Before the viral Tiny Desk session that put them on the map last year as one of the most exhilarating acts in Latin music, the duo of childhood friends CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso toiled in obscurity for seven years, honing their craft in their native Buenos Aires with underground rock band Astor.
“We never got to make a record with our former group, but we played live constantly and learned from making so many mistakes,” CA7RIEL says in Spanish peppered with a barrage of Argentine slang. “It’s onstage that you get to show what you’re really made of. We would make enough to buy three pizzas, then we’d beg the venue for free beer, and they’d give it to us because we were cool. That was our lifestyle.”
“It never felt heavy,” adds Paco. “Playing for 50 people, a small fan base, carrying our own instruments — it was all one big party. Our understanding of capitalism was entirely different in those days. You could say that the world has changed a bit too much during the past few years, and we changed with it. Not everything is different, though. We still lose money when we tour, because we insist on bringing our musician friends along.”
CA7RIEL and Paco met in elementary school. Growing up, they were into jazz, hip-hop, and progressive rock — their current drummer has the Emerson, Lake & Palmer logo tattooed on his arm — and their band fused prog with funk and reggae. Looking to change their fortunes, they started to rap, went urbano, and made a splash in Argentina’s exploding trap scene with hits like 2019’s “OUKE.” Their debut album, Baño María, dropped last year. It featured lyrics by the duo and music composed mostly by high-caliber producers such as Los Angeles-based Federico Vindver.
When the Tiny Desk opportunity popped up, CA7RIEL and Paco seized the moment and hired U.S.-based arrangers. They also augmented their band with top-of-the-line session players: a brass section, a percussionist, and female vocalists. Rehearsals for the performance at NPR’s Washington, D.C. office were held in the U.S.
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Seeped in deep funk and Latin jazz, plus CA7RIEL’s guitar licks, Paco’s raspy flow, and the duo’s wicked sense of humor, the Tiny Desk show captured a certain effortless exuberance, a relaxed bonhomie – the kind of soulful energy that makes Latin American music such a winning proposition to begin with.
The session’s second track in particular, “El Único,” is indicative of their approach. It finds Paco and CA7RIEL humorously comparing notes on their recent erotic exploits, only to find out that they’re both talking about the same woman. The resulting chorus/punchline, “we’ve been fucking the same girl,” became an instant classic and an Internet meme. That line also segues into a spidery electric piano solo that evokes the Seventies mystique of Chick Corea’s band Return to Forever. At times, the duo revel in vulgarity, but they make no attempt to play down the sophistication of their musical training. As a result, their Tiny Desk sounds regal and raucous in equal measure.
Even though Paco and CA7RIEL were mostly unknown at the time, the video found an audience the moment it was released. It currently boasts more than 27 million views.
“It’s funny how this session came to be,” Paco recalls. “We had two weeks to prepare, and started getting desperate because nothing was happening. We got ill during rehearsals, the wardrobe sucked ass, and the brass section played like shit, but none of that mattered in the end. Sometimes you prepare really well for an event and it still goes wrong. This time we arrived to it shitting oil, and it turned out great. We’ve been playing with this group of friends for years — we have chemistry, and the magic happened. We had zero expectations, and I think that played a big part in its success.”
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“We don’t stab each other in the back,” adds CA7RIEL. “If you’re playing like shit, I’m gonna be upfront and tell you about it, but we’re going to work it out among ourselves. We chisel and refine our sound to our liking, without any false politeness.”
Now that the entire world is paying attention, the pressure is on. The 2025 dates of the Baño María Tour include stops at Coachella in April, the Paris edition of Lollapalooza in July, and dozens of other dates throughout Europe and the Americas.
Their latest EP — Papota, slang for anabolic steroids — includes the complete Tiny Desk session, plus four new tracks. Of these, lead single “Impostor” is an alternately hilarious and affecting meditation on the pitfalls of sudden fame, the ridiculous advice of music-business insiders for further success, and the inevitable appearance of the impostor syndrome. “Fucked up/I think we’re fucked up,” they sing in the chorus. “Demasiada presión”: Too much pressure.
Did CA7RIEL and Paco ever imagine success would arrive on such a massive scale?
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“I harbored the illusion that one day we would be traveling around the world and someone would tell me that they love our music,” Paco says. “I never imagined it would be so many people. This is just unfathomable to me.”
“We get bored easily, so we strive to do something different every time,” offers CA7RIEL. “There’s always new ways to make people uncomfortable.”
