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Kany García on Perfecting the Art of Hitmaking With a Purpose: ‘How Can I Not Speak Up?’

Kany Garcia on receiving the Spirit of Change award at Billboard's Latin Women In Music.

When Kany García was a child growing up in Puerto Rico, her father — a former priest who became a social worker — constantly took his three children with him to the many public housing projects where he worked. García actively contributes to many organizations, among them the True Self Foundation in Puerto Rico, which works for the well-being and social mobility of communities of different sexual orientation and gender identity. In her song “Se portaba mal” (“She Misbehave,” from the 2020 album Mesa Para Dos), for example — which she recorded with Mon Laferte — she describes in detail the daily life of an abused woman to the strains of tango (“She behaved badly, very bad/ You had to grab her and pull her hair/ Punch her three times before going to bed/ And tomorrow, ‘Forgive me because I love you,'” go the brutal opening lines).

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