Esteman

Esteman, born Esteban Mateus Williamson in Bogota, Colombia, works as a singer, songwriter, choreographer, and multi-media artist. After his initial music video "No Te Metas a Mi Facebook" ("Stay Off My Facebook") spread rapidly across YouTube, he became embedded in Colombian pop culture and built audiences across Latin America and Europe through videos, singles, and albums that stood out. Genres flow freely through his output, encompassing quirky funk and R&B alongside vallenato and cumbia, art pop and vintage disco, plus currulao and champeta, with music serving as the structure that lets his provocative lyrics sit alongside one another. The overall project seeks entry into the Latin pop sphere via an approach that merges musical, visual, and performative elements in ways that remain both subversive and accessible. His tenor voice carries a pleasant yet slightly nasal quality, and the resulting songs balance cleverness, warmth, humanity, and humor with equal measures of provocation. Those influences surface plainly in the breadth of his work and the clear lineage running through the arrangements. "Aquí Estoy Yo," his debut hit single, paired him with Colombian pop star Andrea Echeverri. Additional pairings on "Adelante" with Carla Morrison and on "Caótica Belleza" with Natalia Lafourcade extended his reach across continents. A Latin Grammy nomination arrived for Best New Artist, accompanied by coverage from both mainstream outlets and smaller publications. The 2016 single "Baila" encouraged listeners with the line "always dance freely" and took on the status of an informal pop national anthem.

Parental encouragement during childhood allowed his artistic leanings to develop early in Bogota. By age 12, deep admiration for the multi-disciplinary David Bowie led him to several music and theater academies, where studies covered not only music but also media, dance, and theater. High school years brought his first plays and songs, which he also choreographed himself. At Universidad de los Andes he refined his approaches to video, dancing, and songwriting before committing to music as a profession. That commitment involved drawing together numerous influences by freely mixing genres and styles, crafting memorable melodies, shaping lyrics heavy with irony, and scoring tracks with the synthetic textures of analog synthesizers, clusters of percussion, vintage saxophones, and worn acoustic and electric guitars. Homemade videos featuring highly unconventional choreography accompanied the releases.

The 2010 video single "No Te Metas a Mi Facebook" achieved viral status and secured a contract with Universal, which issued it as a single that entered the pop charts. Debut album 1er Facto appeared on the label in 2012 and included the Top 10 collaborative single "Aquí Estoy Yo" with Echeverri, plus contributions from Monsieur Periné and Juan Pablo Vega. Extensive media spots on radio, television, and pop-up events helped establish him as a live draw domestically while the videos attracted notice elsewhere. Multimedia work continued alongside further singles, videos, and connections with assorted local and international artists. Following a tour, sophomore album Caótica Belleza arrived in late summer 2015. Its title-track duet with Lafourcade registered as an immediate hit, while Li Saumet of Bomba Estéreo, Morrison, and Juan Jose Quiñónez also appeared on the set, which proved commercially dominant. Two Latin Grammy nominations for Best New Artist followed, along with an invitation to perform at the inaugural Lollapalooza Colombia, though the festival was ultimately canceled amid the Zika virus outbreak. Activity persisted through tours of Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Mexico, and the United States with his band, plus video releases and involvement in film and theater projects. That year also brought a collaboration with Mon Laferte and Caloncho on "Todos Quieren Sere un Gato Jazz" ("Everybody Wants to Be a Jazz Cat" from The Aristocats) for the charting various-artists collection We Love Disney (Latino), which featured La Santa Cecilia, Julion Alvarez, Eros Ramazzotti, Paty Cantu, and Luis Fonsi among others.

Interviews found Esteman identifying as a feminist and explaining his need for women's energy on albums, in stage presentations, and personally, given that male energy had grown so dominant it had poisoned nearly all of Western culture, a point he underscored by controversially referencing reggaeton music. Mid-2018 saw a return to the studio for what he described as his most personal album. February 2019 revealed the scope of that claim when Amor Libre appeared as a conceptual song cycle centered on love and drawn from his own experiences as a feminist and gay man; the album entered the Top Five of the Colombian pop charts.