Before making a huge mistake, Alex Gárgolas left doing everything right. The executive producer of the old school of Puerto Rican reggaeton realized that there was a business opportunity in Chile, given the resounding success of local singers on streaming platforms, so he personally came to Santiago to record Chilean Reggaeton Vol 1the album that would bring together for the first time the most popular voices of our scene: Cris MJ, Standly, El Jordan 23 and Marcianeke, among others.
An expert in self-promotion, Gárgolas knew how to make himself known in the Creole environment. His industry-veteran gibberish won over the urban press and caught the public’s attention. The problem was precisely that: that he talked a lot.
After several weeks heating up the atmosphere with what would be Chilean Reggaeton Vol 1, last Thursday he uploaded an Instagram story that generated antibodies for his bombast: “Now comes the litmus test for Chileans. How many are going to be left ringing in regions of Chile and those who are going to transcend the world (…) How many are going to have their private jets and their Rolls Royce”.
Many of us are left with the same doubt: who passed the baton to this gentleman? Until that moment, the most sensible gesture by Gárgolas had been to publicly acknowledge in an interview that the urban movement in Chile had risen up without his help or anyone else’s.
The audience rewarded those statements by making them go viral and, consequently, raised their eyebrows when they saw that shortly after the same character headed to the scene as if he were their leader. For pretending to be a captain without earning the jineta and going around promising luxuries with the rhetoric of a sugar daddyNegative comments were not long in coming.
you’re going to run out of dessert
Under pressure, Gargoyles reacted in an unfortunate but revealing way. The erratic phrases he published in the following hours ended up burying his chances of bringing together the elite of Chilean urban music on the same album.
Annoyed at reading fans accusing him of coming to revive his flagging career, he posted a series of messages as confusing and passive aggressive as this affectionate statement followed by boycott threats: “I love you. We will no longer do anything with Chile. Then we are going to see who is going to open the concerts of our stars there”.
The situation escalated rapidly. In his delirium, Gárgolas tried to force the narrative that this was not his problem, but rather a large-scale conflict between Chile and Puerto Rico: “Either you respect our artists who are bigger than you or the war starts.”
But the entire Puerto Rican scene took the floor from him, sharing messages in favor of our country and its musicians. From the classic Don Omar to the current Mora, all of them completely distanced themselves from the fight that the controversial producer tried to invent.
During those hours of agitation in the networks, and at the peak of his inconsistencies, Gárgolas also declared that: “We must promote unity for the good of culture.”
In the same story, he recommended a song by Young Cister, one of the essentials of Chilean urban music, whom he called an “emerging artist.” Putting things in their place, Cister tweeted about it: “Sorry Alex Gárgolas but I’m not an emerging artist. I’ve been trying to contribute to the Chilean genre for more than five years before it exploded”. Ouch.
Finding himself cornered, Gargoyles was unable to turn down his condescending tone and again attempted to use his power as a wild card.
“All countries are seeing how Chile is behaving,” he wrote without noticing that he sounded like a punishing father who appeals to the shame of public ridicule to prevent a tantrum. Along the same lines, he threatened to leave without dessert (that is, without Chilean Reggaeton Vol. 1) to the disobedient children of the local urban movement: “The album that was going to be for Chileans will no longer be like that. The true devils from Puerto Rico will enter the album and several from Chile”.
The union of gender
At that point, it was too late to play that card and no singer wanted anything to do with Gargoyles.
A detonated Pablo Chill-E, based on lethal taunts, led the massive exodus from the album. “I’ve asked a lot about you on your island and everyone knows what you are,” the Shishiboss told him in a message topped off by pig emojis.
Then he spoke directly to his colleagues: “You are already successful, you don’t need a culiao perkin album to sound more”.
After a while, each of the guests began to get off, some without wasting the opportunity to bash the Puerto Rican for his opportunism and his air of superiority.
In fact, the phrase “I’m getting off the album” became a meme automatically.
Gárgolas’ dizzying fall from grace was sealed when, in a simply stupid decision from a strategic point of view, he posted a photo of Pablo Chill-E dismissing his career and insinuating that he would use his power to boycott the dates of new Chilean artists in abroad. It was a shot in the foot.
A while later he had to make the inevitable announcement: “The album from Chile is not going. Stay in your country.” End of controversy? Not necessarily, but without a doubt this puts a tombstone in the projects that the businessman had in the country.
Of course, the post of the failed Gárgolas album was quickly taken over by several national producers who saw the opportunity to, now, do something historic from within the movement.
Between the audience, the artists and the media there is an air of consensus that has not been felt since the days of the social explosion when everyone agreed to condemn the authorities and the institutions. Having a common enemy, apparently, tunes wills.
Ironically, Alex Gárgolas’ disastrous passage through Chile did manage to unite the scene as a whole, only not around his figure but against it.