This is a classic 'false friend' that often tricks English speakers! While it looks like the word 'pretend', pretendes actually means 'you intend' or 'what are you trying to achieve?'.
It's the key word in the song's title and fiery chorus, where J Balvin confronts his ex: "¿Qué pretendes tú llamándome a esta hora?" (What do you intend, calling me at this hour?). Learning this word is essential to understanding the song's defiant and dismissive attitude.
Ever had an ex who suddenly hits you up late at night just when you finally moved on? That exact moment is what Colombian artist J Balvin and Bad Bunny are tackling in "QUE PRETENDES". Right from the hook, Balvin asks the big question: "¿Qué pretendes tú llamándome a esta hora?" ("What are you trying to do calling me at this hour?"). He knows the routine all too well. She knows how to wrap him around her finger ("Sabes qué hacer muy bien para envolverme"), but he is drawing a hard line because it is simply too late to fix things.
Bad Bunny jumps in with his signature bluntness and humor, making it crystal clear that the bridge is completely burned. He vents about deleting her across every social platform imaginable: "De Snapchat te borré, de Facebook te borré, de Instagram te borré, de mi vida te borré" ("I deleted you from Snapchat, I deleted you from Facebook, I deleted you from Instagram, I deleted you from my life"). He even drops a sharp pop-culture jab, mentioning he went through a wild spiral like former NBA player Lamar Odom ("Por ti me metí pastillas y me fui de overflow Lamar"), only to dismiss her because she is "no... Kardashian." By the time Balvin notes that she is still secretly stalking his profile ("A escondidas vives chequeando las fotos"), the track settles into a fun, defiant anthem about locking the door on someone who only wants you back when they cannot have you.
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.