Marc Anthony: One Of Latin Music’s Biggest Superstars Is Ready To Tour Once Again

Manny Carabel/Getty Images – Viviendo La Vida De Gira Otra Vez
Marc Anthony shines at the Prudential Center on Feb. 16, 2019, in Newark, N.J., during his “Legacy Tour.” Anthony has been a fixture of the music industry for more than 30 years and is leading the return to arenas throughout North America with his latest upcoming tour.

“This is what I do. I’ve been touring for 30 years. I don’t know how not to do it,” Marc Anthony said, explaining what it was like to not be out on the road for the first time in decades. “When I was in the middle of doing, say, 100 concerts a year, I realized, not that I took it for granted, but maybe I was a little tired, but it was normal. So when they tell you that you are going to be off for a year and a half, you look in the mirror and say ‘Who am I, if I’m not on stage?’ It was rough, all the way around, the silence was deafening. I cannot wait when they knock on my door and say ‘Five minutes.’”

Not constantly working is something Anthony doesn’t know of, having built a veritable empire during his 30-year career in the music industry, even with such a demanding touring schedule. In addition to selling more than 12 million albums, he’s filled arenas (see New York Proud: Hometown Crowds Represent In Anthony’s Boxoffice History), broadened his investments in various avenues of business and established multiple philanthropic efforts.

Starting Aug. 27 at AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas, where he is the first scheduled concert performer to take the stage since the venue shuttered in March 2020, Anthony will be hitting at least 23 arenas through December, including dates at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., Scotiabank in Toronto, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center and Mexico City’s Palacio de Los Deportes, among others.

The “Marc Anthony Tour” is promoted by Cárdenas Marketing Network in the U.S., a continuation of the partnership the artist and promoter signed several years ago valued at $160 million.

That deal was just the latest in CMN Founder and CEO Henry Cárdenas and Anthony’s partnership as promoter and artist (and friends) that stretches back to the beginning of their respective careers, when Cárdenas stayed in Anthony’s house while promoting his shows, an arrangement Anthony jokingly says he will never allow again.

“We are very excited, this is like a family tradition,” Cárdenas told Pollstar. “Not only for me, but my staff is very happy that we are working with our No. 1 client and friend. He’s a family member, so we’re all excited. … Sometimes I cannot explain the happiness that we feel every day, just thinking it’s real. El Monstro (his nickname for Anthony) is going to be onstage again.”

“Thank God Marc and his band are agreeing to go on this tour. We need it, not just financially, but as humans, we need to get the salsa vitamins in our veins again.”

Ethan Miller / Getty Images / LARAS – Bad Bunny and Marc Anthony
Bad Bunny and Marc Anthony perform together during the 19th annual Latin GRAMMY Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Nov. 15, 2018. Anthony said he is proud of the development of so many young Latin artists and is glad to see Spanish-language music soaring in popularity all over the world.

The tour will continue into 2022 with additional U.S. dates planned and a European leg that includes a full run through Spain that is already largely sold out, Anthony’s business partner Michel Vega told Pollstar.

“If you look back at the touring history, Marc tours every year, he doesn’t really come off the road unless there is a pandemic,” Vega, who is CEO of Magnus Media, the diversified entertainment and sports enterprise company he co-founded with Anthony, said. “Pre-pandemic, he had been touring for basically 20 years without a lot of time off. We’re all super eager to get back.”

The tour itself will feature material from Anthony’s classic catalogue as well as a slew of hits that Anthony has not yet been able to perform live, including “De Vuelta Pa’ La Vuelta” with Daddy Yankee, “Convénceme” with India Rodriguez, and “Home All Summer” from the soundtrack for the film “In The Heights,” which Anthony also appears in.

Anthony describes the live show as “a celebration of where I’ve been, where I’m at, and what people haven’t seen.” He also teased that he may be recording a new album soon.

The “Marc Anthony Tour” will be a front-to-back show with 270-degree configuration (unlike the CMN-produced Maluma tour, which is ramping up around the same time, in-the-round with 360-degree configuration) and Cárdenas said he expects most markets to be able to sell at 100% capacity. And ticket sales are even stronger than in 2019, Cárdenas said, indicating the demand is huge.

Still Going Strong

Anthony’s arc within the music industry includes triumphs and vistas from which he has been able to look out, but now, after 30 years, he is bigger than ever.

“If you look at the multi-generational audience that he has, it’s incredible. You have parents bringing their 10- and 12-year-old kids and people that are 80-90 years old dancing salsa,” Magnus Media COO Felipe Pimiento told Pollstar. “Some of those parents heard it from their parents. No matter what country you are from, there is a Marc Anthony song played by your family and it trickles down to you. My 8-year-old daughter has been singing ‘Vivir Mi Vida’ for the last five years, starting when she was 3.”

Cárdenas – who works with a wide variety of performers and has other tours coming up, including Ana Gabriel, Sech, Nicky Jam, and Becky G – said Anthony’s shows are, more than anything else, characterized by the amount of dancing and energy in the crowd.

“I don’t want to compare performers, but when you see Marc, you are going to dance,” Cárdenas said. “When you go to see a Marc Anthony concert, you have to dance. You will stand up for two hours and dance.”

Vega, who was previously a partner in WME and opened the company’s Miami office, said Anthony still very much has “it” and has only grown as a performer with age.

“He is known for his electrifying performances,” Vega said. “In my mind, he’s a live performer like no other that we have today.”

And the numbers certainly speak to an artist that audiences simply do not get tired of, as Anthony regularly is able to make Pollstar’s quarterly top ticket sales charts. In total, Pollstar has recorded $293,572,735 grossed by Anthony on 3,718,842 tickets reported sold since 1999.

But when speaking about his live show, Anthony is quick to credit his band, which he says is among the best in the business, bar none. His band and crew is expansive and includes Angel Alfonso Fernandez as musical director as well as on trumpets and guitar; Ricardo Lucas Gonzalez on the keyboards and background vocals; Gerardo Rodriguez on trumpet; Mario Sebastian Guini on guitar; Osvaldo Melendez, Bayron Ramos and Daniel Gene Reagan on trombone; Marcos J. Lopez Ayala, Jessie Caraballo, Curtis Rodriguez Matos and Eric Carlos Velez on percussion; William Duvall as lead background vocalist; Franklin Torres on background vocals; Juan Carlos Sierra on piano; Jorge Humberto De La Torre as audio tech and stage manager; Marc Holmes as tour manager; Glenn Acosta as road manager and teleprompt operator; Andres Albornoz as production manager; and many more techs and crew hands.

Rick Diamond / One Voice: Somos Live! / Getty Images – He’s Got Sol
Marc Anthony during “One Voice: Somos Live! A Concert For Disaster Relief” at Marlins Park in Miami Oct. 14, 2017.

“My band has been with me going on 29 years now. There is great comradery and we pull each other through,” Anthony says. “I’m a big fan of the band. I know that these are my songs and my arrangements, but to witness them from the stage and listen to that monster of a machine playing your arrangements night after night, it’s goosebumps city, even from the stage. They entertain me while I entertain.”

“I’m not going to lie and say touring for 30 years in a row without a year off was always fun, but I have had a lot of time to reflect and I’ve realized why I’ve survived for so long is because it’s been more fun than not. I get to see my guys and my crew every day, there’s inside jokes. When we all started, we were like virgins, now I think there is something like 80-something grandchildren between all of us and maybe 1,000 divorces. … So when our connection is like that, you have a certain shorthand with the guys. I’ll walk out on stage and congratulate a band member on their daughter graduating high school, it’s an extension of my day to day, and I wouldn’t know how not to do it.”

While Anthony says his relationship with his band is one of his favorite parts of the job, he also is extremely proud of the music they produce and claims to have “one of the greatest bands in the history of music,” noting that his salsa rhythms can get very technically challenging, but his team never fails to tear them up.

The Beat Goes On

Anthony doesn’t get nervous before live performances, and said he treats shows like family barbecues on a Friday night, and views himself as “the cousin that sings.” By not putting too much pressure on himself, Anthony said, he has enjoyed performing the music live, and the stressful part for him has always been the songwriting, composition and arrangement.

His musical career stretches back to 1988 when he recorded the freestyle album Rebel. He followed that with a number of projects and collaborations, including When The Night Is Over with Little Louie Vega. Anthony was initially not interested in salsa music, but confirmed with Pollstar the story that one day he heard the Juan Gabriel song “Hasta Que Te Conocí” in the back of a taxi and had an unshakeable feeling he had to record a version of that song.

Despite the fact that the song was in Spanish, which he didn’t speak very well at the time, he decided to try a salsa version of the song and subsequently began working with producer Sergio George on a full salsa album, Otra Nota. The album came out in 1993, reached No. 2 on the Billboard Tropical Albums chart, and solidified Marc’s position as a salsa musician. He followed that project with Todo A Su Tiempo in 1995, which would be the first salsa album to be certified gold by the RIAA. He would enter the Tropical Albums and Top Latin Albums charts at No. 1 with Contra La Corriente in 1997 and that album would win him his first Grammy Award.

He would return to English music in 1999 with Marc Anthony, which would see him cross over into mainstream stardom with the hits “I Need To Know,” and “You Sang To Me.” He followed that up with another salsa album, Libre, in 2001 and another English album, Mended, in 2002. The former would be nominated for a Latin Grammy and a Grammy and the latter would be certified platinum. His 2004 release, Amar Sin Mentiras, would be a full-scale pop album in Spanish and won a Best Latin Pop Album Grammy. Many arrangements of those same songs in the salsa style were included on Valió La Pena in the same year, which would also win a Latin Grammy. He released the soundtrack for the film “El Cantante,” starring himself and Jennifer Lopez, in 2007 and that soundtrack would win another Latin Grammy.

Tim Mosenfelder / Getty Images – He Sang To Me
Marc Anthony performs during his “Legacy Tour” at SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., Feb. 8, 2019.

A covers album, Iconos, followed in 2010. Anthony told Pollstar one of the most significant moments in his career came with his 2013 cover of Khaled’s ”C’est La Vie” which was released as “Vivir Mi Vida” (see How ‘Vivir Mi Vida’ Renewed Marc Anthony’s Confidence). That song would be released on his album 3.0 in 2013, which won the Grammy for Best Salsa Album and was nominated for Album Of The Year at the 2014 Latin Grammys. Anthony’s last full project was Opus in 2019, which once again won the Grammy for Best Tropical Latin Album.

Anthony toured annually through this entire period of composing, recording and releasing songs and told Pollstar keeping the business of writing music that he loved separate from cycles of touring was very important for him.

“Every night, I get to go out and celebrate these pillars in my life, these songs that have been my friends for years,” Anthony said. “I’m a lifer. I don’t record because I need a gig. I think that’s what started to change music, is people started putting out shitty music just to gig. And I think a lot got lost in that. But I tour to tour and I record to record. I don’t put out an album because I need to work.”

One man who has seen Anthony’s musical evolution over the years is producer Sergio George, who helped him enter the salsa world with Otra Nota and continues to work with him in the studio to this day.

“I’m surprised that people are surprised [at Marc’s success],” George told Pollstar. “I saw his potential greatness when we first worked together in 1992. He was a young kid, he wasn’t that disciplined. But I knew, by the second album, when he was much more disciplined, and nothing that is happening now is surprising to me.

“He’s just talented, he radiates energy and talent and it transmits when he is onstage. It’s not about being a model, for him, it’s about being an artist. And he’s always been that.”

– Marc Anthony
The cover of Pollstar for June 28, 2021

George said Anthony’s musical style has evolved in many ways over the years, but he feels the aged Marc Anthony truly is the best version of him yet.

“He has become a better singer. His range might have been slightly higher when he did the first album, but he has become a way better vocalist. Combine his innate performing ability with his vocal prowess, he’s just gotten better with age.”

George – who over the years has worked with such luminaries as Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Christina Aguilera and Gloria Trevi – said the writing process with Anthony frequently sees him come to the studio with hundreds of ideas they gradually whittle down to around 20 and then begin hammering out.

Vega said George and Anthony have worked together so closely, for so long, that in the studio much of their communication is non-verbal and seemingly telepathic. George said he has worked with Anthony enough that he simply knows what he likes, and they have refined their process to the point where it takes very little for them to communicate changes in the music.

“Marc is a very melody-driven guy,” George says. “We need things that sing, in the guitar and piano, and then when we go to the horn section, but the melodic lines have to be catchy. Even with Marc not being there, I can get 60 percent of it right by thinking the way he thinks. Then he comes in and adds things I don’t expect, but other than that I can pretty much predict what he likes.”

Beyond The Stage

At this stage of his career, Anthony has his hands in much more than recording and touring. He became a minority owner of the Miami Dolphins in 2009. He starred in the TNT series “Hawthorne,” in 2011. He launched a new clothing and luxury accessory line for Kohl’s in the same year. He, Jamie King and Jennifer Lopez produced the television show “¡Q’ Viva! The Chosen” in 2012, which was the first show to air simultaneously in English and Spanish on television in the U.S. and in Latin America. His extensive acting credits also now include an appearance in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In The Heights,” and was so impressed by the director and cast, he said the experience left him “proud as hell of the fact that I’m in the same universe as such greatness.”

But his biggest business move came in 2015 when he joined forces with Michel Vega to co-found Magnus Media, LLC, which today is a diversified entertainment and sports enterprise which represents and manages athletes and artists, has its own recording label and music publishing company, produces television and digital content, and provides marketing services (see The Magnate Of Magnus for more).

Anthony has also devoted substantial resources to philanthropy, which only continued over the last year. In January 2012 he created the Maestro Cares Foundation with Henry Cárdenas, to be run by Zaidy Cárdenas. Maestro Cares was founded when Zaidy saw a crying need for better quality orphanages in the Dominican Republic. Maestro Cares opened the Orfanato Niños de Cristo in DR in 2014. Since then, the Foundation has engaged in work throughout Latin America and during the pandemic was working on projects in Ecuador, Chile, Colombia and the U.S. Henry Cárdenas said they are only a few countries away from having worked in all Spanish speaking countries in the Western Hemisphere.

“We keep working man, this is fun for us,” Cárdenas said. “It fills your heart, you know you are doing something right for the people in need and there are a lot of people in need right now, especially during the pandemic. We would like to do 100 projects a year … but if we can complete four to five projects a year, we are very happy. The only countries we are missing in Latin America are Uruguay, Paraguay and Panama. In 2022, we will try to fill those buckets.”

In addition to Maestro Cares, in 2017 Anthony and Magnus formed Somos Una Voz, an alliance of athletes and artists, to provide aid for areas affected by natural disasters in Puerto Rico, the U.S., Mexico, and the Caribbean. Anthony has also included portions of his ticket sales for philanthropic programs on previous tours.

“I’d rather be about [philanthropy] than talk about it,” Anthony said. “We have made such strides, such amazing headway as far as education for children in Ecuador, and young ladies and young men in orphanages. It’s about dignity, at the end of the day. Some of the most brilliant minds of our time have been orphans.

“These programs are for kids and young adults who were dealt a bad set of cards. I know how that feels; I was raised in East Harlem and I took advantage of a lot of programs growing up, music programs and the YMCA. This work is something I am really proud of and we made great strides. Even during the pandemic, we were extremely effective and helpful.”

Rodrigo Varela / Getty Images / Univision – Maluma and Marc Anthony
Marc Anthony performs with Maluma during Univision’s “Premios Juventud” 2017 Celebrates The Hottest Musical Artists And Young Latinos Change-Makers at Watsco Center in Coral Gables, Fla., July 6.

In addition to his business and philanthropy, Anthony has had the chance to counsel and work with many younger artists, including Maluma and Bad Bunny, who today are working with CMN on major tours of their own. He recalls inviting Bad Bunny to join him onstage at a concert in Miami when the artist had never before been on such a large stage, and spending a whole day with Maluma to discuss business and strategy.

Anthony says it has been a remarkable journey and he feels great pride watching these young artists propel Latin music to the position it is in today: a genre with a worldwide audience in which artists do not need to make compromises to get their messages to large audiences.

“Seeing them move the needle, seeing the No. 1 song on the planet being a Bad Bunny song, what these kids are doing is absolutely stellar,” Anthony said. “And they are doing it their way. They became the network, through social media, so they are not beholden to what I was beholden to before. We had to go to radio stations, one by one, and carry the program director’s suitcases and get them coffee to get your record played. From that to what these kids are doing now is unbelievable and marvelous.”

Having grown from a Puerto Rican kid from New York to one of the biggest figures in Latin music, Anthony looks back on his career in the industry with gratitude and looks forward to whatever the future holds for him and his contemporaries of many ages.

“In this industry, you might consider me an elder statesman, because I’ve been doing it so long, but I feel like I’m just beginning,” Anthony said. “I’m sitting here as a proud Latino. There’s not much I haven’t seen. I’m still in the game and I’m prouder than ever.

“And from where I sit, to see these kids doing so well, and to do it their way, just fills me with hope. I’m proud to still be along for the ride.”

How ‘Vivir Mi Vida’ Renewed Marc Anthony’s Confidence

The Magnate Of Magnus