“Music has always been a huge part of my life,” Filippo Gabella told American Songwriter. “I was 13 years old when I produced and rapped on my first beat. After that, I told myself ‘I want to make the biggest song on planet Earth.’”
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Gabella writes and produces music under the name PipoBeats and on April 20 he became the newest winner on NBC’s “Songland” thanks to his song “Sway.”
The show is an “American Idol”-esque process that sees four songwriters pitch an original song to three producers — Ryan Tedder, Ester Dean and Shane McAnally — and a well-known recording artist, who then picks a winning song to record. While Gabella hasn’t quite made ‘the biggest song on Earth’ yet, in winning this episode of “Songland” he is now working with someone who has: the guest artist for this episode, Luis Fonsi.
Fonsi is responsible for the 2017 megahit “Despacito,” which has broken seven world records, including ‘most streamed song worldwide.’ With this breakthrough, Fonsi has ushered in a new level of interest in Latin music and has influenced countless artists, including Gabella.
Raised by Chilean parents, Gabella has long embraced a synthesis of American influences and Latin influences. “The Latino culture, to me, has always played a really interesting role in music,” he said. “My mother was a flight attendant, which allowed me to always have a practically free ticket to visit my family in Chile. I would go back and forth, spending pretty much half the year hanging out with my cousins in Chile. Listening to all this Chilean music, I found this out: for a club environment or a disco or something like that, I bet the percentage of the crowd that is dancing is way higher in a Latino club. I don’t know why, but there’s something about the way that Latino music is formulated that just makes people want to get up and dance. So, when I started getting into songwriting I found that Spanish really brought out a completely different side of me, which is why I describe myself as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When I write music in English, I’m Dr. Jekyll; I can get into my emotional side and write about things that have significant meaning to me. When I make music in Spanish, I turn into this crazy animal that’s just ready to put on music and dance like crazy.”
And ‘dance like crazy’ is what Gabella’s song “Sway” makes you want to do. The song’s interlocking melodies and driving beat paired with its irresistible hook make it hard not to start dancing when you listen to it.
While the pairing of Gabella’s upbeat Latin music and Fonsi’s reputable artistry seems like a perfect match, the true story of getting “Sway” onto Fonsi’s radar goes far deeper than “Songland” and spans several years. Gabella relayed the amazingly surreal story to American Songwriter:
“It was 2017 when ‘Despacito’ dropped,” Gabella began. “I was about 15 years old and I began trying to write a Spanish beat. I came up with a bunch of attempts at different styles to try to make a song that is, as I like to say, liked by your grandmother and liked by your granddaughter. A song where the oldest people can listen to it, the youngest people can listen to it, people from all over the Earth can listen to it — a really well-rounded and likable song. That was my goal.
“‘Sway’ itself started in 2017 with me messing around with a guitar sample. In my voice memos, there’s like 100,000 different versions of me trying to come up with a melody to be the top layer to that guitar part. I never got it, it was kinda like an abandoned child in a way. But I saved the song on my desktop as ‘Luis Fonsi,’ because I always save all my beats with the name of an artist that I think it sounds like. I was obsessed with the way Andrés Torres produced ‘Despacito,’ I was heavily influenced by that.
“Then 2018 hits and my buddy calls me and invites me to a concert, so I go with him. I’m standing in line at security and no joke, seven people in front of me is Andrés Torres. Literally three days prior I had watched a video in which he said ‘hey you might want to add a real instrument to your music because that adds soul to it,’ and I decided to do that on the tune that eventually became ‘Sway.’ And here I was three days later and the guy is standing seven people in front of me. I was like ‘I need to go up to this guy, I need to talk to this guy, I need to see if he can help me work on songs.’ I was freaking out. I ran up to him in the middle of the security line and started spewing out word vomit, nothing really came out that was productive nor made any sense. He was nice and was like ‘yeah, we’ll talk after the line,’ but then I never saw him again.
“The next day I was on a mission with my cousin to bring Torres a USB with ‘Sway’ on it, with the intention that he’d get it to Fonsi. I had the flash-drive in my hand and told my mom ‘I’m going to give this guy my song, it’s going to be crazy!’ We drove all around the city thinking that his Instagram bio had the location of his home or studio or something, but it turned out to bring us to the city hall of Los Angeles. I was like ‘alright, whatever.’
“Then 2019 hit and I was working on an album. ‘Sway’ was still lurking around but wasn’t completely done yet. I came down to Florida to do some branding rework with new photos, new logos, new website, etc. I found out that I was going to get to speak to another guy who was close to Fonsi, a guy who was his musical director. I thought to myself ‘this guy lives in Miami, here’s my shot, this is my second chance to get Fonsi the song.’ I thought that was going to be my chance, but long-story-short, nothing ended up happening.
“Then, in 2020 I thought to myself ‘well, people seem to really like this song for the most part,’ so I decided to submit it to ‘Songland.’ Then, I found out that Luis Fonsi was going to be the artist for my episode. I was so excited that in this very professional meeting I stood up on my chair, started hyperventilating and had to take a lap. At that point, I was trying to figure out where the hidden cameras were. I thought the whole thing was a prank.
“I don’t even know if I’ve taken the time to process. Literally my biggest inspiration just came into my real-life circle, it’s very scary to think about. It’s so insane to me, it’s like it doesn’t exist. When I spoke to my parents about it after the fact and they asked me what it was like, I was like ‘I don’t even know.’ Every time I stepped into that room I blacked out. Watching this episode on the television will be the first time I experience what actually happened because I really don’t remember any of it,” Gabella concluded.
Yet, it did happen and Luis Fonsi has released his version of “Sway.” Gabella, who is an energetic, outgoing and friendly young man, is at the onset of his career. He is working on new music that is due to drop soon and is spreading his gratitude everywhere he can.
“If you want something you can absolutely get it, and that goes for anybody,” he said. “I’m so passionate about music, I’m so passionate about what I believe God has given me to share with the world and I couldn’t be more excited and motivated to hit the ‘start button’ when this episode airs. If you dream it and write it, I swear to you it can happen.”
Watch PipoBeats’ initial performance of “Sway” in front of the Songland judges below:
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