How Pedro Capo Rediscovered His Sound After ‘Calma’ & Returned to His Roots

Pedro Capó is currently on the road with his La Neta Tour — his first official trek since the pandemic — which kicked off in May in Spain and is en route to Latin America and the United States this fall. 

“I’m happy that we finally got here. They all sold out,” he tells Billboard. “La Neta is the little boat that could.” 

The tour backs up Capó’s sixth studio album, La Neta, which was released in December 2022 via Sony Music Latin. The ultra-personal 10-track set finds the artist navigating emotions of honesty and vulnerability, and delving deeper into lyrics about  love, happiness, loneliness, life and death. The title track, he says, is “a different sound.” 

“It marks a road ahead for me because sonically I was coming out of the whole ‘Calma’ thing, which was beautiful, amazing. The pandemic came, I kinda got lost in my sound a little bit, which is kind of the process,” he explains. 

Although “Calma” gave the Puerto Rican artist many first-time milestones in his career, including his first-ever Billboard No. 1 hit, a Latin Grammy for song of the year, and the opportunity to travel the world, Capó admits that all the success was new to him. 

And suddenly, on the heels of his first big hit at 38 years old, the pandemic hit. 

“That silence was necessary for me to come back to my roots,” he recalls. “What would have been of Pedro without that in the middle? Where would he go naturally as a creative? And that’s what ‘La Neta’ was for me.[…] The album is something I recorded, produced, and wrote in its entirety in my house. Very personal. It’s a pandemic album, a picture of everything that happened to me in my life.” 

Capó’s North American leg of his tour kicks off October 21st in Orlando and will visit Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. He also promises more new music in the works. 

“I spent about a month locked myself in Nashville and we put forth a great number of songs that would be coming out by the end of the year,” he notes. “There’s a little bit of country with what I bring to the table, and I couldn’t be happier. I think it’s going to be a special one.” 

Watch Capó’s interview with Billboard News in the video above.