SAO PAULO – Colombian singer-songwriter Juanes said that “Hoy me voy,” recorded in Spanish and Portuguese along with Brazil’s Paula Fernandes, is a bridge to overcoming the language barriers between the two cultures.

“The idea of doing a song with someone from Brazil was to build a bridge between two different cultures,” said Juanes in remarks to the daily Folha de Sao Paulo promoting the release in Brazil of his album “MTV Unplugged.”

Joining with Fernandes was for Juanes “a plan to try and do something different and open up a little door.”

With sales exceeding 12 million albums and the winner of 17 Latino Grammys, Juanes is now starting to break into the Brazilian music market.

As part of the release of Juanes’s new album, Universal records in late June staged a private concert in Sao Paulo at which Fernandes – Brazil’s best-selling female singer and an artist who performs in both English and Spanish – also participated.

“It’s not easy to hear songs in Portuguese on the radio stations in Mexico or Argentina. Everything is always in Spanish or English and I understand the same thing happens in Brazil,” said Juanes. EFE