[8] Balvin's breakthrough came in 2014 with the single "6 AM" featuring Puerto Rican singer Farruko, which peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart, followed by "Ay Vamos" and "Ginza".

Despite working with many English-speaking artists such as Beyoncé, Pharrell Williams, Black Eyed Peas, Cardi B, Dua Lipa and Major Lazer, Balvin continues to sing almost exclusively in Spanish, and hopes to introduce Spanish-language music to a global audience.

[16] At age 19, he began to seriously pursue a career in music and adopted the stage name J Balvin "El Negocio", meaning "The Business" in English.

Balvin's early songs were described as "basically poor imitations of commercial reggaeton from Puerto Rico," but he soon adopted a more relaxed, minimalist style in his music.

Balvin described the lyrical content of the song as the "Latin version of The Hangover," where the two singers attempt to remember what happened during a night of partying.

Balvin has been featured on remixes of "Sorry" by Justin Bieber, "The Way" and "Problem" by Ariana Grande, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke, "Maps" by Maroon 5, and "Stuck on a Feeling" by Prince Royce.

[15] Balvin became the first artist to receive a diamond certification in the Latin field from the Recording Industry Association of America, denoting digital sales of 600,000 units for his songs "6 AM" and "Ay Vamos".

[31] It had the third-best debut sales of any Latin artist in 2016, after Juan Gabriel's Los Duo 2 and Banda Sinaloense MS de Sergio Lizarraga's Que Bendicion.

[31] Mario Prunes of AllMusic described Energia as "an album that knew it was going to be an international blockbuster almost a year before its release," due to the success of "Ginza".

[34] That same year, Balvin featured on "Cuando Seas Grande" by Spanish musician Alejandro Sanz and American singer Sofia Carson´s "Love is the Name".

[17] He launched a partnership with SoundCloud and Buchanan's Whiskey in a project called Es Nuestro Momento, where fans can access Balvin's previously unreleased a capella vocals and create personalized remixes of his songs.

Balvin and Willy William released six more "Mi Gente" remixes with Steve Aoki, Alesso, Cedric Gervais, Dillon Francis, Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano, and Henry Fong.

[38] At the ceremony, he performed "Mi Gente" as well as "Si Tu Novio Te Deja Sola" alongside Bad Bunny and his remix of "Unforgettable" with French Montana.

[50] The two artists first met at a Balvin concert in Puerto Rico, when Bad Bunny was working on releasing music on SoundCloud, and then collaborated on the 2017 track "Si Tu Novio Te Deja Sola".

[53] In August 2019, Balvin and Bad Bunny headlined the Uforia Latino Mix Live concert series to raise money for victims of the shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas.

[54] The concert series consisted of two performances in Texas, one in Dallas and one in Houston, and featured openers Wisin & Yandel, Reik, Sech, Ozuna, Natti Natasha, Pedro Capó, Sebastián Yatra, Tito El Bambino.

[55] In November 2019, Balvin released the music video for the single "Blanco", which introduced a "futuristic, all-white environment filled with hypnotic dancers and flying cats".

In an interview with Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, Balvin stated that he felt encouraged to pursue a career as a reggaeton artist after seeing that Daddy Yankee was of a lighter complexion and not Black, as he had assumed while listening to his music.

[67] Though he cites Daddy Yankee as his biggest musical inspiration, Balvin's earliest influences were rock bands such as Metallica and Nirvana, as well as salsa legend Hector Lavoe.

[citation needed] Balvin has also been accused of cultural appropriation, which noted reggaeton historian Katelina Eccleston references in an interview for Paper Mag, specifically the song, "In Da Getto."

[67] Luis Estrada of Universal Music Latino and Capitol Latin says of Balvin, "He breaks every rule of what people think reggaeton is, and they love him for that...He doesn't take himself too seriously.

[15] However, he recorded his first all-English song with Pitbull and Camila Cabello for the 2017 soundtrack to The Fate of the Furious, known as "Hey Ma", and explained that he is open to the idea of singing in English if the opportunity presents itself.

He failed to explicitly condemn rampant police violence during the 2019 and 2021 national strikes in Colombia, leading in the latter case to a significant drop in streaming of his music within the country.

He tagged world-famous artists such as Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry in the photos he shared to make the voice of his country and people heard in foreign media.

[76] He debuted pieces that he designed in the Colombiamoda Fashion Week show in Medellín in July 2018, where he presented his collaboration with the clothing brand Gef France.

[86] Balvin explained that he "grew up with the Guess brand" and "always respected and identified with the Marciano brothers' history of taking influence from the country and culture of their heritage, and fusing it with the spirit of the United States".

[90] He called the situation "deplorable" and created the social media campaign #LatinosSomosFamilia (We Latinos Are Family), encouraging fans to sign a petition to support the displaced victims.

[103] Already a huge star in South America, Balvin has been credited with revitalising reggaeton - a hip-hop-infused blend of reggae and rap that originated in Puerto Rico in the late 1990s.

[108] When Joan Scutia from Mexican Vogue reviewed Balvin's career and success, noted that reggaeton is part of Simon Reynolds' theory about globalization in music: "Nothing is foreign in an internet age".

In an article published by Rolling Stone, "J Balvin represented Latino gangs old and New on the set of live Saturday - the Colombian superstar made history on the Coachella stage... in a moment of confusion of Latinx pride".