Barei

Barei, whose full name is Bárbara Reyzábal González-Aller, was born in Madrid in 1982. She is a Spanish singer and songwriter. Her paternal family belongs to the Reyzábal clan, one of the wealthiest families in Spain. Music has always been a presence in her childhood. She studied singing, guitar, music theory, and piano at the Andana School in Madrid, combining her music career later with studies in Interior Architecture.

At the age of 14, Bárbara decided she wanted to pursue a career in musi. She began her career at the age of 16, performing covers of songs by Christina Aguilera, Laura Pausini, and Daddy Yankee. In 2001, she participated in the Benidorm International Song Festival alongside Gonzalo Nuche as part of the duo “Dos Puntos,” and they achieved second place with the song “Abrazo del tiempo.” Soon after, Barei moved to Miami, where she recorded some demos in the Latin pop genre, which she decided to keep unreleased. Upon returning to Madrid, she became a regular singer in concert venues in the capital city.

In 2011, Barei released her first album, “Billete para no volver,” a completely Spanish-language album. After this album, Barei began releasing an English-language single every three months, starting with “Play” in October 2012. “Another’s Life,” released in 2013, reached the Top 30 on iTunes’ most popular songs list and garnered over 600,000 views on YouTube, while “Wildest Horses” in 2014 achieved 1.5 million views and reached the 36th position on the best-selling songs chart in Spain.

In November 2014, as a result of a common professional relationship with producer Ruben Villanueva, Barei collaborated on a duet with Tito el Bambino and the band Mägo de Oz called “Sueños de Cristal,” a groundbreaking rock song that showcased the Spanish artist’s ability to bring strength and elegance to any melody.

In her second studio album titled “Throw the Dice,” released on April 7, 2015, Barei was heavily influenced by British and American pop, funk, and soul. The album included songs such as “Foolish Nana,” “Another’s Life,” and “Wildest Horses,” which had been previously released. In July 2015, she was the opening act for Lenny Kravitz at the Starlite Festival concert in Marbella.

In September 2015, Barei released the song “Time to Fight,” co-written by herself and Fernando Montesinos, which served as the anthem for Atresmedia’s coverage of the UEFA Champions League 2015-16.

As a songwriter for other artists, in 2015, Barei wrote the song “Encadenada a ti” for Malú, which became the second single from Malú’s album “Caos.” She also adapted the Spanish lyrics for Edurne’s song “La última superviviente,” included in the album “Adrenalina.”

On February 1, 2016, the selection gala for Spain’s representative in Eurovision, called “Objetivo Eurovisión,” took place. Barei secured the first place with her song “Say yay!”, thus being chosen to represent Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. Before Eurovision, it resulted in a contract with Universal, rejecting the other proposal offered by Sony Music. On April 22, the reissue of “Throw the Dice” was released, featuring all the remastered tracks and including “Say Yay!” and the previously unreleased songs “Who Plays The Drums?” and “Super Ranger.”

In the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, Barei achieved the 22nd position, despite initially ranking fourth in the betting odds after her performance. Despite her position, it was one of the most downloaded songs of that edition on Spotify (over 10 million downloads) and one of the most-watched Spanish performances on YouTube, which led to a long tour during that summer.

After several months of waiting, as her record label (Universal Music) refused to release new songs to capitalize on her Eurovision success, Barei decided to part ways with the label and returned to her previous independent status with Barei Music. On April 1, the singer released the song “I Don’t Need to Be You,” which quickly surpassed one million views on platforms like YouTube and Spotify. She embarked on a new summer tour.

Later, following the success of “I Don’t Need to Be You,” now as an independent artist, she released singles such as “Wasn’t Me,” “Forget It,” and “Worry Worry,” the latter featuring a collaboration with Porta and accumulating nearly 1.2 million views between the lyric video and the later-released music video.

Finally, in 2019, she released the album “You Number One,” also stylized as “U#1,” under her record label. With this album, Barei explored new sounds and delivered a disc with melodies different from her previous works. The first single from the album was the eponymous “You Number One,” accompanied by a music video in collaboration with TikTok. On December 24, 2018, she released the music video for “Bitter Cold,” coinciding with the birth of her two children and announcing their names: India and León.

Her new role as a mother led her to scale back the promotion of her album and temporarily put her singing career on hold to focus fully on her children while balancing her role as a songwriter. Months after releasing the music video for “Bitter Cold,” she released a remix of the song in collaboration with Gavin Moss. In 2019, she collaborated with Chenoa on her new single “Las Chicas Buenas,” which they co-wrote with Rubén Villanueva.

On July 13, 2022, she performed her Eurovision song “Say Yay!” alongside presenter Carmen Alcayde at the Sálvame Mediafest, emerging as the winners of the final concert.