BbY WOW

The idea behind “BbY WOW” is simple enough to fit in one sentence, and KAROL G supplied it herself: what happens when you’re in the club and you’re heartbroken? The answer, credited to a writing and production team that includes the Spanish singer-songwriters Judeline and rusowsky, Tainy, and Omer Fedi alongside KAROL G, is a song that keeps the party and refuses to pretend the party is working. It sits on No Me Arrepiento de Sentir Tanto, her sixth studio album and the first on her own Bichota Records, released August 7.

The engine underneath it is the Coolie Dance riddim, the Jamaican instrumental made by Cordel “Skatta” Burrell that also powers Nina Sky’s 2004 hit “Move Ya Body” and Kat DeLuna’s “Whine Up.” Sampling a riddim that familiar is a shortcut, and it is fair to ask how much of the song’s appeal is nostalgia doing the work. Critics have mostly treated the flip as the point. Complex called it “one of the better uses of the sample,” saying they “flip the familiar rhythm into a melancholy pop banger,” and Pitchfork’s Maria Nenet Barrios, reviewing the album, said the track “hits the mark” that KAROL G’s other guest collaborations on the record, Drake’s “Ahí” and Bruno Mars’ “Still,” did not. Skatta himself, per the song’s Wikipedia entry, called the result a “child of the 2000s.” That is a fair summary of both what works and what limits it: the song’s ambition is to make a familiar groove carry an unfamiliar mood, and it is a better version of that idea than a straight nostalgia play, but it is still a version of an idea the riddim has hosted before. The two Spanish guests are not decoration, either. KAROL G has said she initially left the song off the album as unfinished, then reconsidered after hearing rusowsky’s music and asked both him and Judeline to record verses remotely within a day, before the tracklist was announced on August 5, which is why it reads as a three-way song rather than a lead with two cameos.

What is driving the chart position is streaming, and the reported numbers say so. “BbY WOW” debuted at No. 73 on the Hot 100 dated August 22 on 4.5 million first-week U.S. streams, moved to No. 38 the next week (6.1 million U.S. streams, per Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs coverage, where it also displaced her own “Ahí” at No. 1), then climbed to No. 29, No. 16, and this week to No. 10. Globally it went to No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 in its fourth week on 42.3 million streams and held there for a further two weeks, her first multi-week No. 1 on Billboard’s global charts. The creators of its TikTok dance, Los Menor3s, joined her on stage at Gillette Stadium on September 12, per the song’s Wikipedia entry, so a viral visual hook is part of the story, but nothing reported here is a soundtrack placement or a remix standing in for the song: it is an album track that kept gaining listeners week over week until the Hot 100 caught up. It also carries a small piece of chart history. It is the first Hot 100 top 10 for both Judeline and rusowsky, and KAROL G’s second, after “TQG.”

So the popularity is closer to deserved than most of what this column meets. The record is built on a hook and a mood rather than a promotional push, it has won over critics who were otherwise tough on the album’s star-guest tracks, and its climb has been slow and steady enough to look organic. The main reservation is the sample’s familiarity, which is worth a fraction of a point off a song otherwise this well judged.

7.7/10 – a familiar riddim carrying an unfamiliar mood, and a streaming-built top 10 that the song has earned.

Hero image: “BbY WOW” single artwork, KAROL G / Bichota Records. Used under fair use for editorial commentary.