Last night’s American Music Awards included an electric performance of “I Like It” by Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin. While the trio pretty much stole the entire show, the AMAs telecast also included a short teaser for another major (albeit random) Latino collab: We got a preview of the “Taki Taki” video, which sees Cardi, Ozuna, and Selena Gomez joining up over a DJ Snake-produced track.
The video hit YouTube a little later, and sees the four artists in a bunch of different apocalyptic scenarios: There’s fire and lightning and lava and what appears to be a group of women trying to drown Ozuna’s tiny body with their limbs. Certain scenes are about as perplexing as the collaboration itself, but the video is still razor-sharp and explosive, thanks to direction from Colin Tilley — the massive, award-winning director who also did Rihanna’s “Wild Thoughts” and Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda.”
Maybe more significantly, the video is a chance to see the song’s motley crew all in one place. Gomez and Cardi dance with Ozuna, and later with each other, as they trade verses in English and Spanish. The effort makes Gomez’s first foray into pop-reggaeton, and one of a handful of times that she’s sung in Spanish. Cardi, meanwhile, has teamed up with Ozuna before on the banger “La Modelo” from last summer.
In an interview, Ozuna shared that he actually didn’t even know that Selena would be featured on the track.
“He said to me, ‘You got [an] artist,’ and another surprise artist,” Ozuna explained. “He didn’t say to me Selena, and today I come to the video and I see that it’s Selena, and I said, ‘Wow.’”
“I ain’t told him, you see? I am good at keeping secrets. Everyone tells me their secrets — all my friends — and I don’t say nothing,” Cardi chimes in.
We may still have some questions about the features, but that hasn’t dissuaded fans from playing “Taki Taki” nonstop. It peaked as the no. 2 song in the world on iTunes, and made it to the number one spot in 25 countries. The video is still trending on YouTube and beyond.
Check out the full video for “Taki Taki” below.