Despierto literally translates to "awake". It's a common word, but its usage in this song is what makes it special and poetic.
In the lyrics, J Balvin sings, "Pero te soñé despierto" (But I dreamed of you while awake). This beautiful contradiction is a Spanish way of saying you're daydreaming or thinking about someone so intensely that it feels like a vivid dream. It perfectly captures the song's theme of being haunted by the memory of a past love.
Ever thought you were completely over someone, only to have a single song throw you right back into the memories? That’s exactly what happens in this track. J Balvin and Bad Bunny trade verses about trying to forget a past love. Bad Bunny admits he thought he'd moved on, but he was just fooling himself: "Pensaba que te había olvidado / Pero pusieron la canción" (I thought I had forgotten you / But they played the song).
He thought sleeping with other people would work, but it didn't. He even says he "nunca te superé" (never got over you). The song triggers a flood of very specific, very steamy memories for both of them, from being drunk together to intimate moments in a car, on a beach, and even at her parents' house. J Balvin says he was happy she was with someone new and he hadn't even been missing her, but the music changed everything. It’s a perfect song about how powerfully music and memory are linked, for better or for worse.
J Balvin grew up in Medellín playing guitar in a teenage rock band with Nirvana and Metallica on repeat, and spent part of his teens in Oklahoma and New York picking up English. Born José Álvaro Osorio Balvín in 1985, he had been releasing music in Colombia for about a decade before anyone outside it paid attention.
"6 AM" with Farruko changed that in 2014, and "Ay Vamos" and "Ginza" followed: "Ginza" held number one on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart for 22 weeks, a record at the time. He kept singing in Spanish anyway, and "Mi Gente" reached number three on the Hot 100 once Beyoncé joined the remix, before "I Like It" with Cardi B and Bad Bunny went to number one in 2018. His albums run La Familia, Energía, Vibras, Colores (every track named after a color, and a Latin Grammy for best urban album), José and Rayo, plus Oasis, a joint record with Bad Bunny. In August 2019 he became the first Latino artist to headline Lollapalooza in Chicago.