Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Signing’ on Netflix, Where Young Singers Compete To Score A Record Contract With Reggaeton Royalty

Reggaeton stars Tainy, Yandel, Rauw Alejandro, rapper-singer Nicki Nicole, and record producer and music industry executive Lex Borrero are your judges for Netflix’s new eight-episode competition reality series The Signing (Spanish language title: La Firma). Ten budding singers and performers hope to land a recording contract with one of the hottest labels in Latin music based on the strength of their original material, their songwriting acumen, and their ability to put their whole business into a stone cold performance. Will their contracts be validated, or ripped to shreds?

THE SIGNING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: At the Miami headquarters of Neon16, the entertainment interest he founded with Puerto Rican reggaeton giant Tainy, Lex Borrero is going through audition tapes. They’re not just looking for talent on The Signing, the impresario says. They’re also searching for artists with something to say.

The Gist: The group of young people who have submitted their songs to land a spot on The Signing hail from Argentina, Colombia, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Hermosillo in northern Mexico, the Juarez/El Paso border region, Peru, Chile, and Phoenix, Arizona. They’re all in their early to mid-twenties, they all see participating in and — hey, don’t jinx it — even winning the singing and performing competition as something they were born to do, and each of them possess a certainty about their stage presence and songcraft that’s admirable in its ambition and charming in its extreme confidence. Eydrey, 22, who sings and creates her own beats, has named the music she makes “sad reggaeton.” “I want to make music to twerk to while crying. Because there’s the dance beat, but with a melody and lyrics that make you want to cut your wrists.”

The Signing will put its participants through a series of challenges typical to the competition reality format. But as Nicki Nicole tells the group once they’ve settled into the modernist Miami mansion they’ll call home for the duration of The Signing, they’ll also be in the studio daily, creating songs on the fly around themes selected by the judges. Not only that, but after making a song, the competitors must sing and perform the track live for Nicki, Tainy, Rauw, Yandel, and Lex. “It’s up to you to give it your all, or lose it all.”

12 contestants signed contracts to be here, but there are only 10 beds in the mansion. It’s off to a Miami club, where the judges sit stageside in armchairs, and each competitor must perform the song that got them to The Signing. “You’re a pro on stage,” Lex tells Nati, 26, from Medellin. “But I have to say I didn’t love the song. I loved your energy. But I didn’t feel touched by the melody in the chorus.” This is The Signing, they say in their judges’ meeting. They’re not playing around. And the bottom three competitors are called to a final reckoning. “You won’t be signed today,” Lex tells one of them. “Your contract has been terminated.”

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Lex Borrero is also an executive producer of Los Montaners (Disney+), about the lives of the Latin music superfamily, and The Signing showrunner Nikki Boella was a co-creator of Rhythm + Flow (Netflix), where hip-hop hopefuls are guided and judged by Cardi B, Chance the Rapper, and T.I.  

Our Take: It’s a pretty good bit when the judges all roll up separately to the mansion, their Ferraris and Lambos and motorcycles competing for space in the drive. The Signing broadcasts who its stars are from the get go, and the contestants are appropriately giddy and hyper and googly-eyed once they’re thrust into the show’s central core. (Well, except for one guy who’s constantly wearing sunglasses. These kids are young and nervous!) Mostly, they can’t stop pinching themselves that they’ll be working with the stars. But as deserved as their screen time is, the judges also have a kicky internal dynamic that’s immediately apparent once they start actually judging. Nicki Nicole needles Rauw Alejandro enough about his dance moves that he answers her challenge to leap onstage and educate a competitor one on one. And everybody claps back to the more measured criticisms coming from Lex Borrero. On The Signing, the entire groove the judges are in, as both individual professionals and an adjudicating body, is very Shark Tank. 

In their critiques of the competitors, the judges of The Signing are also incisive and specific about what needs to change. A particular vocal dynamic, a sense of eye contact, or the encouragement to grow a backbone on stage. (They also heap praise on a few of the performances that are cohesive, catchy, and visually rich.) It really seems like this crew of judges is excited to hone some people into mean hit songwriting machines, so the pro-am collaborations in the recording studios should be a highlight moving forward. Still, The Signing wouldn’t be abiding by the rolodexes of those celebrity judges if it didn’t also include a few heavy hitters as guest stars, so count on appearances from luminaries like Luny and J. Balvin.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: It’s the immediate aftermath of the first challenge in the club, and two contestants have just watched the judges rip up the contract of one of their peers. After all of this excitement, one of them will be banished next.

Sleeper Star: He’s a co-creator and one of the judges, so it’s not like Lex Borrero is a sleeper star of The Signing. But it’s perhaps because he’s the ringleader of this operation that his demeanor stands out. Borrero often takes a paternal tone with the young contestants – “This is Miami, but this isn’t a vacation” – and repeatedly stresses how impressing the judges won’t exactly be a breeze. If somebody on The Signing misbehaves and needs a ride, you know who is picking them up.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I’m fighting for a dream I’ve always had; I will dedicate everything I achieve here to my mom.” To a person, the young competitors of The Signing offer a variation on this line whenever they’re asked what inspired them to audition for the show.

Our Call: Stream It. The Signing has immediate star power in its celebrity judges. But there’s watchability here, too – basically, they’re good together. Let’s see what kind of challenges they lay on this reality competition entry’s eager group of young singers and performers. 

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges