Maná Pulls Nicky Jam Collab After He Endorses Trump: Band ‘Doesn’t Work With Racists’
Nicky Jam’s collab with Maná, “De Pies a Cabeza,” is no longer on streaming services. On Sunday morning, the Mexican rock band announced that it had pulled the song from the internet following the reggaeton star’s public endorsement of Donald Trump.
“Maná doesn’t work with racists,” read the statement from Fher Olvera.
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“For the past 30 years, Maná has supported and defended the rights of Latinos around the world,” read the post’s caption in Spanish. “There is no business or promotion that is worth more than the dignity of our people. That is why today Maná decided to remove its collaboration with Nicky Jam on ‘Pies a Cabeza’ from all digital platforms.”
On Friday night, Jam joined Trump onstage in Las Vegas to endorse him, telling the crowd, “We need you. We need you back, right? We need you to be the president.”
The endorsement came seconds after Trump brought Nicky onstage and called him a “she,” saying “Do you know Nicky? She’s hot. Where’s Nicky?”
Maná originally welcomed Jam on a new version of the 1992 classic “De Pies a Cabeza” in 2016. At the time, Jam said that the band were his “idols” at the start of his career. “I never thought I’d work with them so this is a blessing,” he said at the time, per Billboard. Ahead of its removal, the song had garnered more than 120 million streams on Spotify alone.
Maná have been avid supporters of Democratic causes — and have pushed for immigration reform and Latino causes — over the years. Following a debate ahead of the 2016 election, frontman Fher Olvera slammed Trump’s stance on immigration.
“The way Trump expresses himself about Mexicans and the Latin community is incredible,” he wrote in Spanish on Twitter. “Like a lot of people have perceived it, he is a racist.”
And in 2020, the band celebrated Joe Biden’s win, sharing a post that read “Make America Kind Again.” The band wrote, “Values won over provision. There’s unity in diversity.”
Maná’s decision to pull the “De Pies a Cabeza” reimagining off streaming comes after other reggaeton stars, including Anuel AA and Justin Quiles, have pledged their support for the former president.
Some fans of Jam shared their discontent with the reggaeton star since he voiced his support for DACA recipients in 2018 after Trump threatened to pull the executive action that protected folks who came to the U.S. without papers as minors.” They are hard-working people who bring so much to the table for this country. They deserve so much,” he said in a video with Spotify at the time, describing Trump’s actions as “racist.”
Jam also said in an interview just days before the endorsement that he would never dabble in politics.
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