Mario Tarradell

Colombia's Juanes continues to pull off the seemingly impossible. The singer-songwriter with the penchant for merging rock, pop, reggae and his country's vallenato keeps crafting albums with commercial appeal, artistic integrity and socially conscious relevance. The latest is La Vida ... Es un Ratico, another creative milestone that has already spawned two No. 1 Latin radio hits, "Me Enamora" and "Gotas de Agua Dulce." The man born Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez performs Friday at American Airlines Center.

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Juanes

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"What I feel is on those records," he says by phone from Miami about Ratico as well as 2000's Fijate Bien, 2002's Un Día Normal and 2004's Mi Sangre. "I feel songs as commercial as 'Me Enamora' and as artistic and different as 'Minas Piedras.' I am not writing these songs because I want them to be played on the radio. It is more important to me to be a creative artist than to be popular. I'm lucky that I can have both."

Ratico includes "Minas Piedras," a ranchera-styled song about land mines dotting Colombia's countryside, and "Bandera de Manos," a plea for unity among races, nationalities and economic classes.

"It's been a constant in the music that I write," says Juanes, the 35-year-old former member of metal band Ekhymosis, about his need to address issues. "When I became a solo artist I realized that in life there's more than love and relationships. There's also a love for air, the ecology, the future. Those things worry me. They affect our lives, the people of my country. You're not always in love. I want to use the music in that form. It's another part of me."

Juanes commands attention. He's got a dozen Latin Grammy Awards on his mantel, an impressive industry feat considering his solo debut was released only eight years ago. He emerged fully formed, a rarity in any musical genre. While Fijate Bien remains his most stylistically unadorned disc, he always made sure to never compromise substance for slicker production.

On Ratico he toiled with co-producer Gustavo Santaolalla to rid the CD of excessively programmed loops and other studio technology that polishes the proceedings.

"I wanted this to sound like a live concert," he says. "I wanted something more organic, less loops ... more basic. Sometimes popular music is too mixed."

In the midst of the music, Juanes has been busy with activism. He's a part of ALAS, a foundation dedicated to strengthening and expanding public- and private-sector support for early childhood development in Latin America. He's also involved with the Yo Amo America Campaign, along with Latin artists Ricky Martin and Juan Luis Guerra, which aims to fight poverty and its ripple effects in Latin America. He'll do that through his Fundación Mi Sangre, his own charitable organization.

And last month he was part of the Concierto Paz Sin Fronteras, the Peace Without Borders Concert, which was staged at the Colombia-Venezuela border in an effort to promote political and social tranquility between the governments of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador.

"It's a complement to my songs," he says of his social consciousness. "It's a positive way for me to reach out to the people. I feel this. I love this. It's from my heart. The music and the causes go hand in hand for me." .