At the age of seven, she was singing on TV as other children played hide and seek. Spotlights and microphones have been life companions for Abraham Mateo (San Fernando, Cádiz, 1998) ever since, and at each birthday cake he was a little more famous than the last. At the age of 14, Señorita catapulted him to national prominence; the son of a mason and a housewife, from a humble family with values, Abraham touched the roof before he came of age. Despite this…
Either to stand out among the others or because of a fragile and childish-looking puberty, those who should have congratulated him made his life impossible. The phenomenon, today we call it bullying and we know too many cases with worse consequences. Abraham left for America and his talent caught the attention of Jennifer Lopez, who wanted to have him for the video clip of Se acabó el amor. Back in Spain and already as a consolidated star, his intimate self needed the opportunity given to him by Ibai Llanos – number 1 among Spanish content creators – as a participant in La Velada del Año: up to 3.4 million viewers saw on Twitch – the same platform on which Llanos and Gerard Piqué broadcast the Kings League – how Abraham Mateo beat YouTuber Ampeter in a boxing match.
The young man from Gadí has ??just released Maníaca, a single with an urban aesthetic that takes us back to the eighties: “I’ve been into romantic songs since I was a child, so at that time I found some melodic lines with which I felt very identified and free, both musically and visually, in terms of looks and attitude. I’m not the only artist who looks towards that moment and believes in adapting to new trends while keeping the roots”. A young romantic able to step into the ring and win a boxing match with only 20 days of preparation. Abraham explains for the first time how it all happened: a post by Ibai Llanos on Twitter, the response in which he proposed himself as an artist and a counteroffer to participate as a fighter. “I told him to go ahead and the matter remained there. Four months later, Ibai contacted me to say that there was a vacancy and that, although 20 days before the evening he would understand that I turned him down, the position was mine. I didn’t think about it. I said yes.”
Abraham conscientiously trained with an elite team to emulate Rocky Balboa against Ivan Drago. And it worked. When he got out of the ring victoriously, his girlfriend, the influencer, was there to hug him: “He was my right hand for those 20 days and I’m sure he suffered more than me. It has been a fundamental support: I woke up with her, I went to sleep with her, I had my good nights and my good days and she meant the moments of disconnection. He gave me life. My girlfriend has played a fundamental role in the fight.”
Abraham explains that meeting Ibai Llanos has been a turning point as much or more important than working with Jennifer Lopez: “I have established a relationship with Ibai and everything is much closer. I wish I could have the same with Jennifer! In any case, they both made history in my life and I will be forever grateful to them”
For the young artist, it was an important test. “To tell you the truth, I’m on a cloud, boy. I closed a page because I was also facing my biggest fear: in the world of streaming I have been thrown a lot of hate [in today’s language, hate, rage, gratuitous attacks] and I have been very prejudiced since I was a child. I wanted to show all those people my courage and that with determination one can achieve anything. I wanted them to know Abraham the person, not what they saw in the videos when he was 12 years old. I wanted them to know the Abraham of today.”
One of the people who realized his mistake was the famous AuronPlay: “The most influential person in the country in terms of streaming was the one who contributed the most to the parody. And now everything has changed completely, we are super friends. AuronPlay supported me these last few weeks to the fullest. Everything has turned upside down: I feel the affection of the people, now I go to any neighborhood and the boys congratulate me for the fight. It was like a movie with a very happy ending.”
