Strutting into a loft office in Buenos Aires’ bohemian Villa Crespo neighborhood, Cazzu is the embodiment of casual elegance, wearing a Miu Miu hoodie and slouchy Louis Vuitton boots with unostentatious ease. The trap and reggaeton superstar is preparing for her first U.S. tour, which kicked off in Chicago on Apr. 23, while still juggling promo for her sororal book, “Perreo, una revolución,” as well as her co-starring role in the wistful new film, Risa y la cabina del viento. Turns out the multi-faceted artist born Julieta Cazzuchelli is experiencing a career high: months ago, she joined Bad Bunny at Argentina’s gargantuan River Plate—her first time singing at the fabled venue—and in August, she’ll headline her first stadium, bringing the genre-adventurous Latinaje show back to her native Jujuy rather than genuflecting to capital hegemony. Somehow, in between, she also finds time for motherhood, living up to her moniker as “La Jefa” and presiding over her kingdom undaunted.
“I don’t dream of stadiums, but rather of music and putting on a beautiful show that will make people happy,” Cazzu tells Remezcla. “I’ve only had one solo show in the United States [in New York in 2021], and a few festival appearances. It’s very far from home, so I’m not always sure if people know me there. But I’m so proud to take Latinaje in nearly its full splendor, which is like live theater, and I’ve been preparing physically, vocally, and emotionally to give my best. It’s a very sad moment in the world, so the chance to go on stage singing and being happy together is a privilege not everyone gets.”
The stage has long been Cazzu’s home, cutting her teeth as a teenager performing with cumbia bands in Jujuy, a mountainous province in Northern Argentina where Andean folklore and indigenous skin tones contrast sharply against Buenos Aires’ European aura. She grew up in a musical family—her father a casual troubadour, while her sister Flor Cazzuchelli is a zamba and cumbia musician oscillating between tradition and showbiz glitz. After moving to the city of Tucumán to study filmmaking, Cazzu continued fronting bands, “playing in small towns, carnivals, for drunk people, in situations that weren’t always safe, but where live music ruled.” She eventually broke through with her solo project Juli K, teaming up with producer Eduardo Goku and infusing cumbia hooks with street-savvy cheek, achieving the hit “Me Enteré.”
“Juli K confirmed that I could have a career in music,” says Cazzu. “Despite my technical shortcomings, I had an identity, and the project pulled focus from the capital to a small artist in the interior.” She was soon invited to perform at an important tropical music program but was blocked since she challenged one of their artists. “It was a terrible blow, not just for me, but for my team. I insisted that we should power through, but they said I didn’t belong in that place, rehearsing in a dirt yard, and that it was time to go to Buenos Aires.”
With money pooled by her mother and grandmother and a cross-country ride from her father, Cazzu headed to the capital in 2016 to record a reggaeton album that, annoyingly, was shelved. She persisted and found an early confidant in RKT luminary La Joaqui, remembering, “The day we met, I was a cumbiera, and she was a freestyler.” They later crossed musical paths with the trap-perreo hit “Ay Papi,” and soon after, Cazzu released her wildly adventurous debut, Maldades, a swirl of reggaeton, dembow, R&B, boom-bap, and trap that made her undeniable.
“I was being recorded, but not included,” reflects Cazzu, hitting on the gender dynamics that foster rivalries and scarce opportunities for women in el movimiento, as well as every other genre. Her 2025 book, Perreo, una revolución, unspools these tribulations with testimonies from Ivy Queen, Tokischa, Villano Antillano, and Anitta. “I thought masculinity and a phallic glow meant power,” she adds. “I reconnected with femininity after [success], but it was a violent road, and I constantly had to defend myself. In therapy, I realized it’s because my mother taught us never to be pushovers. I can’t think of a time when I haven’t defended myself from an attack. I’m always la mujer que se para, la mujer que responde, la mujer que es loca.”
Fittingly, Cazzu spun these accusations into gold on “Loca,” a massive 2017 trap collaboration with Duki and Khea that received international airplay, even getting the remix treatment from a rising Puerto Rican star called Bad Bunny. “‘Loca’ is when everything happened,” she muses with a glint of nostalgia. The trenchant hook, “Págame, págame, págame / Que este culo se lo merece,” cemented Cazzu as the scene’s newest femme fatale, while her relationship with Bad Bunny blossomed into a long and meaningful friendship.
“My first show in Buenos Aires was opening for Benito,” says Cazzu, tracing their long history. “The first time I stepped onto the Luna Park stage was with Benito. The first time I was at El Choliseo was with Benito. Even though we weren’t able to maintain a closeness, for whatever reason, and our own paths, I’ve always been grateful for his invitations to come sing. This latest time was immediately after the Super Bowl, and many years had passed since I last heard from him. Time changes us and betters us. Not only has he become a great artist, but also a great person. The first time he came to Argentina, we had the [feminist movement known as] Marea Verde, and he asked what it was about. We spoke a lot, and over time, he became a responsible ally. Understanding inequality in one area helps you understand it everywhere.”
Social responsibility is crucial to Cazzu, as a person and artist. Throughout the interview, she reminisces on long, fruitful conversations with Arcángel and Eladio Carrión, saying, “It’s time that more men cared [about equality].” She addresses disparaging comments about her sexuality, notably after joining the adult content platform OnlyFans in 2020, asking, “You can profit off my sexuality, which is mine and belongs to me, but I can’t?” And she clarifies that Latinaje’s hit corrido, “Dolce,” was not the Christian Nodal-bashing endeavor the media made it out to be.
“Corridos, today—that is to say corridos tumbados—are the new urbano,” she says. “My ex-partner doesn’t perform corridos, but rather mariachi, which is romantic music. ‘Dolce’ is a heartbreak song, not about narcos or social matters, because I don’t sing about things where I don’t belong. That corrido was the closest thing to trap, and finding organic music again, with that mix of vocal delivery and flow trapero, was like leaping between parallel lanes.”
Cazzu’s artistry brought her full circle on Latinaje, challenging expectations of her womanhood, creative abilities, and even established ideas of what Argentina looks and sounds like. “Growing up in the North is not the same as in the South, which is whiter, more expensive, with lots of beautiful places and a very exported culture,” she reflects. “But the North is a brown land, de los morochos (or darker-skinned mestizos), of the Indian, the Coya, which in a country like mine, which is quite racist, are seen as inferior. When I first left the country, I learned of the notion that the average Argentino is a Porteño, a person born and raised in Buenos Aires. But people with opportunities to leave the country and become known rarely come from barrios bajos.”
By emblazoning Latinaje’s cover with the colorful folklore of La Diablada Jujeña, and releasing the carnival-evoking music video for the recent single “Jujuy Estrellado,” Cazzu has remade Argentinidad in her own image. As she continues her tour, and with a watershed homecoming stadium show on the horizon, Julieta Cazzuchelli decisively proves that she is an artist worthy of more than the constant chisme thrust upon her.
“I carry the pride and responsibility of what I represent for people,” says Cazzu, “and as long as I can, and as long as I’m here, I’m going to speak through music. I’ll always carry in my mind and heart that there are people who feel represented by a life like mine.”
Latinaje is out now.