Pharrell Williams and Rebeca Léon on Developing ‘Bulletproof’ Latin Boy Band DND, Taking Inspo From K-Pop, New Edition and Jackson Five (2024)

Shortly after Rebeca Léon stopped managing Rosalía in 2023, the team behind her Lionfish Entertainment company embarked on a six-month journey to building a boy band from scratch. Inspired by K-Pop’s high-performance dancing, combined with Latin music’s accelerated growth, Léon and her team approached over 500 Latin American boys until she found five that would make up DND, or Do Not Disturb.

Early into this process, Léon mentioned these plans to Pharrell Williams, and “to my surprise, he had a similar dream,” Léon tells Variety. “We had numerous conversations about previous boy bands and there was a clear void for a bilingual, Latin act that we felt confident we could fill. Now we’re working together, across the board on the development of DND. It’s been 18 months. The boys live together, do vocal training twice a week, but used to [do it] four times a week, in addition to dance rehearsals, media training, social media… everyone involved in this project is extremely committed.”

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“Rebeca and I, when we first started talking about this, we both realized, we both were thinking about thinking the same things,” adds Williams, who manages DND with Lionfish Entertainment. Williams also shares producer credits on the quintet of early 20-somethings’ debut EP, “La Primera Vez” (“The First Time”).

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“It’s a boy band that makes music for fans who really are into group dynamics and watching chemistry and harmony effortlessly happen,” Williams adds. “[For fans] to show up with these guys, with these bright stars.” Léon and Williams have worked on songs together in the past, with Williams credited as a producer on Rosalía’s Grammy and Latin Grammy-winning “Motomami” album in 2022. “He was a big part of supporting and genuinely being a fan of a lot of the artists I worked with, from Rosalía to J Balvin,” Léon says.

Live Nation is also helping fund DND, with Michael Rapino, CEO and president of Live NationEntertainment, and Matthew Hansen, chief strategy officer atLive NationEntertainment, at the helm of the partnership.

To form the group, the Lionfish team initially approached different dance schools, choreography and dance teachers, and screened a variety of influencers across social media apps until they eventually found Danny, Emiliano, Isaac, Emilio and Javi. Some of the members were already working in the Latin music industry, including Danny, who was producing music for Puerto Rican singer Farruko when he was discovered. Emiliano also had a history as a producer and rapper, while Emilio was a backup dancer for Bad Bunny. Javi, meanwhile, performed on tours and in music videos for reggaeton artists Ozuna and Lunay. Isaac was part of the dance team for the New York Knicks.

They each purposely come from and represent different countries — Venezuela, Chile, Puerto Rico and the United States — and speak Spanish at different levels of fluency.

“La Primera Vez” also features acclaimed producers Nija Charles (The Carters, Cardi B, Lady Gaga) and Kevin Carbo (Dominic Fike, Justin Bieber, J Balvin, Da Baby). “I just really wanted us to focus on music right now,” Léon says. “That is a priority on top of their own development — I want them to grow to be absolutely bulletproof and outrageously incredible and sensational.”

While reporting this piece, Liam Payne from British boy band One Direction — one of the highest-selling boy bands of all time — died in Buenos Aires, Argentina after falling off a third-floor balcony. The 31-year-old had been open about his battle with drug addiction and suicidal thoughts, and although the details surrounding his death are largely unconfirmed, the tragedy prompted petitions and commentary pieces about the importance of protecting the mental health of young artists. Léon places a heavy emphasis on a whole-hearted approach to “every level” of superstardom, especially considering all of DND is under the age of 24.

“There’s the part that you can prepare them for in terms of skill, then there’s the delicate part of handling a newfound pressure, attention and responsibility,” she says. “We’re doing our best to ensure they have the proper tools to keep them mentally sound and emotionally stable. I want to go the distance with them. I want this to have the longevity of something like the Backstreet Boys, who are still going strong. So I feel like, if we do this right, they will be around forever. I want them to really enjoy the process. I don’t want them to suffer in silence.”

Below, Léon and Williams answer burning questions regarding the makeup of DND, their goals and next steps, and why they chose to jump-start this project in 2023.

Why did you choose to invest in a boy band at this time?

Williams: We were thinking about the fact that there’s so many amazing K-pop groups out there, boy bands and girl bands, and it felt like we’ve seen [successful boy bands] happen in the ’90s with a lot of the American bands who all took inspiration from groups like Jackson Five.And then in the ’80s, we saw it happen again with New Edition and BBD. It just felt like, man, when’s the last time we’ve seen a Latino boy band with that kind of energy and that kind of magic?

Léon: This is something that Sebastian [Taboada, Lionfish’s Vice President of Operations] had brought up to us during the pandemic, but we were so engrossed in making “Motomami” that it seemed impossible. When we finally had the time, it was a no-brainer. I love a challenge and for Lionfish, an independent company, the music and the team is what make it worth it. I’m nervous and I’m terrified and I’m excited, and I can’t wait.

What can you tell us about the divided responsibilities for this project — how you describe your partnership?

Léon: Pharrell and I are partners in the production company that we created for DND. We’re managers, there’s producers, and he’s a producer. But we’re very tied together.

Williams: So when we started talking about it, it just seemed like this really seamless magical thing that we should do together. We both realized that we were doing explorations and trying to figure out what [a global or Latino boy band] might look like. And as it turns out she had a lot of the work already done.And honestly, it’s just been a thrill ever since we decided to move forward.

What plans are in place for new releases?

Léon: We have been collecting songs for a long time. At one point, Sebastian was like, “We gotta release this music eventually, like, we gotta get going!”

“Deja Vu” was a song that I had from Sky Rompiendo [producer for J Balvin] and developed from years ago, and we pulled it out of the vault. We have even better songs in the bank still, we’re just building the audience and we’ll figure out the next steps soon. But this was just like, ‘These three songs [the EP] were a calling card — this is who we are and now we’re gonna make more music.

Did you ever consider filming the process of auditioning these boys or filming their time together as they got to know each other?

Léon: That was definitely something that came up, and it was a very much of deliberate decision not to. They have been living together in Miami for over a year but Pharrell and I agreed that we didn’t want their success to be dependent on whether a television show or whatever series did well or not. And I’d rather fail because the boy band didn’t work, then that the TV show didn’t work.

I wanted us to sit on our own two feet. I just didn’t want people to meet them like that.

We did not put out an open casting call — we chose to hunt and search instead — because I hate turning people down, honestly. We screened 500 guys. We won the lottery with what we found — they get along great and they look fantastic together, as you can see in the music video for “Deja Vu” we’ve released.

What did that boy band camp look like?

Léon: It’s still ongoing. There’s a physical therapist, a personal trainer, we also have a spiritual guide for life coaching. They’ve learned how to use meditation, how to work with different energies, and that all connects — it impacts how they appear in interviews, how they use social media. We’ve had mentors come and talk to them about fashion, explaining things to them, teaching them, educating them — we’ve got it all covered.

We genuinely care about the well-being of these guys. They come from incredible families. Again, we hit the lottery — they’re working hard for something we don’t even have offers for yet. No days off, no excuses. It’s tough love, but they give it back to you. And they’re so grateful. We’re super fortunate and excited to share what’s coming.

Pharrell Williams and Rebeca Léon on Developing ‘Bulletproof’ Latin Boy Band DND, Taking Inspo From K-Pop, New Edition and Jackson Five (2024)

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