Karol G review – Colombian chart-topper brings pan-Latin camp and fireworks to New Jersey

MetLife Stadium is not the Tropicana. But on Thursday, Karol G made a convincing argument for suspending our disbelief.The Colombian superstar descended on East Rutherford, New Jersey, for the first of two nights at the venue – her first time back since becoming the first Latina to headline it in September 2023.But first, we see a cave, and out of this primordial dawn crawl dancers, to the opening lilt of Don Omar’s Dile, and Karol, tossing her honey-blond hair and smiling through the lyrics of Latina Foreva. It’s a MetLife-sized expansion of her Coachella performance in April, where she was, once again, the first Latina to headline the festival.She answers a phone call from some loser to introduce Un Gatito Me Llamó: “Sorry, I can’t,” she answers in her mellifluous paisa accent through a smile. “I’m in New York!”The Viajando por el Mundo Tropitour is taking Karol to more than 60 stadiums across North America, Latin America and Europe. What’s that? The Tropitour? So named for Tropicoqueta, Karol’s 2025 album built around the unrelenting glamor of Latina showgirls straight off the covers of 14 Cañonazos Bailables. This week, she earned seven Latin Grammy nominations associated with the project and she is the first Latina to headline a global stadium tour.Heralded as an avatar of female-fronted reggaeton since her major label debut in 2017, Karol has become the most visible woman in the industry using slang and making music born from the Black working class in the Caribbean. Tropicoqueta was an expansion beyond just the pop-reggaeton mode Karol had largely worked in and that Colombia’s industry has become known for; this time, there’s mambo, merengue, salsa, bachata, vallenato, ranchera, cumbia, dembow, and a host of other genres old and new, transmuted through Karol’s magnetic performance of Latin show business itself.To usher us into the show’s second act, none other than actor Edward James Olmos appears on screen as our emcee. “We Latinos are a special kind of people,” he says. I’ll lose track tonight of how many times our hosts on stage remind the audience of how hard working Latinos are, how big our hearts. No one here needs a reminder, but the 80,000 cheer every time in acknowledgment. Over the bright horns of Pérez Prado’s Mambo No 5 – a song notable for being sampled out of common knowledge – Olmos introduces our “queen of the tropics, the South American bombshell, la explosión Latina”, and Karol emerges in full-feathered headdress for a bombastic performance of Tropicoqueta.Karol G performs. Photograph: Adela Loconte/ShutterstockWhereas much of Karol’s discography can be called industry gloss-over, Tropicoqueta’s stated thesis is gloss. Pastiche is the point, and her commitment to this pan-Latin camp turns out to produce the night’s most cohesive set of songs. Karol climbs up the back of giant macaw. An all-female mariachi group processes in with a disarming sincerity, and their swift strings carry a joy I can feel all around me.The third act is less cohesive. Washed in the soft club blue of Karol’s latest album, this summer’s No Me Arrepiento de Sentir Tanto, Karol returns to the stage on the floor in a bedazzled raglan T in a moment that telegraphs that she’s just a girl. We lose the plot a little as Drake’s “I want a Latina” line on Ahí slinks creepily through the speakers.The pace picks back up for BbY WOW, the song currently sitting at the top of the Billboard charts that samples the instantly familiar Coolie Dance Riddim made famous in Nina Sky’s 2004 song Move Ya Body. Karol introduces a few guests: Spanish and Venezuelan singer Judeline, Spanish singer and producer rusowsky, and the iconic Puerto Rican producer Tainy, “the one we grew up with listening, perreando, and dancing reggaeton”. On the drop, fireworks explode into the Jersey sky as the screen reminds us that we, New York, “are Bby WOW”.Karol also transformed some of her older hits to match Tropicoqueta’s ambitious genre experiment. At best: Karol emerges with her dancers in traditional white pollera skirts to the late Totó La Momposina’s El Pescador to introduce a cumbia version of 2021’s Bichota. Then, we get a salsa version of Tusa, her 2019 collab with Nicki Minaj. Sure! Even when the devotion becomes confusion, the show is nothing but extremely, ridiculously fun. There’s no doubt that Karol is as supreme as a showgirl can get.Stadiums, like the Tropicana, are places for fantasy. With this assembly of some of the hardest-working dancers I’ve seen in a long time – I will not soon forget the glorious baile funk take on synchronized swimming during Bandida Entrenada – Karol’s bottomless well of stamina, various pyrotechnics and lights so bright they actually touch the clouds, it’s hard to remember where we are, and not just because everyone keeps saying we’re in New York.Opener Elena Rose’s set was a solemn reminder. Hours earlier between songs, the Venezuelan American songwriter turned singer turned somber. “Today, my band and I are very sad because, if I open my heart to you all, coming here, our photographer Oby was detained by ICE at the airport. He’s detained right now,” she shared.At the end, a deliriously hype version of Provenza takes us out, almost unrecognizable under the remix, the fireworks and the spectacle.