Karol G begins her Colombia concert tour in in a women’s prison and children’s hospital

The singer Carolina Giraldo Navarro, better known as Karol G, began her concert tour in Colombia this Thursday with a performance at Ibagué women’s prison, in the department of Tolima. In a video that went viral on social media, the Antioquia artist, who has just won three Latin Grammy awards for her album Mañana will be beautiful, is seen dancing and singing fragments of her song El makinón before hundreds of inmates. In the images, the voices of the women can be heard happily singing along: “Hasta abajo desde los 16, desde chamaquita rompiendo la ley (All the way down from the age of 16, since I was a young girl breaking the law.” Karol G remains silent, looks at them and laughs knowingly.

The concert, which lasted a little more than an hour, was made possible thanks to a collaboration between Con Cora foundation and the Acción Interna foundation, led by the actress Johana Bahamón. Karol G, who is also known as La Bichota and who became world famous for songs like Tusa, with Nicki Minaj, and TQG, with Shakira, greeted the inmates and asked them what songs they wanted to hear. In a video recorded by one of the female inmates, Karol G is heard saying: “We’re going to sing for a while, we’re going to have a great time. We brought them some gifts for their cells so that they are cooler.” The first song was Amargura, one of her latest hits with more than 200 million views on YouTube. “On the outside I laugh, but on the inside I am broken,” the security guards, the prison workers and the prisoners sang together in the courtyard of Block 4 of the Picaleña Prison and Penitentiary Complex in Ibagué.

At the end of the show, the Con Cora foundation announced that this was only the first stop on a tour “that will go to different parts of Colombia with the aim of bringing joy, entertainment and support to vulnerable populations.” This musical tour will reach hospitals, children’s institutions and women’s prisons, and will be done in parallel with Karol G’s public engagements, which begin next December 1 and 2 at the Atanasio Girardot stadium in Medellin. There are more than 1,000 people hired for the installation and logistics of what is expected to be the top concert of the year. The public enthusiasm in Medellín over La Bichota is such that the Mayor’s Office has decided to launch a public transit card commemorating her.

This is not the first time that the singer takes her concerts to women’s prisons. In December 2021 she was in El Pedregal prison, in Medellín, and in March 2022 she visited El Buen Pastor, in Bogotá.

On Friday, Karol G also showed up by surprise at the Fundación Valle del Lili hospital, in the south of Cali. Several videos on social media show the artist entering the children’s oncology ward. On the foundation’s official website there are some images of La Bichota hugging several sick children. All this happened the same day that Karol G released her new song Labios mordidos, a collaboration with Kali Uchis, which in a few hours had more than one and a half million views.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition