Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Ricky Martin to perform in Newark and Atlantic City

Ricky Martin dances like a man whose burden has been lifted.

After years of innuendo and rumors, the international pop star said it: He?s gay and he?s proud. Now Martin is wondering why it took him so long.

?It?s been amazing,? says Martin, 39. ?Ever since I came out, life has been so much easier and smoother. I?ve gotten thousands of tweets and e-mail messages thanking me. If I knew it was going to be like this, I would have come out years ago.?

Like many public figures, Martin had worried about how longtime fans would take his revelation.

Would he be ostracized by the same listeners who attended his concerts in droves, and sent 11 of his singles to the top of the U.S. Latin charts? What about all the great work he?d done ? earthquake and hurricane relief, and summer camps for children ? through the Ricky Martin Foundation? If his star dimmed, even a bit, would any of that be undone?

Then there were the other, subtler impediments ? ones that will be familiar to any gay person struggling toward self-acceptance.

?There was constant fear, years of fear,? says Martin. ?I had to fight with my own demons and disconnect from those weird thoughts that society had instilled in me. To detach from old thoughts about myself that were powerful and painful was difficult.?

It was the birth of Martin?s twin sons that prompted him to come clean with listeners who hungered to know everything they could about the Puerto Rican pop star. (Martin?s sons were born by artificial insemination; the woman who carried the twins to term has chosen to stay anonymous.)

?Once I decided to become a father, I stopped fighting my nature,? says Martin, whose latest album ?M�sica + Alma + Sexo? has charted on three continents. ?I thought to myself, ?How am I going to talk to my children about honesty if I can?t be completely honest?????

For an artist whose music is often so candid and earnest, Martin is disinclined to talk about himself.

Ask him about Puerto Rico, and he?s happy to be an ambassador to the island. Ask him about his charitable endeavors, and he?ll gladly direct your attention to a world?s worth of good causes. Even his frank autobiography ?Me? ? which was a New York Times bestseller last year ? was almost nothing of the sort.

?When I sat down in front of the computer to write,? says Martin, ?I thought the book would be about my philanthropic work, and maybe my spirituality. I realized there was a lot missing. You open the box and start remembering things.?

He?d written plenty of candid songs, but this was different. Writing prose ? a solitary process ? proved to be an unexpected emotional challenge.

?The vulnerability was more intense. I was allowing myself ? forcing myself ? to feel things I hadn?t felt in a long time. Luckily, I was working with an amazing editor who encouraged me to make the book more personal. I realized, ?Hey, my life has actually been pretty interesting.????

Indeed it has. Martin began his career as a recording artist in Menudo, a wildly popular teen singing act that cycled through members like a college basketball team. Before Martin joined the group, Menudo was already one of the biggest concert attractions in Latin America; afterward, Menudo became a worldwide phenomenon. Fervor for the group approached the intensity of Beatlemania.

But Menudo wasn?t meant to be a lifetime commitment. The group could not, and would not, accommodate older singers; members of Menudo were expected to go solo. Martin has become the most successful Menudo alumnus, but when he found himself too old to continue with the act, his future was by no means certain.

?I took a moment to disconnect completely from pop when I left the band. I went to New York City and did nothing at all for awhile. Then I went to Mexico City and did theatre, which was amazing. Theatre was an education for me. When I went into television as an actor, I did so as a musical character, which felt very natural, and very organic.?

In 1994, Martin starred on the soap opera ?General Hospital.? He played a successful solo Latin pop singer. A year later, he was no longer acting the part ? he was living it. ?A Medio Vivir,? which means ?half-living,? became his first international hit album under his own name, and it established his approach: romantic, energetic, brassy, indebted to salsa and American synth-pop in equal measure.

Ten of the 12 tracks were released as singles; the synth-driven ?Mar�a? ? with its infectious ?un, dos, tres? count-off ? became a blockbuster.

In a sign of things to come, ?A Medio Vivir? went gold in the United States. In 1999, Martin released the single that has come to define him for the American mainstream audience: ?Livin? la Vida Loca,? a salsa-inflected party tune about a life gone thrillingly out of control.

Other hits followed: the similar ?She Bangs? and ?Shake Your Bon-Bon,? the lovelorn ?She?s All I Ever Had,? the Christina Aguilera duet ?Nobody Wants to Be Lonely.?

He?ll surely sing them all when he takes the stage Friday night in Atlantic City and Saturday night in Newark.

?I?ve been telling everybody to wear casual clothes to this show. The last 30 to 40 minutes is literally music to dance to. I?ll sing in English, and in Spanish. It?ll be spiritual, it?ll be musical, and it?ll be sexual, too.

?With class and good taste, of course.?


Ricky Martin
Where and when: Event Center at Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, 1 Borgata Way, Atlantic City, Friday at 9 p.m.; Prudential Center, 168 Mulberry St., Newark, Saturday at 8 p.m.
How much: $66 to $76 for Borgata, $33 to $128 for Prudential Center; call (800) 745-3000 or visit ticketmaster.com.

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