A cactus, a mermaid, a cowboy hat and the Virgen de Guadalupe all adorn the cover of Sofía Reyes’ new album, Lovesickness. It’s on purpose. “I’m a very maximalist person,” she says. “I accepted this a long time ago.” the dibujos on the cover, created by Mexican graphic designer Perritocoincide with the wide range of emotions and genres – pop, regional Mexicano, reggaetón, trap, bachata – that Reyes captures on the record.

Reyes explains that she wanted to balance the “childish” side of her, the “colorful bouquet of emotions on the album” and the maturity she has acquired since her first album, Stronger!, five years ago. “It’s been a beautiful, beautiful trip,” she said.

The 17-track set balances its most viral collaborations – 2018’s bilingual earworm “1, 2, 3” with Jason Derulo and De La Ghetto and 2019’s pop hit “RIP” alongside Rita Ora and Anitta – with a handful of more experimental tracks on which she sings solo, such as the closer album “Palo Santo”. With such a wide range of sounds, Reyes admits what to do Lovesickness cohesion was the hardest part of the process. ”How can I make this album sound like it’s a world?’ she remembers wondering. But she is proud of the result: “It was a challenge for me. But I did a good job. »

Calling from her home in Los Angeles, Reyes introduced us to some of her favorite songs, including feminist anthems — and her father’s favorite song, which is influenced by her hometown of Monterrey, Mexico.

“Mujer”

I’ll start with “Mujer”. I feel like the intro of this song represents the whole concept of the album. This song is very pop-urban, it contains a bit of cumbia. It’s one of my favorite songs because of the subject. It’s very stimulating. This is who I am. I’m a woman. You can say I do good, I do bad, you can say I do this or that or whatever – but I am a woman. It’s like that. The song represents femininity in a divine way.

“Palo Santo”

This is the last song we put on the album. He talks about the last relationship I was in. The emotion is definitely there. I was dating this guy and he randomly came to visit me here in LA, and then one day randomly after I thought everything was perfect, he was like, “I’m going to stay at the hotel. . It was strange. So I tried to put this humorous spin on what happened.

“Galline”

With “Gallina”, I was looking for a sound that would take me back to my roots in Monterrey. It has cumbia influences from the town I’m from north of mexico. He has this dark humor. The chorus says “Tú no tienes huevos” [“You’ve got no balls”]. I thought it was fun to talk about it in a different way because it’s something I actually feel. That’s how I talk to my friends, so we put it in a song. Even though I’m from Monterrey and grew up there, my parents played all types of music. Two years ago I started looking for the sound of my roots and realized that there was so much for me to learn. It’s exciting to explore. I wanted to challenge myself to put my roots in my music. For the next album, I want to go very, very deep into my Monterrey roots, and Mexico.

“24/7” with change

This is a very easy to understand song. It’s very beautiful, uplifting. I wrote it at a time when I was falling in love. It’s magic to me, but it was also a challenge to make it minimal. With this song, that’s what I did. I wanted it to be very simple, honest and fluid.

“Amigos” with Adriel Favela and Daniel Felix

It’s the only song that contains regional Mexicano. I didn’t release those songs, but I was exploring corridos and a bunch of stuff that we didn’t put on the album. Maybe I’ll take them out later. “Amigos” is very me. I love the way Danny Felix plays guitar, and I really wanted that to come through in the song. I wrote this track two years ago, and I could see great potential, but I wasn’t able to perform it the way I had in mind. It was frustrating for me because I didn’t know what to do. Literally, I had to stop working on it, take a break, and then come back. When Danny added the guitars and then Adriel Favela wrote his verse and put his vocals on it, the song got to where I was visualizing. It’s my dad’s favorite song.