Grammy-winning artist Eladio Carrión just completed a globetrotting world tour that spanned 32 stops across four months, one which brought him to New York’s Barclays Center and wrapped with a Mexico City date in February.

Despite the grueling string of shows, there won’t be much of a respite. Carrión will soon hit the road for yet another tour. And somehow, the Puerto Rican star has managed to keep up this relentless pace while finding time to squeeze in a few side quests along the way, including his latest campaign with New Balance.

Revealed on Easter Sunday, Carrión is the face of New Balance’s Abzorb 2010 lifestyle sneaker in a just-released Neptune Gray/Violet Crush colorway. The campaign marks Carrión’s second since he became a New Balance ambassador in 2024, and he also helped promote the brand’s 9060 model in partnership with Shoe Palace. The working relationship between the Latin trap star and the Boston-based athletic brand is one that Carrión insists is only “getting better and better.”

New Balance has likewise been charmed by Carrión’s passion for the brand. 

“After a couple of years working with someone, their creative depth and commitment to the brand become clear,” Tom Henshaw, senior director of global lifestyle market at New Balance, told Footwear News. “With Eladio, both of these things have been apparent from the start. He challenges our thinking, he comes with his own ideas, and he genuinely cares how the work turns out. That’s exactly what we look for in an ambassador. Someone who changes what’s possible and puts themselves into the process. Eladio does just that.”

With so much momentum behind the pairing, it’s hardly a reach to imagine a full-on Eladio Carrión x New Balance sneaker collaboration in the not-too-distant future. But for now, he seems more than content leading the rollout for one of the brand’s latest Abzorb 2010 drops.

Ahead of the campaign’s reveal, FN caught up with Carrión to talk all things New Balance, including his favorite models, what’s next from the partnership and the inspiration he feels from seeing longtime friend Bad Bunny flourish. 

FN: You’ve been working with New Balance since 2024. How has the partnership evolved in those last few years?

Eladio Carrión: It’s just been getting better and better. The label, Rimas, we’re an independent label. It’s all family vibes, everyone’s on the same page. So every time we try to partner with any type of organization, any type of teams, we look for that same type of ambiance, that same type of people. And since the first days we met people from New Balance, it felt like home. It’s very comfortable being with New Balance.

FN: What about their shoes do you like the most?

E.C.: Me, I’m an ex-swimmer, so I’m all about comfort, man. I always love to be comfortable, any type of shoes I would buy would have to be comfortable. And New Balance has the perfect way of just combining comfort with fashion. Because before, you would have to just use orthopedic looking shoes. The old uncle shoes, the grandpa shoes.

Now we don’t have to do that. I think they do a very good job, not only with this shoe, the Abzorb 2010, but the majority of their shoes. They’re just super comfortable and you can fit them with anything, so that’s a big thing on my part.

Plus the one thing that I love the most is when I went to, I think it was Lawrence [Mass.], and I walked into the factory and just, it was straight Puerto Rican and Dominican. The way they treat them over there, the employees, the Latinos. That was something that really, when we were starting to do our relationship, it could have been a big deal breaker there. That’s when I said, “This is the people we’ve got to do business with.”

FN: Let’s talk about the Abzorb 2010 in particular. What can you tell me about the new campaign?

E.C.: It’s amazing, bro, I’m excited for it. We have a lot of ideas for when the shoe drops, especially activations in Puerto Rico and Latin America. We have something really nice coming up for when it comes out.

But I love the shoe. Like I said, being comfortable for me is a big thing. And that’s a shoe that you can rock with anything, like any designer clothes or anything. I’ve been rocking it with everything on tour. It’s one of my favorite shoes that’s came out in the last couple of drops.

I’ve been getting good campaigns, man. New Balance, they like me. The 1000s were fire. Those were shoes that to this day, I rock them. I love them. The 2010s are fire. The 2000s are fire also, I’ve been rocking those lately a lot. 

FN: You’ve done a couple campaigns with New Balance now. How does it feel to be the face of these shoes?

E.C.: It’s more than the shoe, it’s just being part of the New Balance team. I feel like New Balance is the winning team. The past five years, it’s majorly become a top shoe, fighting with other brands.

But I like being part of cool campaigns. They’ve been nice enough to give me cool shoes to promote. My fans, they love it. You’ll see one of my shows and you’ll see everybody with the 1000s. The past tour, everyone had the 1000s on. Everyone was asking me to sign the 1000s. That was the shoe in Latin America for the tour.

And I believe for this tour now, everyone’s going to be rocking the 2010s.

FN: You mentioned the 2010s, the 2000s, the 1000s. Are there any other New Balances that are some of your favorites?

E.C.: I love any Aminé collabs. I love those and the Joe Freshgoods collabs. 

I’m a big 990v2 fan. I love the v2s, the gray v2s. Those are always my go-to shoes for everything. It’s not a big shoe because usually when shoes are comfortable, they have bulk in it for the comfort, but it’s a very slick shoe and it’s just so comfortable and it fits with everything. So I got a lot of v2s stacked up.

FN: I know you’re a big baseball guy. You had the song “Ohtani,” and obviously, Shohei Ohtani is also a New Balance guy. Could we ever see you two do something together?

E.C.: I’ve been trying to, man. Come on. I would love to. I mean, it wouldn’t be that hard either, because Kike [Hernández] is there with the Dodgers, and now we’ve got Sugar Diaz with the Dodgers. We got Puerto Rican people, I got a lot of good friends in the Dodgers. I just haven’t reached out and said, “Yo, let me get a little hype from Ohtani,” or something, you know? 

But I would love to. I respect what he does. I believe that it’s a blessing to see what all these athletes are doing. LeBron James, what he’s doing. Ohtani, what he’s doing for the sport. I think it’s a wonderful time to be alive and to witness greatness. So I would love to meet Ohtani and show some love.

FN: I know you worked with Bad Bunny very closely early on. How has it been to see him flourish and watch his career take off the way it has?

E.C.: Amazing, amazing. I wish he was Team New Balance, but amazing. (Bad Bunny is an Adidas partner.)

That’s the homie. Like [since the] sandbox, we’ve known each other forever. I just love Bad Bunny and anyone that I know close to me doing amazing things and doing great things, breaking records, raising the bar up. It’s a blessing, it motivates me to do more. To do better.

It motivates everyone else, too, and it just makes everything seem more possible to do. When you see people close to you doing things like that, it gets me hype, it makes me feel that things are more possible than seeing someone that I don’t know do something.

FN: It seems like this relationship with New Balance is progressing quickly. Can you share any hints at what’s to come in the future?

E.C.: I don’t know if I can say anything, but expect amazing things. We have amazing communication. We’re on the same page. I personally love the brand, so it’s way easier.

Like I said, we always try to do business or link up with people with the same mindset, with the same family approach, with everyone being transparent. And New Balance gives a lot of that. I’m not trying to talk bull about anyone else, but other places, there might be so many people that their ambassadors don’t get that much love or acknowledgement. Here, it’s more quality, not quantity. And I like that because our label is the same way: it’s always been quality over quantity.