Ricardo Arjona is taking a break from touring

Guatemalan singer Ricardo Arjona will not continue with his current concert tour due to back problems, which will require surgery, the successful Latin artist’s team confirmed to EFE.

“Ricardo Arjona is not retiring,” the Guatemalan’s team makes it clear, responding to the uproar caused by a post the artist made on his social networks at the end of his ‘Black and White Tour’ in Chile.

“There is no question of retirement. We have simply finished a very long tour and Ricardo has health problems (not serious) in his back that need rest,” the team explained in a written statement sent to EFE, denying claims and rumors of a definitive farewell from the stage.

The Guatemalan started his 2022 ‘Blanco y Negro’ tour in Europe, from where he continued through the United States and Latin America, and then continued this year with a second leg that culminated with a presentation on December 9 and 10 in Santiago, Chile, which were the closing of a tour of 159 concerts.

According to Billboard Boxscore, as of mid-2023, Arjona’s tours have grossed a total of $154.6 million and sold two million tickets, figures that place him as the tenth highest-grossing Latin artist of all time.

At the end of the last of the two introductory statements in Chile, Arjona, 59 years oldposted a long statement on Instagram in which he announced that he was suspending his tour, due to back problems that are bothering him and require surgery soon.

“I’ll have to disappear to invent a reason that is greater than this. If I don’t find it, I’d rather not come back,” he wrote on the social network with an air of mystery that raised the fears of thousands of his followers.

In more than 13,000 comments which add a publication There are mixed emotional thanks and pleas for him not to give up music.

The artist’s office in Miami assures that breaks, some of them long, are part of a musician’s career: “It’s something he normally does.”

A review of his discography and tours shows that between the projects of Arjona, with more than 30 years of experience and the author of countless very popular ballads in Latin America, two or three years have passed, as happened between the release of ‘Animal nocturna’ (1992) and ‘ Stories’ (1994).

The ‘Blanco y Negro’ tour, on the occasion of their albums ‘Blanco’ (2020) and ‘Negro’ (2021), had to be postponed due to the covid-19 pandemic.

Spinal injections to fulfill obligations

Last September, Arjona’s team announced it “medical crisis” This made it impossible for the performer to fulfill the final dates of the ‘Blanco y Negro’ tour, especially with recitals in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia.

“Ricardo Arjona was intervened with infiltrations in his spine to try to fulfill his commitment, but the results were not enough and he will need a few more weeks of recovery,” his team explained in a statement.

In the following two months, the singer-songwriter received “six spinal infiltrations” (epidural injections) which allowed him to remain standing during the concerts and thus postpone the inevitable surgery in order to fulfill his obligations.

But after this month’s recitals at the Bicentenario La Florida Stadium in Santiago, the Grammy and Latin Billboard Lifetime Achievement Award winner announced that he would no longer be able to continue the tour.

Life and people were immensely generous with this Guatemalan next door, a public school teacher, who by playing the guitar, adding a few words and trying out a melody, achieved a miracle he had never imagined, he said with gratitude.