Joaquina

Joaquina creates her work from a base in Miami, where she functions as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose sound merges sweeping mainstream pop and folk elements with contemporary Latin pop performed entirely in Spanish. Her vocal range stretches from a delicate alto register into a forceful soprano falsetto marked by a distinctive warbling quality. At sixteen she issued an independent single accompanied by a self-made video for “Primer Amor,” an effort that secured her a contract with Universal Latino. Among the subsequent releases were the 2022 track “Freno” and the charting single “Rabia.” The 2023 EP Los Mejores Años brought an invitation to that year’s Latin Grammy Awards, where she claimed the prize for Best New Artist.

Born Joaquina Blavi Canabal in Caracas, Venezuela, she is the daughter of television presenter and fashion influencer Camila Canabal and sports commentator Francisco Blavia. The family relocated to Miami when she was four, at which point she began violin lessons. Voice training commenced at age six and piano study followed at seven; she later added guitar to her instrumental skills. Joaquina composed her first song at eight before turning briefly to spoken-word poetry and ballet training. By eleven she was uploading cover performances to Instagram and YouTube. Songwriting resumed at thirteen, and at fourteen she enrolled in high-school music-theory courses. In 2020 the independently released “Primer Amor” reached streaming platforms and drew the interest of Universal Latino, which signed her the next year. She also prepared demo recordings that reached Julio Reyes, founder of Art House Academy and Abbey Road Institute Miami. Impressed by the material, he arranged two forms of instruction: the Academy refined her compositional approach while the institute provided training in engineering and production.

Three singles appeared in early 2022—“Nina de Instagram,” “Freno,” and “Rabia”—all of which achieved notable success. These were followed by the track “Los Mejores Años” and, in May, the EP of the same name, which gathered the earlier singles alongside the new song “Blanco y Negro.” Billboard subsequently named her among its emerging artists of the year and she received a Latin Grammy nomination in the Best New Artist category. By October she had issued “Quise Quererte,” the first single drawn from her forthcoming 2024 debut album. The year concluded with her acceptance of the Best New Artist honor at the Latin Grammy Awards.