The Smooth Operator: These Days, Nicky Jam Is A Lover, Not A Fighter

Photo Credit: Nick Garcia

BY LAURA SCHREFFLER

PHOTOGRAPHY NICK GARCIA

STYLING NC STYLES

STYLING ASSISTANT ALEX CASTRO

GROOMING CESAR FERRETTE

SHOT ON LOCATION AT KIKI ON THE RIVER, MIAMI

THERE IS ONE THING THAT NICKY JAM values above all else, and that is his freedom. Which is how, inadvertently, we wind up doing a Psych 101-style deep-dive into his love life on a Thursday afternoon in June.

“I would say I have a motor in my system; I just can’t stop. I’m the type of guy that’s always looking for the next thing, which also affects my relationships, bleeds into my intimate life, because I get tired quick. I can’t be stuck in one place or with one person — I need to keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving,” the 41-year-old Reggaeton star admits.

“So basically, you’re a player, then?” I ask.

“Exactly,” he confirms with a laugh, owning it. “I’m a player. I know you’re supposed to stay with one person forever, but I just can’t. When I can’t even be in the same room for more than one hour, how am I supposed to be with one person forever?” 

It’s a valid question, and one that Jam, born Nick Rivera Caminero, seems to have given serious thought to. But he’s done the marriage thing before with TV host Angélica Cruz, the mother of his four children, and it lasted 18 months. He also broke off an engagement to model Cydney Moreau last year after less than a year of dating. So, essentially, been there, done that, ticked all the boxes, bought the T-shirt, wore it, stuffed it deep in the back of the closet.

The problem, says Jam, is that he has itchy feet, and can’t stay still in any part of his life — relationships included. Even when he’s committed and with someone, he struggles with being present in the way that most partners need. “I’m the type of dude where, if we’re sleeping in the same bed, I have no problem giving you a kiss, hugging you, and watching a movie for a few minutes, but after that, I need my space. Yeah, I’ll put my foot on yours so you feel it and know I’m there with you, but I can’t do the whole hugging thing throughout the night. I’d go crazy.”

But this is a rare situation in the first place — because Jam is someone who needs to constantly keep moving, and as it were, keep moving on.  “I get bored quickly, and I probably have to work on that,” he admits. “Maybe one day I’ll probably sit down and act like a normal person and stay with one girl until I’m old — and I hope I do. But, I mean, is it really the right thing to do? Is there a rule that says it must be this way?People will sometimes tell me, ‘It’s okay, you’ll find somebody.’ But like, boy, why do I have to find somebody? Why do I need to get married and live in a house with a white picket fence? I’ve lived my life exactly how I wanted to.”

That is boldly, brashly, and with purpose. He knew what he wanted from life early on, and by age 11, had recorded his first album Diferente a Los Demás (Different From the Rest), with a plethora of hit singles, including “Yo No Soy Tu Marido,” “Me Voy Pa’l Party,” “Fiel A Tu Piel,” and “La Combi Completa” which dropped hot in his young adulthood.

There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to Jam and freedom — which is where his inner psychologist comes into play (oh yes, he has one) — but what he wants me to know is that, though a player he may be, an honest one he is. As an adult, since he cleaned up his act and got sober in 2010, he has never lied to any woman about how he feels, nor has he led them on.

“It’s crazy that we’re talking about this, because you’re not actually asking me about it, but even though I’m known as a ladies man, the funny thing is that all of my exes love me. To this day I can talk to any of them because they know me leaving wasn’t personal; it’s just the way I am. I’m not justifying it, I’m not saying it’s right, but I am saying I’m a good man — I just have a weird way of living and a weird way of thinking about how life should be. I live happy, and when you’re happy, you’re doing whatever’s right for you. As long as you’re not messing up anybody else’s life, you’re good. Even when I’ve broken up with someone and ‘I don’t love you anymore’ comes out or whatever the situation is, I know I’m doing the right thing, letting the other person go. I don’t want to waste their time.”

I interject that honesty is the best policy, and he fully agrees. “I’m always up front with girls about my situation,” Jam stresses. “Every time I meet someone, I will not lie to them. Even if what I’m saying is bad or messed up, it’s never a lie. But for some reason, they fall in love quick. That’s probably why my exes love me so much; I’m just real, and real honest.”

Photo Credit: Nick Garcia

Jam’s honesty is part of his inherent charm. When he tells me that he’s 41, but has the energy of a 28-year-old, I can’t help but agree — though to me, he has the plucky devil-may-care cheekiness of someone much younger. He’s the kind of person you will want to forgive for just about any and everything; someone who will receive a mock (or real) sigh of exasperation and a fond smile instead of a true scolding.

“I’m smooth,” he agrees. “I’m not the guy who depends on his fame to make women like me; I really am an old-school dude. They don’t make them like me anymore.”

I concur. Jam has scads of swagger, wearing the charm of a modern-day, tattooed Frank Sinatra in denim and a skull cap, a man on the move whose success seemed inevitable and effortless, though it came at a price. He was enjoying those spoils of wealth and getting too big for his britches in the mid-aughts when his life took a 180-degree turn. He hit rock bottom, driving a stolen car at high speed under the influence, and was sent to jail for 3 years. His weight topped out at a noxious 300 pounds. He hated his life, hated himself. He was in prison of his own making, both literally and figuratively.

“Jail is just about the worst thing that can happen. Your soul dies there; you don’t even know why you’re living,” he admits now. Enough time has  passed to smooth the edges of that experience but contrary to popular opinion, he didn’t automatically have a new lease on life the second he was released. “It was worse in a way because you have to face reality when you come out. My career was on pause. It was a whole new era — there weren’t even cellphone cameras when I went in. Apart from that, I just felt that I didn’t care about life. I was an embarrassment; it was a very bad, very dark moment for me.”

By that token, he says, “Covid, for me, was a vacation. I mean, waiting around for a year while living in a mansion was a luxury. You’re talking to a man who has been locked up in jail for 3 years. This was nothing to me.”

This time in lockup is the reason that, today, Jam needs to be free.  “I can’t be inside; I’m very claustrophobic,” he confides, adding that he can’t even stay at a hotel if his room doesn’t have a balcony. Similarly, he had to upgrade his private plane situation from a Hawker to a Gulfstream G450, because, at 6’1” he felt way too confined. “I enjoy being on my boat (a Riva 92 Duchessa), because I’m outside, and at the same time, I have privacy. I could be walking in a forest or walking on a farm,” he says now. “But for me, outside is everything. Freedom is everything. And honestly? I think the claustrophobic thing has something to do with my commitment issues, in a way, because I need to be a free soul.”

While prison was no picnic, it did reap something good: resilience. After 3 years out of the limelight, with almost no will to go on, Jam moved to Medellín, Colombia, where he discovered his fans were more than ready to give him a second chance. His career was rejuvenated with a more melodic sound, as evidenced on singles like “Voy a Beber” and “Travesuras.” He turned his situation around, gave up drugs and alcohol for good, and worked his tail off to become the man — and the performer — that he is today.

Even now Jam is making up for that lost time in a big way. Although he came out ahead in 2020, a year that was challenging for everyone, by releasing a slew of singles, including “Muévelo” with Daddy Yankee; “Desahogo” featuring Carla Morrison; and “Polvo” featuring Myke Towers, as well as starting his YouTube talk show “The Rockstar Show,” he’s constantly pushing himself to do more, produce more. He’s currently two weeks away from embarking on the European leg of his first post-pandemic tour to promote his eighth studio album, Infinity, which he released last October.

He’s also back in the studio working on his still-untitled album number seven, with 12 tracks currently in the can, and currently playing around with the idea of making the entire thing an album of collaborations, featuring friends and fellow musicians like Bad Bunny, Jhay Cortez, Daddy Yankee, Karol G, and J Balvin.

I’m curious: For someone who can’t even sit still for an hour, how does he pull off recording an album? He laughs when I ask — it’s a valid question. “I do bursts: I go outside, I shoot a few hoops — because I have a basketball court outside of my studio — I come back, record another verse, and then go shoot hoops again,” he says.

And then, the very-single singer (if you hadn’t gotten that gist already) brings it back to the ladies. Every artist needs his muse — or muses —  after all. He says that after exerting some energy on the court, he “gets a girl, a date, chill with her a bit, and make her listen to [whatever song I’m recording] and see if she likes it. I think girls bring good energy to the studio, so I always try to get a girl to sit and listen to my songs. But it has to be a brand-new girl, because a new girl can’t like you that much. She’s just seeing who you are. The one who knows you already is like, ‘OMG this guy is magical!’ but when someone is just meeting you at the beginning, she wants to see if you’re full of shit. I think if there’s a girl there, I want to show off more; I think better. I want to make sure she’s like, ‘Dang, you can sing!’”

Honestly Jam, I don’t think you have any problems there. At all.

Photo Credit: Nick Garcia

WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF TALKING ABOUT LOVE when Nicky Jam spots something peculiar on the streets of Miami. “Hold up, I must tell you what I’m seeing right now. I don’t even believe it!”

There’s a man doing something bad (not XXX-level, but he’s on the brink) on a park bench that one should not be doing in public. Instead of being disgusted, as the folks around him are, Jam is mesmerized and delighted. “I know people are looking at this guy like he’s crazy, and I’m over here admiring him!” he crows. “If he can do what he’s doing in the middle of the street, then what are we all stressing about so much right now?”   

He might not be doing  quite the same thing as this guy (he knows better) but they do have a commonality. “He literally does not give a fuck!” Jam laughs, likely forgetting, maybe not, that he had just said something similar about himself. Something along the lines of: “One thing I’ve taught myself is that I do not have to give a shit or stress about things, you know what I’m saying? Take it one day at a time and leave the bad things in God’s hands.” (And FYI, God, in his imagination, looks a lot like King Triton from The Little Mermaid.)

Jam might be putting his fate in a higher power here, but when it comes to pretty much anything else, he totally relies on himself. “I live in this crazy world, where I think that I’m my own psychologist because in a weird way I think I’m a genius. I know people who are geniuses cannot say they are, so I say I’m my own psychologist,” he says with humor, but also with the gravitas of a deep thinker. “But I know that I need to stop thinking of myself that way, and sit down and talk to professionals who can let me know who I really am, why I have these claustrophobic issues, why I need so much space, and can’t stop or be in one place.”

But back to the genius bit. He’s convinced (though he’s apparently not allowed to say it). “I mean, I can freestyle and come up with more than 150 words a minute. You’ve got to be a genius for that, right?”

I play along, but what I’m really interested in is the best piece of advice that armchair psychologist Jam has doled out… to himself, that is. There are many, but the most impactful is probably this: “Don’t have an ego, because you will not be able to leave your comfort zone. If I’m wrong, I’ll just go to the person and say, ‘I’m sorry I messed up.’ I have no problem with that — I have no ego — so that helps me so much; it makes me feel free.”

But wait, there’s more. “Apart from that, I know that one of the things that makes me be a stronger human being is to drop things that aren’t good for you. I know this is going to sound weird, but some days, I’ll make a pact with myself that I would not have sex for a whole month; I would put my mind to it and stop because it’s something that I like too much. I could stop drinking Coca-Colas every day if I wanted to, too. (Side note: The reason for Jam’s relentless energy, in my opinion, is a caffeine high — the man downs 10-20 Cokes a day!) That’s also how I lost so much weight, that’s how I left drugs.”

Photo Credit: Nick Garcia

It’s called perseverance, and Jam has always had that. It’s how he’s managed to bounce back from the hardest times in his life and become such an unqualified success. He’s had an incredible musical career, sure, but he’s also managed to meet other goals, like becoming a success on the big screen (he appeared in the 2020 Bad Boys sequel Bad Boys for Life, alongside Will Smith and Martin Lawrence) and recording the 2018 FIFA World Cup theme song, “Live It Up,” again with Smith, as well as Era Istrefi. He has a Latin Grammy, three Latin American Music awards, and seven Latin Billboard awards, and many more accolades to his name. He has his own autobiographical series on Netflix, El Ganador, which is being broadcast in the United States by Telemundo network. He also managed to indulge his culinary passions, opening La Industria Bakery & Café in Miami’s Bayside Marketplace last year, with a huge new concept to come in the fine dining meets party concept Beauty on the River. The venue, which he refers to as a “party vibe with fine food,”will only be reachable by boat, and will feature a DJ, rooftop, and patio. It is slated to open in October.

Of the restaurant, he says, “You have Seaspice, you have Kiki on the River, but you don’t have Nicky Jam in the water… yet.” I wonder if he considered that name, and he laughs. “That would be badass, but no,” he laments. “But you will see Nicky Jam partying and having a good time. Promise.”

I have no doubt. And according to Jam, these things came to be for one main reason. “I’m a workaholic!” he declares. “I’m the type of guy who doesn’t just want to do one thing; I want to do everything in life. But the reality is that everything I do — restaurants, TV shows, movies, music — everything I’m doing is to influence people and say, ‘Wow, look at this guy! I mean, he was in the deepest hole years ago, people forgot him in the music industry, he lost everything — and look at him now.’ And I’m one of those guys who you could say has done it all. I’ve done movies in Hollywood, I’ve performed at the World Cup, I have more than seven No.1 hits globally, have opened restaurants, broken records. All of these things are not normal things; they’re dreams. So I’m trying to motivate people, and make people say, ‘Look, if Nicky made it, anybody can make it.’

That’s Nicky Jam. He’s the guy you’ll see walking down the street with a smile on his face, who might talk your ear off in an elevator because you look interesting (or simply because he wants to talk and you’re there, more likely). “I love walking in the streets, talking to people, to anyone and everyone, because that’s who I am. I’m a people person. I enjoy life, and I feel real, real good.”

And he’ll make you feel real, real good too, if you’ll let him. He says slyly, “Talk to me for 10 minutes, and you’ll fall in love with me, too.”

Too late.

Photo Credit: Nick Garcia