After a decade without releasing albums, Jennifer Lopez returns with ‘This is Me… Now’, a sequel to the almost self-titled album that she composed 20 years ago, when she fell in love with the love of her life at that time, the actor Ben Affleck.
Having a “second chance” with that love, she says in an interview with EFE, inspired her to return to the studio.
“I wrote the album ‘This Is Me… Then’ back in the day, 20 years ago, when I fell in love with the love of my life at the time and we ended up breaking up,” explains the Bronx-born superstar of Puerto Rican descent.
“But 20 years later we met again and I felt very inspired to go back and write again about the experience of having a second chance with this type of love,” says the singer, jealous of keeping her relationship with Affleck private. but without hiding the fact that her history with her current husband is a powerful force in her music.
THIS IS ME…NOW: THE TOUR ✨2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣4️⃣
Visit for more… pic.twitter.com/yITulYMC9t— jlo (@JLo) February 15, 2024
To ‘This is Me… Now’ (in Spanish, ‘This is me… now’), which premieres tomorrow Friday along with a film written and starring the singer herself with cameos from Affleck himself, Sofía Vergara, Post Malone and Trevor Noah, among others, Lopez describes it as her “most personal project” to date.
The album is “a great love story”, he admits, with songs like ‘Dear Ben pt.II’ or ‘Greatest Love Story Never Told’. But it is also much more than that.
“The idea of ’This is Me… Now’ is about accepting yourself, accepting who you are now. Sometimes we look back and say ‘I could have done this better, I could have done that better.’ moment maybe you were doing the best you could with what you knew,” he reflects.
“This is who I am,” continues the 54-year-old performer, “I have picked up some scars along the way, there are also incredible things about me, but I love this person. I accept who I am. This is me now.”
“I have shown a part of myself that I had never shown before”
With the single ‘Can’t Get Enough’ as its cover letter, the album is also an opportunity for this superstar to tell his story on his own terms, without the filter of the tabloids and the paparazzi, although when he came forward composing was not done with the idea of making great revelations.
“My intention was to share what I have learned – he details – and share a story that I think is worthwhile, that has something to say and I hope that it entertains people, that it inspires people and comforts people.”
That process, which makes his fans complicit in the sweet moment he is going through personally, is part of the “responsibilities as an artist.”
“I have shared and bared a part of my soul and shown a part of myself that I had never shown before with the intention of letting people know the different types of growth that are needed to understand love,” he says.
Furthermore, after two months in the studio, when he finished with the music he felt that there were still things to tell.
“It was a beautiful expression of the idea that true love exists and that ‘forever’ is real. That was portrayed on the album but there was also another part of the story that needed to be told about the journey it took to get there.” to her,” he recalls.
This is how the idea arose to make the film ‘This Is Me… Now: A Love Story’, directed by Dave Meyers and also available tomorrow on Amazon Prime. It is an extension of the album that adds the cinematographic part of López’s career.
Although it is not a biographical film, the singer defines the production as very “meta”, with autobiographical aspects and inspirations. “It’s the story of a hopeless romantic, which is very me,” she admits.
Putting so many things that involve her personally into the ‘This Is Me… Now’ universe – music, film, love, her path of growth – was a very enriching process that I had never attempted before. But also, she admits with a laugh, he absorbed all her energies.
“It was so hard… but it was worth every minute,” he says.
And although she can’t make any announcements at the moment, she says she’s excited to tour again.
“I miss the fans. I like people so I’m excited to get back out there and jump, dance, sing, cry, scream and laugh with them,” she promises.
