me the guy who I am today.

I'm not sure you finished the answer on what needed fixing. I know with me, when I do therapy, one of the things that I wish the most for myself that I have some difficulty with is I have a hard time forgiving myself or being gentle with myself wherever the failures or the downfalls are. How did you treat yourself as somebody who felt a little bit unloved when you're looking at yourself and you're like, I need fixing. I don't care about anything. I'm unloved?

I think, first of all, just cleaning myself with drugs. That was one of the first movements. Before I went to Colombia, it's crazy, but there was a small church, and I heard a preacher. He was preaching. I stopped in my car. I was on my way to Colombia, and I knew I was going to move to Colombia, and I knew it was a country that was going to give me what I needed, the peace that I needed, and everything that I needed to get back on track. I went to this church. I was standing behind the church and the preacher, he was preaching and he would say, I know why you came here. Then he kept preaching and he kept talking and he said, It's time. Then he kept talking and he kept preaching whatever he was saying. I felt he was talking to me. Then I just walked to the preacher, and I got on my knees, and I started crying. I cried for almost a half an hour. I was letting everything out. All these things that I saw, my mom, my dad doing drugs, I felt like I had zombies in the house.

You know what I'm saying? All the bad things that I saw that there's so much things that we probably don't even have the time for me to tell you. Everything that I saw with these eyes when I was a kid in my house and all the things that I saw while I was raised again, raised in the hood. You know how people go to war, right? They see so many ugly things and see so much blood and so much unreal things that they never come back the same. I saw so many of this in the hood without even going to war. I had all this inside.

Pushed down? Was it repressed in some of the Latin male places where when you start sobbing, you can't even believe it because you're finally letting.

It go? Exactly. I just cried. I cried for so long. I was letting all that out. I'm telling you, that was the day I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior. I felt automatically that I got all these bricks out of my body. I felt I was way better. Then when I got to Colombia, my energy was so good that I just felt that I cleaned myself and I got way better. I mean, way better. That's what I'm saying. Never fullyrecover. You never fully recover. You never fully-.

What's a daily struggle, you're saying? You're saying they're daily demons. You're humble enough to know that you do not have it conquered and that you can remain powerless in its presence.

You're not going to fall anytime. You never know you could fall anytime because the end of the day, we are human beings. We're not robots. It's like when people say, No, I don't like going to church because I see a lot of hypocrites and church and a lot of people like, But you're wrong, man. When you go to church, they're not angels. They're human beings. They have demons, too. Even the pastor can have demons, you know what I'm saying? Everybody in that church is fighting. They all there because of a reason. They want God to clean themselves, to clean them. We have a battle every day.

What's happening with you before, though, when you're in front of the church? How lost were you? When you say you knew Colombia was going to give you what you needed, what were you searching for? Where were you in the dark place?

I was in the darkest hole in the world because I was doing so much drugs, first of all. I was doing 30 Perks a day minimum. My career was in the floor. I was the embarrassment of Puerto Rico. Everybody was making fun of me. Nobody wanted to record a song with me anymore. This is after me having so many hits and being a young superstar in Puerto Rico. I went through some years where it was just embarrassing to be me. It was embarrassing. I got so much weight. I got fat. I was probably weighing almost like 260, something like that. Self-esteem in the floor, not only physically and mentally and the music, everything. The reason why I decided to move to Puerto Rico, to Colombia, was because I was in Puerto Rico not doing anything and no shows and I can't even barely pay the rent. They called me for a show there. I went there. When I went there, I thought, Well, I had to change my voice and act like I was my own manager, you know what I'm saying? Put the deep voice and act like I was my manager. When I went there, I remember that all the performers that were there before me were really popping.

They were doing so good. It was like, you could say the wackest one because my songs were old. But the reality is what people saw as old songs in Puerto Rico, they saw as classics in Medellín, Colombia. For them, they were really waiting for me. They didn't care about the newborn. They wanted to see the legend in their mentality. I didn't feel myself as a legend. Because for me, a legend is somebody that had more than 40 years. Now you could tell me I'm a legend, and I could probably understand why you're telling me this. But in that moment, I had a lot of good years in my career, but a lot of bad years. I didn't feel I was a legend. Then I went to this country and everybody made me feel so good. I got on stage and it was like standing o'bation. I started performing my songs and people went really crazy. That gave me hope. Like, whoa, wait a minute.

What were the 30 Percocets doing just making you not look at the shame?

Numb, probably making me not feel anything and not care about anything. It was just something for me to feel good. The reality is I did every drug. I did cocaine, I did weed, I did Perx, I did ecstasy. I was in the ecstasy time where I was a raver and I used to do ecstasy. For some reason, Perks gave me the same feeling that ecstasy gave me without driving me too crazy because ecstasy is too much. I just felt good and it made me feel good. But the problem is when you get into a drug, when you do something like heroin or Perks that is similar because it has the opium on it, you're a slave of that first high, and you're always looking for that high, but you never get it. It's never like that first time. You become a slave of that first high. It comes to a moment where if you don't take the drug, your body hurts. It's not one day of hurting. It's two, three, four, even five days of hurting. Your body is destroyed because it needs the drugs. I was avoiding those three days. I knew because I've hurt other people that stopped, and it was something I didn't want to go through.

It wasn't until I got to Colombia that I said, Okay, I want to clean myself. I have this good energy. I feel way better about myself. I have to stop doing drugs.

Have you examined the roots of the behavior or is it you get famous, you get to success, you try something and it feels good, and then you can't stop, and I don't need to examine whether I was.

Self-medicating or not. The reality is a lot of things. First of all, I come from a mom and a dad that come from their addicted personality. That's the first thing. The second thing is in the movement of the streets of Puerto Rico, it was so common. Everybody was doing it. It was like, You don't do it? People were surprised if you didn't do drugs. It's like everything. You start with a cigarette, right? From cigarette, you go to weed. From weed, you go to Coke. Coke, you go to this and that. When you realize you get hooked onto something that you really find yourself... I have to travel with these... If I was touring, and I'm not talking about I would do these tours and make a lot of money. I'm talking about $1,000 per show tours, you know what I'm saying? Because it was the only thing I could get in that time that I was in my downfall. If I was a whole month, I needed probably to take 300 perks, 400 perks. Part of the money that I made on the shows were for the pills. Then I would travel to these places with these perks.

I would buy a buyer aspirin, and the perks looks a little bit like buyer, so I would just fold that bottle and put it in a bag and travel everywhere with that. If I would have lost that, it would have been a problem because it would have been two or three days of agony of the pain.

You knew while you're in it, you're addicted. 100%. Is there some shame in it? Or is it.

Just I'm- Shame? The reality is when you were hooked on it, you don't care about shame. You have no time for shame. You need to find more perks. You know what I'm saying? There is no shame. The shame is when you have to ask somebody for money to buy. That's the shame, and that happened a lot. You know what I'm saying? I had to ask random people that I would never ask because you're a drug addict, and you need to feed it. You know what I'm saying? They say you need to feed the monkey. How are you going to feed it? You got to ask for somebody. Sometimes I would do crazy stuff. I would go to a show, and I did this, and this happens a lot. I would go to a show, and a lady would be like, Yo, I would tell the lady of the show, Can I use your computer? Can I use your laptop? I knew I didn't have no more money because I wasted the money of the show. I would steal a laptop, and I would take it to a pawn shop to buy more when I got to the state.

It was like, it's horrible. It was just horrible. Those were the things. The other shame was all the things that were happening, child support. I didn't have money pay it. They would take my cars away, stuff like that. Stuff that would happen to a person that does not have money to pay their addiction.

Without rummaging too much in the scars left by your parents, can you explain to me what it is that your childhood imprinting is that is hardest for you to shake or adjust, or accept in adulthood about yourself?

Wow! I could say not having my mom. It's the biggest scar. A mom is everything. A dad, you could say, We do need my dad. You need your dad. I love my dad with all my heart, and my dad was my mom and my dad. But the reality is a mom is very important in anybody's life. I think that I felt like, Wow! You preferred drugs over your son. That hit me hard, and that made me be the rebel that I was for a long time. Until this day, me and my mom, we linked up together after a lot of years. She found me in Dominican Republic in a show, and I knew it was going to happen because I felt it was going to happen. But until this day, we do not have the relationship that mother and son should have just because of all the time that we wasn't together. It's like being with somebody that you don't know. It could be awkward sometimes, could be uncomfortable. But you keep trying. Do I forgive her? Of course, I forgive her 100%. I bought her a house. I take care of her.

Is it 100% though? Because it sounds like wherever it is that your self-esteem was lacking in some of those places, you could trace it to, Hey, mom, the feeling of you chose addiction over me. A child looking at that can't shake that rejection. You say, I forgive her 100%, and I ask you, do you?

I probably don't. I probably don't know that that's a situation in my life. I'm going to be honest with you. It's probably something that I probably need that therapy. I've never been to a… How do you say it? Psychologist? Psychiatrist. I've never been. I've never done that. I've always-.

Well, Latin males have trouble with this. I know that I had to feel I need help, and I had trouble asking for it. But the things you're talking about, of course, they're going to leave damages, and they're going to leave damages if unexamined will affect your relationships, all of them, the way that you trust people, women, anything like this. If you don't find wherever the forgiveness is for, Hey, mom, you left me damaged here by making me feel like I wasn't worthy of love because the drugs mattered more to you. I'm surprised you have that viewpoint as someone who has also had trouble with drugs and probably wouldn't say to anyone that I'm choosing drugs over love.

Well, the reality is, like I said, I probably do need it. I probably do need to recover from that 100%. I do need to forgive her 100%, and I probably do need help. I'm just being honest with you 100%. Probably have to make a move. Probably have to sit down with somebody and talk and see what's my situation. Probably it's because of what you said, probably me being Latin and being a man thinking I'm very… Because I'm a smart guy. Sometimes I feel like I'm my own psychologist, you know what I'm saying? I'm a strong guy, but you're never that strong. Reality is we all need help. We all need somebody to.

Help us. You have found some solace in religion when you're telling the story of falling before the priest. I can imagine wherever a Latin, a repressed man, a repressed child is, I can imagine the release of finally letting go of, I've been trying to shove all this stuff down. I don't know how much crying you did when you were younger. It sounds like you saw horror after horror, but the freedom of release must make you feel very close to God to just let go of whatever it is it was.

Tormenting you? God helped me a lot. But sometimes we move away from God. I can't say. I'm talking about that moment that I accepted God as my savior. It doesn't mean that I stuck with God. It doesn't mean that I became a church person. It doesn't mean that then success came, a huge success came. When a lot of success, a lot of temptations come. It's like I'm saying, I have a new battle now. I have a beautiful career. I have four beautiful kids. They're 21, 21, 18, and 11. But there are kids that I've had with different women, and they're not kids that I raised them there at my house, that probably would make a lot of change in your life, too. The reason why probably I don't have that affection with my kids like normal parents would have is because probably I didn't have that. A lot of people say that they give. They tried to give to their kids whatever they didn't have. That's a lie. That's not always like that. Because how are you going to give something you never had? You don't know how to do it. Sometimes when you have a good house in your house, you have love.

It's easier to show love because they showed you that. It's a foundation. You saw that. You saw how mom should treat dad and how dad should treat mom and how dad and mom should treat the kids. It's something that you're prepared for and you're raised and you're trained for that. I wasn't trained for this. That's why some people would judge me sometimes like, Oh, why you have so many relationships? But then they see my story in the past and they see my Netflix documentary, and then they say, Oh, my God, he had it hard. Okay, so now when you see me in unstable relationships, you should understand where I come from. They still judge me. They judge me because I last one year with a relationship. It's just because it's probably a matter of time where I could be a stable guy. Probably I still have a lot of healing to do. When you have all this toxicness inside you, it's hard for you to give the best of you, the best version of you to any girl.

But also, what does love look and feel like to you if you have spent a lifetime feeling on love.

Exactly. Even though I give a lot of love, even though I'm a guy that you can ask anybody about me, and I'm not bragging, you can ask any of my friends or any of my ex-girls, and they're going to say, He's a good guy. He gave me so much love. He just has a problem with being stable, just staying like, I don't know. I feel like I'm a free spirit. I just can't have nobody lock me in. But if.

You didn't have any discipline in your childhood, if you don't have parents teaching you something, I don't know what you feel like you learned in your childhood, then of course, you're going to be a free spirit, right? 100%. You're going to be a rule breaker? Because when have you ever had to adhere to rules?

100%. No, I agree 100%. That's just the way it is. But the world don't understand that. I ain't trying to make the world understand anything because the reality of everything is just my life. I have to do my own healing. I have to understand myself. I have to understand what I do. I ain't trying to fight with the world, and I ain't trying to make the world understand me. Because the reality is if you don't live what I live, if you didn't go through what I go through, you're never going to understand me. It's like my mom. My mom wasn't the best mom in the world. But then I learned about her story, what she went through when she was a kid. I forgive her. I understand her. Probably not forgive her 100% like you said, but I understand her, and I don't judge her one bit. Because then my life came through, and then I saw how I acted and the way I do things. I'm like, Okay. Probably my kids have to understand where I came from and why I act the way I act and why I do the way things I do.

Where were you in your life? I don't know what the period was, how many years it was between success, then the shame that you're saying you're a punchline. You say people are laughing at you, you're living in your shame, and then you make an improbable comeback, when in there, over how much time that was, did you consider yourself most hopeless about the idea of a comeback even being possible? What were the details happening in that space in your life?

You could say I started in 1994, and it wasn't until... Then I blew up around '98. '98 was when I became the biggest young artist in Puerto Rico. 2003 was when I caught my case and they put me to jail. You could say from 2003 to 2011. It was the worst years of my life. It was disastrous, and it was where I felt like I would never come back. I thought misery was just my life. My mentality was like, This won't come back to me. I would never imagine what's going on with me here. But the mindset is everything. Because when I went to Colombia, my energy changed so much. The way I was thinking and the way I was sleeping and how happy I was for everything that happened. Another thing that happened was I did so much drugs once that I had a brain problem. It's the motor system. The part of the brain that controls the movement of your body was affected, and I almost lost it. I was walking one day, and I couldn't even stop my movement, and I was just scared, of course. I did so much drugs, acid, and ecstasy, and all this that my brain was just not working.

I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to be somebody on the bed forever. Just surpassing that and getting better of that made me enjoy life better. All this happened in Colombia. Everything, the timing was perfect. These people, this country is loving me, backing me up, they're telling me I'm the best, I'm a legend, I'm everything. At the same time, I'm feeling better about my health. I stopped doing drugs. All that combination set the tone for what happened the rest of my career and all the success.

Performance give you anything that the 30 Percocets were giving you? Like, is the performance, is the high of the performance, is the music something that can even be comparable in any way, any place where you're so emotionally connected, whether it's performing in Colombia, Puerto Rico, that it's even comparable to what a drug's artificial high can be?

I could say creating music, not really performing on stage. I like performing on stage. I enjoy the people, and yes, it gives me a lot of energy. But creating music is what gives me that same thing that drugs would give me.

Inspired because you feel something deeply emotional. This is the best you. This is the most confident you. The one who's preparing something in the studio is the artist in you most speaking in the humble language.

Of art. It's like a chef when he's cooking. He feels he's doing his magic. The drugs make you feel magic sometimes, too, to be honest with you. Something about creating music, writing music, and producing makes me feel that probably it's something that happens time by time. Because I'm not going to lie, there are times where I just don't even want to create. There's times I just don't want to do music. I don't want to do anything. I just don't want.

To work. But what's the answer to that question? Why am I not doing this more? What is the answer? How do you...

Probably sometimes I just don't want to do it. Sometimes I just don't feel like it. Sometimes I just don't want to create. Sometimes it doesn't give me the same feeling that it gave me in those days that I'm talking about. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it's just like, I'm tired of it. I've been doing this for 30 years. It's a lot. I'm 42 years old. It's not like I'm old, but I have a career that old people have. It lasted 30 years, and nobody could say you have a 30-year-old.

You're allowed to be tired occasionally. You've been doing it for 30 years. You've been your own economy. You've been running from demons. You're allowed occasionally to not want to do it. What came with fame you weren't expecting? What's the stuff that came with success that when you dreamt of what you wanted this to be, you're like, Oh, I didn't know that those problems came with that?

I could say feeling... Let me see the word. Can I say it in Spanish? Yeah. I feel like you're being invaded. I feel like people just, when you're famous, they feel they have the right to just step on your life. They take a piece of your life, you know what I'm saying? There's no respect for your intimacy. I understand that once you become a public figure, you probably have to say bye to all that. But the reality is I feel like people, phew, that. It's scary sometimes. It's scary how people could just get into a life like that and think they could judge you and put everything out there. That's the bad part about fame. Today, we're not in the '70s. Elvis Presley and even Elvis Presley had problems. We know how he ended. But the reality is he didn't have this. If he was crazy in the '70s, imagine now with this, there is no privacy. There is no privacy. People would say hi with the phone in your face. People will ask you for a picture recording you. People will record everything. It's like a whole bunch of with phones in their hands.

It's just scary. That's just my mentality. I'm not saying I don't appreciate my fans. I love my fans. I love the people that love me. I love being loved, you know what I'm saying? My hero was my grandfather, rest in peace. He was a guy from Spain, and he lived in the street. And to this day, they call that street Eladio Street because he used to help everybody in the neighborhood. If somebody needed a hammer, he would give them a hammer. If somebody needed money to buy groceries. He was like the hero of that street. I always wanted to be like my grandfather. So till this day, I love my people. I love my fans, and I love to help my fans and be there. But there's other part. There's other people that are not fans because a fan won't talk shit about you. A fan won't try to make you feel like you're on the ground. A fan won't disrespect you like that. A fan won't judge you. That's not a fan. That's the part where it really... To be honest with you, you asked me what I didn't know, but in the second part of my career, my manager went to my house more than five times trying to make me come back, and I didn't want to do it.

I told him, I remember, I don't like what comes with this fame. I'm scared of it. I told him straight up. I'm scared of it. But he was very smart, and he knew how to take me time by time. But I always told him, Bro, I don't think I want to go back to that. I just want to make a little money here and make a money here, a couple of shows here. I don't want to be big. He's like, You don't know how big you could be. I know how big I can be. I just don't know if I want to do it.

Well, what were you scared of? Because it sounds like you thought it might just be applause, and then you realize, Oh, wait a minute. There's cruelty in here.

This feeling violated, feeling invaded by the people. When you have your own situations, it's not easy. Imagine a normal person feeling invaded because mom got into his problems and probably two neighbors. Imagine the world, the whole world making fun of you, the whole world saying, Oh, you messed up.

That's what it felt like to you. It felt like to you that everyone was laughing at you.

Not only in the past, not even when I break up in a relationship till this day. That's the bad part of it. I'm talking about the bad part. There's a lot of good things I could talk about my career. A lot of good things I could talk. You asked about the bad. I gave you the bad. That's the bad one. That's the one that I don't like. That's the one that I don't respect. That's the one that sometimes makes me angry and makes me say, Fuck the world. You know what I'm saying? I'm sorry. It's just me being me. That's just the way I am. I don't like people thinking they could get into my life because you don't know me. You don't know what I went through. Why would you judge me if you don't know every part that I went through? You don't know the story. You can't judge people if you don't know the story. People don't know what the fuck they talking about, and they just talk. That's the bad part.

If I may, though, it feels like you've got a little bit of armor up here, and I wouldn't blame you because it is invasive. If you're sensitive in this area, wherever it is, you can't trust the internet with your vulnerability. You cannot trust that people are going to be kind instead of cruel about whatever difficulties you might have with love.

But it's not only an internet. It's not only internet. It's when you walk around the street. It's when you go buy something, you know what I'm saying? I wish it was just internet because you turn off the fucking phone. But sometimes you're buying groceries. And somebody comes in like, Oh, what happened to you? It's just... It's crazy. I know it comes with the territory. It comes with being a public figure. It comes with being a superstar. It's just the part that I don't like. I'm not saying that I'm going to go crazy over this and I hate the world and I don't like people. No, I love people. I love good people. I love real fans. It's like the other day, Bad Bunny. Shout out to Bad Bunny if he hears this. I remember there was a situation with him where somebody recorded him and he threw the phone out. The first mentality of mine was like, okay, that wasn't okay. That was fucked up. But then he did a song where he said, the person that put that phone that I threw the phone in the water when they put their phone, that person wasn't really my fan.

I understood him 100%. Because the reality is if you're really a fan of somebody, you talk to that person. It's like, yo, I admire what you do. Some of these people just want a trophy for their Instagram. They don't give a fuck about you. They just want to show off. They just want to brag, and they don't even have decency to come to you in a good way. Sometimes people come to me like, Yo, can I get a picture? I'm like, Yo, say hi. Say hi first, man. Give me a hug, man.

Just talking. You're just craving a human connection, just to have a normal human moment.

Yeah. If you're a fan, really, you love me like that, show me that. Don't show me you need me for your phone, for your social media, because you just want attention. Because the reality is that's the biggest drug today, attention. Everybody wants attention. That's just sad.

What were you equipped with the second time that you arrived at the attention that you were better equipped to handle because you were more mature, more of an adult? You had learned things from the first time that you liked or didn't like about the experience.

You said it right there. You said it yourself. I was more mature, more adult. I've learned out of all of my mistakes, and that made me... I always said this. I said, God gave me the fame that I have today in a good time. Because if you would have gave me this money that I have now and fame when I was 20, it would have been a problem. But he gave it to me in a moment where my head is stable, and I have a more business mentality now. I have a more mature mentality. But the reality is it's a lot of fame and a lot of success. Sometimes you got to be trained for this. I was trained a little bit, but sometimes it's lonely in the top. You feel lonely in the top because right now, I'm in a moment in my career where I love it, I enjoy it because I'm not the number one artist in the world anymore because there's always going to be a number one artist in the world. Say, today is me, tomorrow is somebody else, and then somebody else because that's the way you can't just be on top forever.

It's just life. It's the way it works. But I have a lot of fame. I'm successful, but I'm not in the spotlight as much, and I can move around a little bit better. I'm enjoying that. I'm enjoying that. My brand is still big. I'm still touring around the world, but I can move a little bit easier because I'm not the number one. When I was the number one artist in the world in that moment, I was really sad and scared, happy because of my success, scared about what's going to be the math on all this. It's too much. Every year, I would come out with a number one hit, a global hit. Every year, it got bigger and bigger, and I felt that more enemies and more envy and more haters and more... It's a scary moment. If you're not prepared for it, you could go crazy. Eventually, I was prepared for it, but it's a lot. You got to be really smart to deal with it. Right now, and I know I've mentioned twice already, but Bad Bunny, I don't know, he's the biggest artist right now in the world. I don't know how he thinks.

I don't know how he feels.

But you don't envy it necessarily, right? You're looking at it and like, Man, that seems like a lot.

I don't envy it more than nothing. I went through it. Remember this. Bad Money right now is number one artist in the world. It doesn't mean that 10 years from now is going to be one with bigger numbers than him. But it doesn't mean that he didn't feel the same thing. You know what I'm saying?

I'm asking you if you look at that. When I say envy, I don't mean envy. No, no, no. I say, do you look at it and see a lot of pressure?

I mean like that seems like a lot. Yeah, but I got it the way you said. What I'm trying to say is that it's scary. I went through the same thing is what I'm saying.

Lonely how, though? When you say lonely at the top, what are you thinking of there?

Everybody wants a peace from you, man. Everybody wants a peace from you. It's just not-.

You're distrustful. There's a demand on your time. You don't know who to trust. You're alone with your responsibilities. No one knows what it's like to be you.

They would just want Nicky Jam. They don't want nick Rivera, you know what I'm saying? It's that. It's a scary moment because you don't know where it's going to end. It's like, wow! You really need to be really strong for that. It's a scary situation, and nobody knows what it is until you're there.

Well, when you say these people don't know what it's like to be me, these people who are judging me and don't have any idea about the details of my story, what are the details of your story that you would like them to know? Not necessarily to soften them, but to explain to them who you are and how you are imprinted and where it is that your flaws reside and where you accept them and where you'd like to be better.

Well, I think I explained it with everything that I've said in this whole interview. I'm a guy that like to keep to myself my intimate life. I have no filter when it comes to talking. But at the same time, there's a line where I don't like to be crossed. I'm a humble guy. I just don't like to be judged. That's it. I don't like to be judged. But it comes from the territory. I understand. It comes from.

The- But you understand the question I'm asking you. I'm talking about the things that imprinted you, the people who are judging whatever it is. Let's make it it bothers you that they're judging your relationships. What would you like them to understand about, Hey, do you know what it's like to come from a life in Puerto Rico where I was singing for money and my parents were both drug addicts and I didn't have a very good chance at success in life from there.

Well, to answer your question, I did a documentary just for that. I did a series just for that. They know, but they still don't know. I wanted them to know what it's like to be, Nicky, and what I've been through. What I did with my documentary is not easy to show the situation of my mom's addiction, my dad's addiction, my addiction, I opened myself to them. I showed them my story. I'm going to tell you something. My legacy is my story because it shows you where you could come from the deepest hole in the world. If you have discipline and you have love for yourself and you have love and you have a good mindset and you love yourself, you could come out of any hole. Especially if you have God with you. But even if I showed and I literally opened myself to the world with my story, you're still going to receive judgment. You still people... Because they don't understand. They forget. They could see the documentary today and say, Wow, Nicky. I remember when it came out in 2018, everybody they saw me. I posted a car in my Ferrari like, Nicky, you deserve it.

What do you mean I deserve it? I deserve it because you saw my story. You saw where I went through. I deserve that. I worked for my shit. I've deserved my car because I worked for my car. Not because I went through all that shit, you know what I'm saying? But a year goes by and they forget about it. What I want people to understand is who I am, where I came from, what I went through, what I did to be where I'm at today, and the type of human being I am. One of the thing is you got to know me before you judge me. You can't judge somebody without knowing the person. Just that. That's just that.

Why did you open yourself up that way in the documentary? What was the need, the impulse for it, and what was difficult to share?

It was difficult to share the situation of my mom because in a way, I feel like I have invaded her, her intimacy, and I invaded my dad's intimacy. I did talk to them, but I know they were uncomfortable with it. I did my part, too. That was really hard for me to show all that and just talk to my mom and say, Mom, I'm going to do this story. I'm going to show my story and what we went through. A lot of people judged my mom because they don't know her story. A lot of people judged my dad, mostly my mom. It's a hard situation. But the reason why I did it was because I felt that I needed people to learn from my story. I needed to get a lot off my chest. I needed people to know who I am and where I came from, and I wanted to do it in life. I don't want to die and then somebody else tell my story. I wanted to tell my own story. I wanted to be there while people saw my story.

But why the need to feel the freedom of, I'm going to show everyone everything.

Because I don't think nobody had a story like mine. There's a lot of people in the music industry that went through what I went through. In life, yes, a lot of people suffering in the world. A lot of people went through a lot. I don't doubt that, of course. It's called life. This world is crazy. This fucking world is fucking crazy. But I felt that people had to know my story. It was an urge I had. I woke up one day and I said, I want to tell my story. I want people to know why of a lot of things. Why that time that I was the embarrassment, why I went through those things, why those rebel moments, why every moment of my life, because it has to make sense after you see my story, is that.

You're proud of yourself?

100%. I am proud of myself.

How did you get to better self-love?

Loving other people, taking care of my family, taking care of my friends. I'm a good friend. I'm a good father. I'm a good son. I could sit down and say, Hey, I took my dad out of the hood, and I got him his house. I got my mom's house. I got my sister's house. You know what I'm saying? I take care of my friends. I take care of people that I don't know. I would answer DMs from people to Venezuela in different part of countries that needed situations to help. Even my best friend, one of my best friends, he's from Venezuela, and he even told me, Oh, you got to chill. You got to stop helping these people because some of these people are taking advantage of you. They don't even need help, and it's just a scam. I would help people because I like helping people. I feel good. I like watching people smile. When I give somebody something, sometimes I could see a movie and I see somebody going through something, and it's something that I know that I could fix. I'm like, Wow, I wish I was right there and I could fix that situation for that person.

That person right now is sleeping on the floor, and he don't have a bed or he don't have a house to sleep in or he's in the street. I would have helped him in that moment. Even when I saw Pursuit of Happiness, I would have wanted to help that guy when he was sleeping in the bathroom with his son and just give him some place to stay. That's the type of person that I am. That's why I'm proud of myself because I like doing right. I like helping people. I like seeing people's smiles in their faces when I help them. I will stop. My sister is the same way. My sister will take off her sneakers to give them to you if you like them. That's just the way we are.

When did you feel least free?

Least free? Right now, to be honest with you. I can't say why, but I could say right now it's when the least for you I feel.

Is it too close to the bone to ask you for more specifics there? Because one would imagine that at this place in adulthood, without knowing the details of what you're trying to protect here and without trying to be invasive, one would think that at this point, you are freer than you've been.

For some reason, because of the fame, because of friends that I have that don't make me feel like that. Because in general, fame, more than everything, I could say, I don't feel free.

I think people would be surprised to hear that just because of what they imagine success to look like and because you do obviously have a gratitude for all of the good things that success has brought you.

Yeah, I do, and I'm grateful. I appreciate every fan and I appreciate everybody, but I'm being serious. I do not feel free today. I don't. I think that if you don't feel free, you don't have peace. The most important thing in the world is peace. That's what we really need in life. That doesn't mean that I'm not steps away from it. I could be. I am planning other things in life, but I do not feel free. You tell me this, and it hurts me in a way because I'm just being real. I can't lie. For some reason, I don't know if God just rang me here to just talk and get a lot off my chest. But yeah, I do have success. I have a beautiful career. I have family. I have everything. Does that mean do I feel free? No, I don't.

Where does happy fit in there? Because I would imagine some of what you're saying there, again, not trying to press too much here, that there is distrust, that an absence of peace comes with, I cannot trust motives. I cannot trust intimacy, I cannot trust people to treat me like human being, whatever it is, it seems like there's earned distrust there.

I think it comes with the territory not to feel free and not to be 100% happy when you're famous. I think it just comes with it, and you just have to take it because it's what I have. I'm a performer, I'm a singer, I'm a famous person, and it comes with it. How many artists, how many famous people been through what I've been through? Some of them are not with us today just because of that situation. Some of them are just sad. Some of them are depressed. Some of them even stop performing, stop being famous because they didn't like what they came. There's so much that it could be, but there's so much I can't say here on this mic right now. You know what I'm saying? Because I just don't feel like it. But I think I said.

A lot. Well, people would imagine that it's all your dreams coming true, and all your dreams coming true, especially when you have the gratitude of not everyone gets this part of the story because being broke and being poor is one thing. But being broke and being poor and then being very rich and then going back to being broke and being poor can be even harder than never having it all and never knowing any better.

It's even worse. I went through that. Having fame and money and then people seeing you from having a good car to having a bus-down car and say, Hey, what happened? Because the world is cruel. The world will tell you right there. They don't care. Like, You all, what happened? You used to be popping. What happened with you? That's really hard. Because it's like you said, if you haven't seen something, it don't hurt. If you've never seen fame and money or anything or good things, it doesn't affect you as much. But once you've seen it all and you lived it and then you lost it all, it hurts double.

I can only imagine how much stronger you got beating yourself up over those eight years, wherever the shame resided on, Oh, those people are laughing at me. Do I deserve to be laughed at like that? I'm a shitty person. I'm going to medicate and self-medicate because that feels better because I've thrown it all away. I imagine it would be hard to be easy on yourself during all of that. Yeah, but.

The reality is I'm a strong guy. I'm really strong. Like I said, I have my situations. You asked me some questions that I answered you where I'm lacking at, but that doesn't mean I'm not a strong guy. I'm a very strong guy. I'm always prepared for that bully, you know what I'm saying? Because... I'll bully back. You know what I'm saying? You tell me something I don't like. I'll snap back on you. I'm ready because I'm from the hood. I was trained in a hard place to deal with these situations. Sometimes I hear other people's problems. I'm like, What? That's your trauma? But the situation is every world is different. Every mind is.

Different, sir. You know you're strong, though. That you know. That you know with total confidence. Your strength has been tested, and you know that it is... It is formidable.

100%.

That's a good thing to know.

Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah. I know. You were asking me about the bad things.

No, but you got the scars. You have the scars. You have the proof all in your life experience because your story shouldn't happen.

Exactly. Yeah. These scars, they going to be my testimony one day. All these scars and everything I went through is going to be what's going to help other people not go through it. I'll take that sacrifice for my people and for the world.

When has performing made you feel best? You say you like the creative process. When have you felt... You're talking about all of the energies that you feel that you absorb. Performing where is the place that you think of when you think about an emotional connection to an audience and an emotional connection to your music?

I can say in both. When I perform in stage and I have all this love, it feels really good. It's something that it's what makes me say, Okay, now I know why I wanted to be an artist. This is the reason why I wanted to perform and be a superstar and all that because I wanted this love. Obviously, when I create magic, I think one of the best things in the world is when you create something for the world and the world accepts it and it becomes big and everybody wants it, you feel good. You feel proud of yourself as a human being. But it's the little things in life. I remember when I got my award, my first number one song on the radio in Medellín, Colombia. Out. They have a countdown for the number one song. I remember that after all those years, I didn't have no hits. I did one song called Pianza is in Me, and this song became number one on the mega radio station in Medellín, Colombia. I cried for almost an hour. Obviously, I cried because it was the first time I had acceptance for the people in the song.

When I performed the song in the stage and everybody sang the song, I cried even more. It's funny because after that, I did really big hits. I didn't feel that way with these huge hits that I felt with these little small hits that I did in these local cities in Colombia. Sometimes it's the little things in life that really hit you hard. It's a package, performing in life. I could tell you so many shows that I went, got on stage and felt so good. I did a show in Chile a couple of years ago, probably two or three years ago, where I performed and I cried because it's just feeling all that love is amazing. It's amazing to feel people love you so much. Sometimes you forget the impact that you give to people and how much people love you. Sometimes people see you and they're like, Oh, my God. You don't understand who you are. I don't. Thank you. Thank you for letting me know how big you think I am. Because for real, sometimes I just don't... It's not that I have low self-esteem or nothing like that. I know I'm Nicky Jam, and I know what I have.

I know the magic that I bring. But sometimes it's good to hear people give you that love and tell you the good things you've done in your career.

I should tell the people that tour dates, tickets, and more, I amkeyjam. Com is where they check you out. I appreciate the honesty. Thank you for being open about all the things. I'm sorry if I got a little close there on some stuff that didn't.

Feel quite free. If it happened, it's because it needed to be happened, and God's timing is perfect. I appreciate you. I think you are one of the best interviews I ever done, to be honest with you. I could tell you a pro.

Oh, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming through.

Thank you so much.