Spain Has A Plan B With Carlos Jean

Carlos Jean might not be a familiar name for Daily Rind readers; maybe some Orchard-ites have seen the name listed on The Orchard’s 2011 biggest selling artists from April through August, or read it in emails sent by the Spanish Orchard Team. Either way, right now Carlos Jean is one of the most popular names in Spain.

Haiti born, Spanish raised Carlos Jean has become a reputable producer in Spain and Latin America. Back in 1998, along with iconic Spanish actress Najwa Nimri, he released one of the biggest selling underground albums of the nineties with a production that was the Spanish response to the end of the 90’s trip-hop movement. He has had enough criteria to properly select quality underground projects as well as attend to requests by some of the biggest spanish artists who asked him to refresh their career such as Miguel Bose, Alejandro Sanz, Hombres G and Bunbury.

All this has led to today, 2011, a year that has seen Carlos Jean everywhere. He has counted 3 singles in the Top 10  iTunes Spain singles charts and in the Spanish Top 20 singles charts for months: “Lead the Way“, “Gimme the Base (DJ)” and “Keep the Trance“.

So here is what happened in 2011…

Tired of the majors’ dictatorship – without which it is almost impossible to break out in Spain – Carlos Jean wanted to give the opportunity to young new talent to get exposure and succeed commercially. That’s how he came up with EL PLAN B.

His ambition pushed him to look for a brand to partner with. It might have not been that difficult to find considering his status, but Carlos Jean is as good a producer as he is assertive, and he found in Ballantines the perfect brand partner: full support, commitment and total freedom, i.e. exactly what he was looking for.

So, what is EL PLAN B?

Carlos Jean creates the base of a track and posts it in his website requesting people to add a line with any instrument or sing on top and send it back. Carlos selects from and works with the material he has received to create a song.

Once the project started to roll out, it quickly got a lot of attention and began growing very fast. Carlos’ unstoppable energy and belief in the project made magic: The most viewed Spanish prime time evening show “El Hormiguero” offered Carlos a weekly space for his Plan B project. In each show, Carlos records sounds live, mixes them instantly and plays for the audience with a 50 inch iPad. Every week he asks the home audience to send him a different proposal for the current single, from strings to flamenco heels and more. Carlos then picks his favorites and the lucky winners go to the show the following week and perform live while Carlos records it, mixes it and plays the mix on the spot.

El Plan B has become “El Hormiguero” highest rating show thanks to this unique proposal and Carlos’ vibrant energy and charisma.

The final mix of every song features all the contributing performers and Carlos happily shares the spotlight with them, making El Plan B even greater.

We, at the Spanish Orchard office, are very proud to be part of this project.