At 18 years old, Milo J has already devoured the world. Though he was formally introduced to international audiences in 2023 with his blockbuster Bizarrap session and their subsequent joint EP, en dormir sin Madrid, the Argentine rap phenom was well on his way to becoming a household name. He broke out the year prior with the baile funk-inflected trap smash “Milagrosa,” followed by the summery pop of “Rara Vez,” defying genre categorization and accruing collabs with national treasures like Nicki Nicole and Yami Safdie that fueled his ascendant momentum.
The contrast between his booming baritone and lyrics that project a wisdom beyond his years cast an air of awe and mystery around a teenage supernova that could have become Argentina’s Justin Bieber but chose the path of a reborn Atahualpa Yupanqui. Poetic, experimental, and charming without veering into cockiness, Milo J occupies the world stage as a superstar radiating with promise, though hardly concerned with third-party expectations. “I’ve never liked being called ‘promising’ because I never promised anyone anything,” chuckles Milo J, speaking with Remezcla ahead of the release of his new album, La Vida Era Más Corta.
The same way he never promised fans a linear career within the hip-hop realm, the new record showcases his adventurous artistry by diving into Argentina’s folk canon, melding percussive zambas and chacareras with immersive electronic production. Here, Milo J sings rather than spits, and his embrace of organic Latin American mediums is a natural progression of the folk-trap hybrids of his previous LP, 166, and the música mexicana aspirations of his 2023 debut, 111. La Vida Era Más Corta will inevitably draw comparisons to C. Tangana’s El Madrileño, but rather than ruminate on pop anthropology, Milo J’s intent is to expose an entire generation to his country’s vast musical riches. “What happens is that everyone recognizes folklore as part of our culture,” he adds, “but in Buenos Aires, people don’t really listen to it. I’m obsessed with folklore, but young people haven’t gotten into it yet.”
Born Camilo Joaquín Villarruel and hailing from the city of Morón in the greater Buenos Aires Province, the stone-faced kid with a lionhearted voice thought he’d chase a soccer ball to glory rather than a microphone. But then the pandemic hit, and his restless 14-year-old mind found a necessary outlet in poetry and beat production. His sister put him onto Argentina’s thriving freestyle rap movement, discovering YSY A and Trueno, while also soaking up homegrown rock gods Gustavo Cerati and Bersuit Vergarabat. He eventually scraped together enough cash for a session at a local studio called Bajo West, befriending the in-house crew. Their relationship became so tight that when the numbers skyrocketed, he folded rappers CRTRAP, Nahun A, Kelo Ke, and El Terrorista, as well as producer Lisan, into his team. As a teenager navigating a vicious industry, he handed the reins of his management to his mother. “My mom took over to save me from a couple of industry fuck ups,” says Milo J. “My mom is a lawyer and a social psychologist, and has even worked in politics, so she has excellent character for the music industry. More than saving me from vampires and vultures, she also keeps my feet on the ground.”
Milo J shoulders Morón and his native Barrio San José with love and pride, even naming his album 166 after the public bus he rode to school every day. Growing awareness of the social megaphone at his disposal turned his attention to national matters, though back in February, he felt the brunt of speaking out in politically turbulent times when police shut down a free concert planned for 20,000 fans before it even started. His chosen venue raised eyebrows, as the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos ex-ESMA is a former dictatorship torture facility repurposed as a museum to educate new generations and prevent history from repeating itself. Human Rights groups accused Javier Milei’s dictatorship apologist Libertarian government of censoring the artist and threatening violence at an event where the average attendee age was 15-years-old.
“I admit it was an act of provocation, but I don’t regret it,” he says. “Our plan was to put on a show, but it was also an opportunity for other young people to see and learn things [about our country] they’d never heard about. I think that’s why it was canceled at the last minute. I still have questions about what happened, but those [conversations] don’t scare me, and less so when we’re putting on a free, self-financed show for anyone who wants to come.” When asked about his political messaging, he shirks heroic narratives, adding, “I’m not trying to communicate something explicit to my audience. I express myself, and people see themselves reflected in what I’m expressing.”
That feeling of purposeful introspection is all over La Vida Era Más Corta, a sprawling, two-disc magnum opus of Argentine folklore designed to spark questions of ethnicity, territory, and class. The lead single “Bajo De La Piel” opens on the poignant bars, “Tengo unos tatuajes bajo de la piel / Que no cicatrizaron y otros se reencarnan,” meditating on the histories that live in our DNA, walking beside us as we write our own. Nodding to his family’s roots in the northern province of Santiago del Estero, “Solifican12” weaves a panoply of Andean instruments, including charango, pan flutes, and bombo legüero for a soaring ode to the region’s enduring indigenous communities and pivotal relationships to the sun and moon. “Morocho color lodo / que aprendió a estar con nada / y con un poco / ya tiene todo,” he sings meekly, relating to ancestors and peers as more than skin-folk, but as fellow survivors of socio-economic precarity.
“Everyone recognizes folklore as part of our culture, but in Buenos Aires, people don’t really listen to it. I’m obsessed with folklore, but young people haven’t gotten into it yet.”
To achieve La Vida Era Más Corta‘s meticulous arrangements, Milo J tapped producer and multi-instrumentalist Santiago Alvarado, who brought an extensive folklore resume, including playing with Carlos Carabajal and Diego Torres. His ability to straddle both sonic universes makes it so a guest spot from Chile’s avant-garde trap queen Akriila on the coming-of-age tearjerker “Llora Llora” coexists harmoniously with a moving, posthumous duet with legendary folk singer Mercedes Sosa, covering her worker’s lament “Canción del Jangadero.” The stacked credits also include pop singer-songwriter Paula Prieto and rap superstar Trueno, while tapping Cuban trova icon Silvio Rodríguez for the resplendent “Luciernagas.”
“My grandmother passed away and I wrote ‘Luciernagas’ the night it happened,” remembers Milo J, who poured his melancholy into the haunting chorus. “I couldn’t even attend the funeral because I was so devastated. The next day, we had a session at Estudio Unisono, which is Gustavo Cerati’s studio, and where we recorded most of the album. My grandmother was a huge Silvio Rodríguez fan, and as we worked on the song, we thought he’d be great on it. So we went looking for him, and he liked the melody… I still can’t believe we got him.”
Milo J’s dreams are coming true at every turn, and in December, he’ll headline his biggest show yet at Buenos Aires’s 60,000-capacity Estadio Vélez. For a remarkable life and career that have only just begun, it seems a limit to his meteoric rise does not currently exist. But Milo J is not worried about stats, career ceilings, or the mysteries of his promising future. Doing his own thing has already proven a winning formula, so he’s in no rush to squeeze into pre-ordained industry models.
“Milo J isn’t the future, he’s the present,” he says, beating back the over-mythologizing of his trajectory. “I see my future as still doing what I like. That’s my plan for 2030 and 2050. I’ll discover it when I get there, but for now, I’m happy exactly where I am.”
La Vida Era Más Corta is out now.
