Karen Rodriguez's dreams are coming true!
The former American Idol contestant and now Roc Nation Latin artist just released her first music video for her original song, "Happy April Fools," which was produced by bachata king himself Romeo Santos.
"From the moment I met Karen, I knew she was special," Santos exclusively tells E! News. "Working with her on 'Happy April Fools' was magic—she radiates light and passion in every step of the process. Roc Nation Latin is honored to be a part of her journey, and we can't wait for everyone to know Karen Rodriguez!"
We sat with Rodriguez, who revealed to us that there is quite a story behind the song.
"The song is called 'Happy April Fools' and there's a reason for that. I actually wrote it on April Fool's Day a couple of years ago, and the inspiration came from a party that there was on April Fool's Day. I planned to meet a boy at that party, and I pretty much fell into a prank. He made it seem that he was coming but he never intended to," she confessed to E! News. "So I was waiting for him all night, and he never showed up. I pretty much stayed until I was the last person. Then I went home and wrote this song, obviously, I was pretty upset but a great song came out of that. I was very inspired, I think I got home at around 4 A.M. and I couldn't stop thinking about the situation. So I got out my iPad and on Garage Band I produced this song and I wrote it. Then I took a nap and I woke up and wrote the Spanish version all in the same day."
We, of course, had to ask if this guy who will be kept unnamed is aware that he inspired this track.
"No, I don't think he has any idea. I'm very receptive to the things I experience and hear, so there are so many songs that I've written about people that they'll never know that it's about them," Rodriguez said before continuing. "Artists write songs about their long relationships, but I literally just write whenever I get any inspiration. I just go with it. So, I really don't think he would know it's about him. It was such a long time ago."
Things truly aligned for Rodriguez when she met Santos a few years ago.
"When I met Romeo, I was in a studio session and recording background vocals for Marc Anthony that night, and he happened to be in the studio. I asked him if it was OK to play some of the music that I had written and this song was a part of that bunch. At the time, the only demo that I had of this song was the one that I had created that night on my iPad," she said. "That was the moment that really inspired Romeo to begin this relationship of mentorship with me. Since that day he's taken me under his wing and that's how that flourish. But every time that we would meet up to catch up or work on something, he'd ask me to play this song and he always had the intention of producing it
Rodriguez explained that although the public Romeo as a performer, he's also a phenomenal producer. Before working on side by side with "Happy April Fools," the two worked together co-writing the 35-year-old's hit "Odio," which featured Drake.
When it came to shooting her first official music video, Rodriguez has a vision and which she was able to make come to life.
"I shot it in Coney Island, and it was freezing that day. The reason I chose this location is that the song itself has a lot of carnival metaphors and the use of games. So I wanted the idea of me walking through a deserted and cold Coney Island. I wanted the viewers to see these visuals and create their own wonderland of a sad Cinderella story," she explains. "Then there's a point in the song when the beat comes in, and then I change clothes, and I'm really singing into the camera. It's that part where I know I've been played, but I'm not going to be the fool because I knew who you were coming into this relationship and I stayed, so that's why the song says ‘You can't make a fool of someone that's already a fool.'"
And just like Romeo Santos, we also see great things coming from this songstress!