Music

Hi, everybody. My name is Karol G. I am from Medellín, Colombia. This is my first time at the Grammys, and this is my first time holding my own Grammy.”

To her tens of millions of fans and followers (68.2 million on Instagram alone) watching February’s Grammys telecast, that humble introduction from the winner of this year’s award for best música urbana album wasn’t surprising — Karol G’s openness and honesty, along with the personal nature of her music, are a big part of what has endeared her to so many. Still, the award felt a bit superfluous.

At 33, Karol G just wrapped an extraordinary year in which she became the first woman (and second artist ever) to top the Billboard 200 with an all-Spanish-language album (Mañana Será Bonito, for which she won that Grammy); the top female Latin artist on Billboard’s year-end charts (behind only Bad Bunny and Peso Pluma); and the winner of album of the year at November’s Latin Grammys, as well as urban album of the year — the first woman to win the latter.

Karol is also the first Latina (and still one of only a few women) to headline a global stadium tour and the highest-grossing Latin touring artist of 2023 by far: According to Billboard Boxscore, she grossed $155.3 million and sold 925,000 tickets from 20 shows, placing at No. 11 on Billboard’s all-genre year-end Top Tours chart. The only women who fared better on the list were Beyoncé and P!nk, who played 55 and 37 shows, respectively. (Taylor Swift did not report her 2023 touring numbers.)

And yet the artist born Carolina Giraldo still feels she has something to prove. “I’m certain many people still don’t know me and don’t know what I’ve done,” she says. So at the Grammys, “I wanted to make it clear, because I have so many projects planned, that I want them to know I’m working to accomplish far bigger things.”

And as Billboard’s 2024 Women in Music Woman of the Year — the first artist who records only in Spanish to receive the honor — Karol says she’s even more motivated to maintain her stunning upward trajectory. “It’s so meaningful and inspiring to get an award that’s not only ‘woman of this or that category’ but ‘Woman of the Year.’ I feel a huge responsibility to make the year on par with the title,” she says. (Karol’s sister Jessica Giraldo, an attorney who co-manages her with Noah Assad and Raymond Acosta of Habibi Entertainment, is on Billboard’s Women in Music executive list this year.)

Karol’s journey to the top of the charts has been slow and steady over the past decade. But in 2022, it accelerated (and went beyond language barriers) with her $trip Love U.S. arena tour, which grossed $72.2 million and sold 424,000 tickets. That helped send Mañana Será Bonito to a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 in February 2023, which, in turn, led to her first stadium tour and the release of a second album, Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season), which debuted at No. 3 in August.

Since the very beginning of 2024, Karol says she has “literally made music every day,” working with collaborators including longtime go-to producer Ovy on the Drums, who often meets up with her on the road and will be traveling with her during the Latin American leg of her tour. That kicked off Feb. 8 with the first of three sold-out dates at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca (80,000 seats per night, according to promoter OCESA). Karol will play 24 stadium dates in Latin America (most were already sold out at press time) before moving on to 16 arenas and stadiums in Europe, including three dates at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid.

“The fact that she headlined predominantly theaters in 2021, then arenas in 2022, then jumped to stadiums in 2023 is unprecedented for any genre,” Jbeau Lewis, Karol’s touring agent and partner at UTA, told Billboard last year. “It’s easy to talk about Karol as a leader in Latin music, but based on the success she has had, especially this year, she should be spoken about in the same breath as Taylor or Beyoncé.”

Karol is acutely aware that as her global audience grows, the stakes for what she does next keep rising. “I started this year with a completely different mindset,” she says. “Although this may sound like a beauty queen reply, the place I’m at right now is one of huge responsibility, and it demands that I’m very aware of what surrounds me so I don’t make missteps.”

To prepare, she took some time off over the winter holidays — an effort toward “working enormously on my mental state, black belt level,” she says with a laugh. “I’m very clear about my plans, my vision of the future and the order in which I want to release [music] and express myself.”

For a Colombian who grew up in Medellín in the aftermath of cartel leader Pablo Escobar’s death, when the country was consumed by drug warfare, that sense of responsibility is especially personal and profound. “My father always told us: ‘We have an obligation to give back — not what’s left over but what’s right,’ ” she says. That idea inspired her in 2021 to launch the Con Cora foundation, which supports women in vulnerable situations through actions in education and the arts.

“When I take the stage in a stadium, one of the reasons I cry is because I know one day this will all be over; I’ll be home remembering the time I was No. 1,” she says. “That’s life. But what I will have is a school I built, or a project we launched [through the foundation]. Today, and in 10 years and in 50 years, lives will change thanks to something we built.”

In the meantime, even as she tours, Karol is putting out singles and remains “very open to experimenting with new sounds,” as is clear on “Contigo,” her recently released song with Tiësto. “I’m feeling very proud because I’m working. I’m really rising to the challenge, and I have to push forward, push forward,” she says. “I may be a very important Latin artist, but I still have the whole world ahead of me.”

This story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.