Liam Payne Seeks His “Havana” With “Familiar” Featuring J Balvin: Single Premiere + Review
This was definitely a duo I never thought I would see in my entire life but it happened. Liam Payne and Colombian reggaeton singer J Balvin have recorded a collaboration tiled "Familiar" and they released it today on all digital platforms. "Familiar" will appear on Liam Payne's forthcoming solo debut album - which should be hitting stores this year. Why in the heck would Liam required the assistance of J Balvin for a song? Well, now that I've heard the Latin influence in "Familiar" I finally understood everything. A Latino person was required. And who's the hombre of the moment? J Balvin, of course.
"Familiar" is a catchy pop song about a guy wanting to get really close and personal with a girl he likes - or as Liam Payne sings in the chorus, "get familiar" - and just fill her up with his love. Yeah, the song is filled with many cheese sexual innuendos. "Familiar" is giving me strong 2000s vibes and even though I should be labeling this as 'dated' and kind of be slamming it for it, I'm actually not because I'm really digging this song after my first listen and I find it to be a breath of fresh air at this moment in view of everything that's currently playing on the radio. It's definitely going to fill the void "Havana" left (I can bet anything that Liam Payne and his team got the idea for this song after hearing how successful the Camila Cabello song was!).
"Familiar" sounds summery, it sounds like a crossover hit for Liam Payne (Top 40 and Latin radio) and if this gets a very cool music video, this could quite be the monster song Liam Payne was looking for in 2018. And so smart of him (as an English-speaking artist) to be getting close to Latin music at this early stage, because evidently Latin music is going to be really huge, if not more huge, in the coming years and he's getting an early ride of that wave right now.
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