Chronicle 2021: The Highlights #5
Por mi, que se joda. Latin music! Reggaeton, trap, pop, and more!
We make yet another dive into some of the best albums of the year! This time, we’re focusing on mainstream Latin albums. All these songs had a hit of some kind in some country/countries, and each of them display visions that may never coalesce, but feed off of each other in ways that are quite fun if you dig in through the dirt and realize how much these artists have to say.
LIT killah - MAWZ (pop rap)
In many ways, this is the breakthrough album many artists yearn to have. LIT killah made a steady climb up to the top, from freestyle shows to slowly putting out songs that garnered him some buzz, and once he started working with Argentine superstar producer Bizarrap, everything seemed to be a lot easier. That’s where you could see somewhat of an arc coming to fruition: LIT killah would fringe on the more daring sounds of Argentina’s mainstream rap while still very much remaining a mainstream act.
That both did and did not happen. Tides changed for Argentina’s trap music. Producer/mixer who had been around for a couple of years suddenly got a massive boost in acclaim and popularity by elevating María Becerra, a YouTuber-turned-superstar, into being one of the most in-demand pop singers in the Latin scene today. But since Big One was, first and foremost, a rap producer, he decided to also elevate and highly work with an intense crew he had work with (coined ‘Los Del Espacio, Mami’), one where LIT killah was a part of, and through many remixes, collaborations and features, had them dominate the entire mainstream sphere for him. And while artists like Tiago PZK would go on to find more success with their singles, Big One decided to stick with LIT killah for a full-length album, which also saw input from regular producer Oniria.
Here’s where we come into a fun predicament that practically solved itself: LIT killah was pushed by his label to bring in a more friendly ‘pop’ sound, one that would take him away from his hardcore rap moments, but that could be played on pop radio. The thing is, Big One was already pushing the barriers of what could be played on pop radio! Big One was focused on bringing a rougher sense of rhythm to mainstream production, one where the guitars would get swept away and glitched by more electronic drums than ever, and the vocal passages could feel distorted and borderline alien-esque. As a producer, he revels in what are meant to be flaws in the performances, enhances them, and then turns them into relishing, celebrating frequencies. A futuristic mindset for a pop producer. In that sense, LIT killah was the perfect playground for him: his voice was always elastic, hitting the edges of his timbre and range, and could be manipulated with ease. It was an exciting time, indeed.
Perhaps the finest summary of this entire project is “My Bag”, a solo cut that could count as highly, highly melodic rap, but certainly not trap. The drums feel yet full yet compressed and the main groove is filled with distorted pianos skipping their way through a pleasant melody - like an electronic, somewhat paranoid walk in the park. LIT killah fills himself with altered backing vocals that always feel too weird to be in front of the mix, and his main vocal tracks see him pushing his vocal range to the point where you could almost imagine pushing some buttons off a keyboard in order to make this count - by all means, autotune is here to stay, even if it’s all so sidetracked it’s trying to hide the passage from one note to the next. Lyrically, he’s trying to split the difference between reminding everyone he’s still the fresh-off-his-feet rapper he once used to be, but also trying to make us understand the tension that comes with being the center of attention. What comes is a desperate performance that confuses itself at every turn - there are 2 different instances of pulling up a faster flow just to show, and it’s jarring. Again, it’s all uncanny. No aspect is ever too satisfied with itself, or ready to stand still.
The guitars sound stilted and digitized to no end on “A Tus Pies” with Rusherking, a semi-mournful, semi-cheerful farewell with a tone that doesn’t know how to handle the bravado of getting out of a bad relationship. “Mala Mía” with legend Duki threatens to be a reggaeton jam with some pretty harsh drum tones, until it becomes a normal rap song with light colorful key tones, and LIT killah’s voice, once again, being used as a merciless instrument - several moments are so processed and hamfisted, they’re dislocating (the crossfaded “ma-a-a-a-a-a-aaah” catches you off guard). The one reggaeton crossover hit with María Becerra, “En La Oscuridad”, is quite intriguing: pianos that never reveal their grey intentions, a dembow progression that doesn’t feel quite comfortable with it, María using a sultry tone in her voice she’s not used to using, and LIT killah putting out an unstable and unsteady performance, quite off for the hookup jam that this is supposed to be. MAWZ evokes unwanted tension on just about every level.
Then again, only half of the album is produced by Big One - the second half is produced by trap producer Oniria. Then again, you can tell the album’s mixing is handled entirely by the former, since that unsettling tone in the vocal processing remains, even if the grooves become more conventional. “El Inversor” is probably the best BTS song BTS song didn’t put out in 2021, with its highly plastic funk-pop groove, and LIT killah uses so many vocal timbres he acts like a self-made boy band (and the danceable groove, meant to be choreographed, is at its advantage). “Dame Una Nite” features a more loose Tiago PZK (his Argentine way of saying the word ‘thriller’ (‘triller’) is quite charming), and the languid instrumental needs to catch up to LIT killah’s constant rapid flow, not even when the enormous hook comes around. The one ballad on here, “Hechízame”, is possibly the worst on the album, yet LIT posing as a ballladeer can be quite entertaining, especially since he’s about to be glitched for no reason (“Me pones el mundo al reve-e-e-e-e”), more problematic aspects of his facade come out. The electronic always remains.
All of this may sound like criticism, if you’re unfamiliar with this type of sound. But growing accostumed to LIT killah’s vocals and his underrated sense of melody, you realize there’s a lot to be found in his patchy singable flow and the insistent production. “California”, produced by Oniria, is the song that got me hooked from the get-go, as the drama intensified in the plastic organs and the descending chord progression, every syllable that came out of LIT killah’s mouth may as well have been from a different vocal take only to be patched together with the rest later on, and his sense of melancholic bravado hooked you on. “Being sad is easier in first class”? Absolutely! When he goes back to his fast flow for a split second on the bridge, that strange sense of uneasiness becomes overbearing and cathartic. And if you want catharsis, Big One-produced “Change” is quite the piece. The main intro/chorus, with sparse keys and a particularly shitty melody, doesn’t create a lot of tension, but the main section, the verses, are incredible: sharp guitars (straight out of 100 gecs) with some of the most intense rapping LIT killah’s done in a while, and every verse tops itself with intensity, until the final verse where the song becomes a frenzy of words that may or may not make sense, but it’s the wide-eyedness that makes it such an impressive section of music (it’s also one of the few parts of the album he can convincingly pull off live). There’s a universe where LIT killah becomes a full-on rap rock star and it could be marvelous.
But instead, the best parts on this album are filled with artistic achievements. Opener “Dejame Tranki” with KHEA sets the tone insanely well, with a hook reminiscent of hyperpop with synths that seethe into the instrumental (while others just act as segments of bitpop), and both flexible vocalists allow themselves to be used like hell (KHEA’s “asi que dejame tranQUIIIIIIiillOoo” is showstopping), and there’s not a single moment of silence; a missing arcade where all the games come to life, and you may be wired too, but why should you care? It’s a party! Meanwhile, “Ese Mensaje”, alongside Big One’s constant songwriter FMK is one of the best pop songs this year has seen, where FMK finally finds some charisma and his melodies soar, the pre-chorus in particular comes off like an epiphany with a smile (“Ya lo descubrí!” What a sentiment!), and LIT killah seems to be approaching an entire arena, and with his digital presence, reaches the entire circle, meanwhile Big One’s musical manifesto becomes realized: being engrossed in 1’s and 0’s that form candy cane. Hail to the visionaries; may they always have as much fun as everyone does here.
Morat - ¿A Dónde Vamos? (latin pop)
Folk-y radio fodder pop music is typically very bad. Think the Lumineers, think Mumford & Sons. These may sound like cheap shots, but these are the artists that Morat look up to as a band. Ever since 2016, they’ve found a formula and they’ve stuck to it: singable melodies, a focus on acoustic instruments like acoustic guitars and percussion, a lot of chants and crowded mixes, throw in as many ‘hey!’s or ‘woah-oh’s as possible, and you get a song. They’re predictable, they’re easy-going, they’re one of the bunch.
They’re also proof that just about any style of music can shield up good results. Since they teamed up with Andrés Torres and Mauricio Rengifo to produce them, the kings of latin pop production (“Despacito”, TINI, Sebastián Yatra, Aitana, Reik, etc.), their sound has been extra polished and with better results than ever before. Their second album from 2018, Balas Perdidas, was one of the finest pop albums of that year, and while ¿A Dónde Vamos? doesn’t feel as cohesive a piece (probably because 2/3rds of the songs here were released as singles throughout the past 2 years), the formula remains intact, and the boys still work their way through failed romance with a romantic eye that, while it may hurt them from time to time, works excellently as a way to comprehend this sound from a good, empathetic place.
Morat are the kind of group who like their epic stories of love that may seem impossible in real life, but with the power of a song, everything can be possible. A song like “Al Aire” exemplifies that: a pop rock dedication of love through a radio phone call, hoping she’s listening, since it’s the only way he can contact her. They take the concept to the lyrical extreme: “15 minutes of fame for 1 next to her”, that kind of deal, all with added elongated syllables and ‘na-na-na’s. The title track itself, an unlikely story premise: he meets her at a bar, tells her he loves her, and she invites him on a never-ending journey throughout the world, partying and loving each other until they die! The ultimate power of love at first sight! Enough drama in the composition to make it not only believable, but also even desirable if you’re not already a dead-eyed romantic! They get a pointless Sebastian Yatra on “Bajo La Mesa” to express their love to her in front of their friends at a bar, because now is better than later! Again, you look at these concepts on paper, and they sound delusional, poorly thought out and borderline desperate - but their delivery and framing make you sweep into that vague sense of romanticism that makes you think beyond any sense of reason. It takes a lot of skill for that to work, and not come off as either too self-aware or a straight up idiot.
That sense of utter romanticism is what drives most of this album, if not all of it. They can call out former lovers who want them back on “No Hay Más Que Hablar” to the point where they almost border on misogyny, or at least no real sense of empathy of how she could feel (“You turned me into your enemy”, are you sure she did that?), they always try to get her to turn around, realize all their words are just petty lashing out and they can’t let the idea of a good romance get away completely. It’s not pretty where they outright tell her that her heart “might have made a mistake” for falling in love with someone who doesn’t treat her right on “Date La Vuelta”, and that sense of constant twee can get overbearing, but the presentation is solid enough to make me believe that they believe it. It’s not a phony message for them. In that sense, the complex lay out of “Enamórate De Alguien Más” is a highlight, a lovely ballad with those acute touches of reverb courtesy of Torres and Rengifo but just enough to keep them grounded, where they realize the insufficiency of their actions and their love, realizing they’re incapable of loving her the way she wants them to. A fine moment of realization where distance might be for the better. Again, giving into that sense of grand romanticism where they’re the ones turning their back on the person they love for each other’s sake, but it’s still a hard path to cross. They dress the drama up completely well. “Give me an excuse to hate you, because I never could.”
In fact, that kind of occasional level headedness is what makes them more relatable and more than just simple assholes. “No Te Olvidé” is a peppy song about how they’re still hurting and regretting leaving, even though “their name doesn’t scare her anymore” and she doesn’t “hide sighs of regret when she sees them”; it’s a complicated situation, and even though they’re done with begging for her to come back, they’re still hoping and leaving the door open. They know who’s at fault, and they have nothing to reproach her, but the perfect, idealistic ending still lingers. Dangerous? Maybe. But it’s all temporary. After all, there’s always the chance that there might be another romantic waiting for them on the other end, like on the closer “Simplemente Pasan” with Cami. A meeting by chance, where both parties end up infatuated, dancing next to each other, taking a chance and maybe, just maybe, thinking that this could be the future. A constant comeback to that promise of eternal, everlasting love. Sometimes it’s ugly, and Morat try to play ugly (their worst side), but when they settle for those moments of idealism and happy endings, they remind people of why it’s worth it, and why hope is always something to keep in mind.
Justin Quiles - La última promesa (reggaeton)
The first few seconds of La última promesa already let you know what’s going to happen for the next 45 minutes. “Quítate Eso” kicks off with a promising, low bass figure, one that doesn’t seem to threaten much - and then Justin Quiles comes in. “Ya quiero quitarte el pantalón” (“I already wanna take your pants off”), a desperate opening line, and the way he sings it: resigned, pouty, knowing it’s all over before it even begins. The marimbas that accompany him are hollow and bitter, and the languid tone sets off. Once the drums kick in, already exhausted (and reminder, it’s the first song), as he pleads for her to take it all off, promising to do whatever she wants, he completely surrenders to his own desires. He’s unaware of what to do, he likes her too much, not knowing how to act, and his frustrations only get to come out in his sigh of a delivery. Then, a brief moment where the percussion comes in, the nighttime synths take over, Justin Quiles stares blankly at nothing, “...I’m addicted to you”. Before the chorus can even kick in, he breaks, going to his higher register, on the edge of tears (“...y te lo hago bruto”, not even properly finishing his own sexual boast), and the conclusion of the song leaves him alone, screaming in agony. His desires have failed him, and now he’s all but forgotten. No masculine bravado can save him.
La última promesa is the pinnacle of modern reggaeton when it comes to showing the underlying aspect of fragile masculinity matched with intense sexual frustration, to the point where all possible attempts end up in failures simply because they’re already set up as that before they get a chance to try. Quiles’ producer, Dímelo Flow, has established this sound throughout the years, the minimalist focusing on the inherent rhythm of his performers, but in Sech, he found an ally of boasting and mindless hard work propaganda, and in Dalex, he found a horny man who knows his way around. But Justin Quiles, he can’t decipher him. The man feels destined to be a sadsack for the rest of his life, and La última promesa reads like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The tones mainly stay in the lowkey atmospheres that could be associated with sex jams, except they sound more likely to fit in for nights that end in crying. Songs like “Tienes Razón” or “Contradicción” with Sech are just insanely bitter tracks where, whether he’s acknowledging all the mistakes are on his end (like on the former track) or on her end (like on the latter), it always sounds like he’s about to get the worst end of the stick. Justin Quiles is, by all means, an emotionally stunted loser who could get into some kind of relationship, whether it be romantic or merely sexual, but in his mind has already decided it’s impossible, it’s too late, and now denies all evidence to the contrary. His biggest obstacle is himself. And so, La última promesa lends itself to the power of the self-inflicted tragedy.
I already used this word in this review, but ‘pouting’ seems to be the main mood Justin Quiles is able to perform. He cuts things off with a girl on “Colorín Colorado” and his main mood is ambivalence and just a tad of hurt - he mainly wants to detach himself from everything she does in the future, erase himself from her story, like a bad coping mechanism. He seems to be aware of this, and still he has the audacity to complain. He finds himself on the other end of the spectrum on “Se Te Olvidó”, where he calls out a girl who seemingly hasn’t forgotten him, and he could truly humiliate her in a sense… but the production intentionally doesn’t give him a lot of strength, as if he were in the middle of a desert, his lyrics come off more like projection than anything, and when it’s time for him to develop the killer blow as the instrumental gives him more space for the key lyric, he dives into a childish, nasal tone and only mutters an unfinished phrase (“Yo si, se nota que a ti…..”). By all means, he’s pathetic. The best example is one of the best songs on here, “Ponte Pa’ Mi”, a would-be summer anthem where the ambiance of a beach in slow motion is incredibly on point, and Justin Quiles marvels from afar at a potential love interest, and he just gets frustrated because, again, he’s decided he can’t do anything (“She’s even hotter, goddamnit…”). As Dímelo Flow chops his vocals in the outro, he only becomes more vulnerable; a husk of a person.
His lack of control over his sexual urges is even more pronnounced where the wide array of features come in. Lead single “PAM” with Daddy Yankee and El Alfa, gets by on their verses, as Yankee calls off all his friends and his flow is dynamic and lively, and El Alfa dives into the ridiculousness of the track… all of which make Justin Quiles’ lowkey nursery rhyme pre-chorus come off as even more transparently poor (the ending where everyone is ad-libbing all at once is one of true revelations). The magnificent duo of Dalex and Lenny Tavarez show up on one of the most charged tracks on here, “Apretón”, where Lenny brings up his usual reggaeton references (“Pero ellas perrean sola’! …Merece repeat, sola’!”, what a legend) and his control over his voice is still stellar, and Dalex comes in bringing in the party with him. Chris Marshall’s more sentimental approach on “Get Wild” is more on point, especially as that song deals with Justin’s lack of abilities in more straightforward ways (“She texts me when she’s drunk / She likes that I’m damaged”, sweet Jesus), so Chris gets to soften the waters a little bit and be on the same wavelength (“Get wild if you want to / …You can cry if you want to”).
If anything, the moments of companionship are the ones where the music feels less exhausted and more willing to try something cooler and even fun. The one female feature on this, Mariah Angeliq, shows up for a sexting track on “Textos Sucios” which, even if it opens with Justin going “Devour me” in (again) the most miserable tone possible, she’s able to bring some levity to the situation and doesn’t let things go too far. A surprising moment of mutual understanding is “La Botella” with Maluma, usually a debauched don juan, who would have nothing to do with someone like Justin Quiles, yet they both reach similar levels of yearning. “Got drunk again, but if she were here! I wouldn’t touch another bottle”, a level of commitment that Quiles has proven can’t hold up to, but maybe being aided by another, more carefree mind, can help him see a different point of view, especially when the melodies are strong (Maluma’s “Tiene un don Peri’ pa’ - hipnotizarme!” is hypnotizing, indeed). Even when he’s alone, when Quiles gives into a more juvenile sense of sexual frustration instead of the brooding, tiring one, like on “Jeans”, he can find himself with a stronger sense of humor in his lyrics and his vocals. A dash of glee, even if he still thinks he’ll end up alone in the end.
But perhaps, the brightest moment on the album is the last song, “Loco”, one of the few ones not produced by Dímelo Flow, this time by Dominican producer B-One, featuring Chimbala and Zion & Lennox. After 40 minutes of lonely, self-effacing misery (that somehow doesn’t land him into incel-mode), Quiles is still left with no answers. He watches both Chimbala and Zion dominate and take over the track with ease, this time with a more uptempo breeze that’s a welcome breather compared to the rest of the album, but even then, he seems to have no luck. So maybe, the one thing that could put things in perspective is watching someone else struggling even harder than him. When Lennox drops in to do his verse (the final verse of the album), it’s one of the most unhinged and desperate moments in mainstream Latin music of the year. Lennox in general has no sense of restraint, and here, he hasn’t reached the levels of misguided comfort in thinking you’ll be alone forever (like Justin has), so as he watches a girl dance and gets excited, he panics. He screams, he wails, he feels like he could die! All to be left in the middle of the dancefloor, crying. Until Justin Quiles lends him a hand; a segue to the final chorus, as Justin eases him in, treats him as if he was saying a couple of jokes, and then Lennox delivers half of the final chorus with ecstasy and ease, realizing something key: that pain and confusion can be plasmated and turned into something beautiful and universal, like a dancefloor jam. Longing with a purpose. Maybe that’s what Justin Quiles is capable of.
And, if you’ve heard his latest features, he seems to have drastically changed his tune, realizing his privilege, his fame, his riches, and most importantly, his desirability, and now could feel more content and ready to leave this mindset behind. Indeed, you can cry if you want to. But that only lasts for so long.
Feid - INTER SHIBUYA - LA MAFIA (reggaeton)
Reggaeton distilled from all excitement and just showing off its scarier, lonelier parts. The same day this and Justin Quiles’ agonizing La última promesa dropped, it felt like something had irrevocably changed in a way that it could never be the same again, even if neither album provided a big hit. While Justin Quiles focused on the painful sexual frustration from a man given up, Feid was far more complex, like he always had been. His sense of melancholy through the 3-3-2 rhythm was always far more open-ended and humorous. He would never show himself in a truly happy, joyous mood, but his sense of questioning those around him would haunt him every time. His old flames, his new flames, those who could be there for him yet he can’t accept, everything blurs into small, fleeting moments of reflection among the celebration.
What makes this album ring through as a full listen (and quite a brief one too: 15 tracks in 36 minutes) is the constant, fatigued sense of going through the motions of sex and hard-to-get routines that got old and stale a while ago, and now all that’s left is the indifference to those trying to enter the endless game, and the constant yearning for all those who went away, knowing they’re now out of reach. Mainly produced by fantastic producer Sky Rompiendo (who finally found a more intriguing muse than J Balvin), INTER SHIBUYA - LA MAFIA maintains a cohesive mood, where the strings and guitars are plucked, and the air they leave behind in the mix gets accentuated, so the bits of color feel like they could adapt to any situation or mood - anxiety, excitement, frustration. There’s a constant lack of grasp on any certain ambiance, which is what makes this such a compelling listen: you always get something different out of it. The album cover alone, which may look straight out of a forgotten acid jazz/trip hop album from the 90s, already gives you these mixed colors which seem to change depending on your perception.
That’s why the seemingly disruptive percussion never gets in the way of any actual event - they just propel the situations to a deeper, but not more intense, extreme. It allows for songs like “FUMETEO” and “HULU” to serve as potential party anthems, but the ragged drums help accentuate the danger in the watery tones or the staticness of the chord progressions, to say nothing of Feid’s own, distorted vocals. Every element feels stripped down and stripped back, hiding in the depths and the lows of the mix, but never rising to the front. It’s all mildly drugged out, with foggy vision, but still incredibly conscious of the loneliness that it’s being surrounded by.
Once again, adhering to the power of brevity, most of these songs serve like miniatures. Feid may boast on “TE MATA” how she’s still achingly remembering him, but it’s something that unfazes him completely. It doesn’t bring him any pleasure; he’s grown cold and bitter, and can’t even use this ego boost as ammo. He can try to get a girl enthused with gifts and weed on “JORDAN IV”, but his voice only gets him as far as he often can. There’s a constant sense of regret he’s trying to hide, yet the music always gives him away; there’s always some longing memory in the shape of a cute synth riff that comes and goes that accentuates that constant pain that comes with remembering.
Maybe the feeling of going through someone’s Instagram stories, realizing that digital detachment and knowing a connection has gone away, is a feeling too familiar, especially these days. That’s the kind of feeling INTER SHIBUYA - LA MAFIA tries to convey. His muses are people he wants to, maybe tries to, but can’t see again, there’s simply too much baggage. So all the spending, all the violence, all the boasting, all the animosity is a poor facade in order not to fall apart. “XXXX” or “COMO CUANDO”, the trap cuts on this, are just as minimal as the rest, where the percussion pierces through, and Feid’s awareness that going outside would only bring trouble, they signify an ache that doesn’t simply go away.
All these factors mean that the one moment on the album where the facade completely breaks (only to be restored on the following tracks) is all the more potent. The piano ballad “FERRXO IV”, less than 2 minutes long, is one of the most sonically affecting pieces of the year. A piano playing a ditty lost in someone else’s memory, with each note hanging from an unguarded rooftop, as Feid stares out into the moon from his own bedroom, and he doesn’t sing, he whimpers. His usual middle range is replaced by a fragile falsetto where you can barely make out what he’s saying, but the winds of the night slowly enter the mix, and while the light of that moon may be visible and even audible, he’s too locked into his own pillow to properly see it or appreciate it. Technically, it’s a plea; a plea for sex, a plea for acceptance, a plea for honesty, a plea for second chances… but it’s a plea he knows no one will hear. It will stay inside his own bed and his own head for as long as it needs to. Like on his best moments, he doesn’t try to make you empathize with him, just to believe him: “I haven’t been faithful to you / And you’re worth it / I know I’ve been a son of a bitch, but come here / I’d do anything for you / To get you back again”. The first time it’s uttered, it’s shy and quiet, too numbed out. The second time, with the piano being replaced by a stern synth bass, is sung in his usual range, and Feid turns from his pillow to the ceiling. He can say these words out loud; since no one will hear them, who cares anyway?
Then again, even when he’s supposedly out or talking to other people, his words fail to make an impact. His attempts at seduction on “PURRITO APA” fall short because the production is both too loud and too sparse in order for him to properly say what he wants to, and that’s what makes a song like this so special - the melody he finds in the final stretch of the second verse is beautiful, and it gets discarded so quickly! That’s how much these moments of beauty are being treated. A tender moment like “EL PADRINO” (some questionable production choices aside) gets some more time to mourn and reflect, since Feid actually meets someone who’s as into him as she is into him, and when the moment of ecstasy comes to fruition… yes, there’s sexual pleasure, but it’s sung and played with such a static nature, like it was idealizing a moment that can’t be truly brought to real life, and a small, albeit encompassing frustration gets to grow from that, as the guitars become more visually synthesized.
Maybe that’s why this album needs to end twice. “14 De Febrero” barely carries any percussion, as ragged guitars carry the melancholic tone, and Feid, one last time, tries to find some sense of closeness to someone after trying for so long, especially with this person, as he tried over and over, like there was a reason to not let go. It’s a moment of trying to fall in love and succeeding, but realizing the sad undercurrents don’t go away because of that, and nothing gets naturally healed. But then, self-proclaimed bonus track “SI TÚ SUPIERAS” (the one track not produced by Sky, but by CashMoneyAP), is the start of a new story, as if he was clearer regarding his own feelings, and was even able to have a bit more fun with it, even if the sorrow still remains. Maybe, if it left, Feid as it is today wouldn’t exist. Melancholy mood forever haunts me, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. INTER SHIBUYA - LA MAFIA is an attempt at trying to balance out that restlessness, and he gets to find it, at least for a little while. It details with stunning accuracy the moments of feeling underwhelmed by your own emotions, detached from others’, and touched by those of complete strangers. The ideal of hope is quite close to its chest, never actually revealed at least on this album, but it’s there. Todavía tiene fé. Let’s leave on that note.
Jhay Cortez - Timelezz (reggaeton, trap)
It was easy to sideline Jhay Cortez at first. I know first hand! If you didn’t know he was a cowriter on some of the biggest hits of 2017 and 2018, let alone a cowriter on many of the highlights on game changing albums like J Balvin’s Vibras or Bad Bunny’s X 100PRE, his breakthrough song, a collaboration with both of them, “No Me Conoce”, could have come off as some kid forcing his way through a hit, coasting on bigger names. And in a way, yes, that’s what he was doing. The thing is, he was really good at it. His performance on that song is not immediate, and was quite gothic and obscure, but with repeated listens, you could feel a sense of eeriness driving through his tenacious voice, an air of speculating each next move with the capacity to not break through the wall of sound. An expressive performance, and even if his debut album didn’t have a song nowhere near as good, there was still promise.
Timelezz, produced almost entirely by Tainy (and when not, his close associates like Taiko, Mvsis, M. De La Cruz, Smash David and Foreign Teck), is the result of both Jhay and Tainy being associated with Bad Bunny’s “DÁKITI”, one of the biggest (and best) Latin hits of all time, a daring song that went beyond the reggaeton rules and was playing a forgotten night being put into question, as the sounds got deeper and darker. Without that song, there is no Timelezz. Jhay sounds in his own world, one of eternal fog and obscurity, yet with so much rhythm you can’t miss out on the intricacies. There’s a sonic world being built here, and it’s one that cements Jhay Cortez as one of the most focused artists in modern reggaeton, and further places Tainy as the center of reggaeton as a genre with a wider sense of pulse, range and atmosphere.
Cortez has written many excellent hooks for many artists, but he’s kept so many of them to himself, and his voice is one of the finest in the game. Always rusty and worried, with a sense of urgency even in the most downbeat songs, but with a sense of constant passion that can’t get away from his own vices; a constant way of trying to escape, but he always goes back to the same cycles, and he both suffers and thrives because of it. When he gets intensely filtered by someone like Skrillex on “En Mi Cuarto”, that imperfection in his voice gets even more noticeable, like a stain in a portrait, and as the beat flies in the middle of a shut-in room, the movement becomes impossible to sustain, as his voice drags everything down for the better; always good for someone to be grounded. “Dale Como Es” shows him as the head nodding party animal he can be, a dash of fake indifference that gets lost in all the reverb, so only the truth gets to resonate, especially with Taiko’s regular pointillistic beat. His romantic side gets to resonate on something like “Mi Vicio”, a song where the adlibs become as essential as the main vocal tracks, where his vocal fire gets to come out with more force, even if he won’t ever show his full vulnerability. He’s too in control of himself.
Then again, there’s a reason why the best moments for Jhay are the more unhinged ones. The choral arrangements matched with vintage reggaeton soundbites on “Los Rompediskoteca” create something truly menacing, a squeaking voice always too lost to truly shine, and the one shining front and center is out of control. Trap cut “Nos Matamos” is a fantastic display of his vocal tenacity, a 5 minute long slaughter where the drumming feels aimed like a nighttime matador, with blue hues of synth that never get too close to the action that’s going on. He’s just as unhinged when he comes close to someone also ferocious like Myke Towers on “Los Bo’”, with a tiny production that makes everything sound upside down, as their voices feel like the vocals are the main sonic foundation; a dislocating experience. But also, when he meets with a wildcard like Kendo Kaponi on “Ropa Interior”, something exciting comes up: Jhay serves as a founding base for Kendo, a romantic with odd ways of emphasizing his interests, so his off harmonies and his strange sense of imagery and rhyming make for something unintentionally dangerous. That makes it more interesting conceptually than any other song on here, and it’s an achievement.
The main problem with this album is that, sometimes, Tainy’s sense of atmosphere can become too overcrowded, while simultaneously monotonous. The intro “Dilema” can barely be separated from “Me Extraña”, for example, where the foggy atmosphere becomes too indecipherable and stale. Latin R&B group take over in the closer “Eternamente” and their contributions match well with Tainy’s and Jhay’s, but the song feels like an afterthought of an outro, something to get the hipsters on board. Not only that, but Jhay’s sense of melody is nowhere near as powerful as it once was, even on an inferior project like Famouz - that may be because he ditched Lydia Laner, one of his main cowriters, who only shows up for the (indeed) highly melodic “Ropa Interior”, and has replaced her with a newcomer called Juno Watt. I don’t know what that guy’s deal is, but he doesn’t seem to be bringing much to the table, and Jhay’s melodic instincts, while still good, depend far more on the beats’ sense of rhythm than ever before. That’s holding him back, even if it makes the project work as a whole.
All of this means that the moments of experimentation are the ones that stand up the most, since everyone on the table is forced to do better - and they step up, indeed. The biggest hit off the album, “Ley Seca” with Anuel AA, is an intense and powerful listen, a display of the powers of the 3 main artists involved; a carousel in the middle of the night, hiding amongst the fading lights because the night is just too enrapturing. Even Anuel, who has become a more detestable figure in Latin music this year, adds a strange sense of humor to the ceremonials - he mirrors Jhay’s opening line, “I don’t have a Bugatti but I’m gonna give it to you hard” - with a great nonsense of a line: “I have 2 Bugattis, and one of them is you”, surprisingly cute! And the most immediate son of “DÁKITI”, “Tokyo”, is an incredible piece of atmosphere building, as the vocal trembles become unpolished and weary, and the rhythm is a hush of bursting bubbles that never get to reach the surface. There’s a world going on underground, and Jhay understands the tension to rise above, and not being able to. If it were up to him, fuck everything, sure, but he doesn’t believe that. He knows what’s at stake. A darkened presence in the middle of a party; that balance can’t get lost.
Farruko - La 167 (reggaeton, pop rap)
Takes you by surprise, right? Farruko’s constant presence, that is. You look at him from afar, he feels like the kind of token reggaeton artist who never accomplished much for himself other than being a feature on some pretty big Latin hits, a reliable feature that would never be the main attraction. This year, of course, forced us all to hastily reevaluate just what Farruko had been making for the past decade or so. Once you dig into his discography, you’ll realize that the man, to keep it simple, is a chameleon. He follows the trends, blatantly and proudly, but he blends into them like they were his entire lifestyle. Just looking at his 2 latest projects, TrapXficante, made right at the early peak of Latin trap (including a rising up-and-comer Bad Bunny with one of Latin trap’s first worldwide crossovers, “Krippy Kush”); and Gangalee, made in 2019 after his feature on the pop reggae “Calma” by Pedro Capó earned him over a billion views on YouTube, where he tried his hardest to put the ‘reggae’ in ‘reggaeton’, those projects are long, over an hour long, with plenty of loaded features and producers. Some cynics might say he’s playing the streaming game and loads his albums on purpose, but that’s never worked for a singles artist like Farruko. If you truly listen, he’s putting his all into those sonic experiments, never letting anything go by, swinging for the fences in ways that are defying and show a pure sense of commitment.
So, when “Pepas”, his dive into the ‘tribal guarachero’ subgenre of EDM, took over, it was easy to assume he’d follow it up with an album full of “Pepas”, with the occasional reggaeton/trap deviation. Instead, in La 167, he truly breaks the mold. 25 tracks, 1 hour and 40 minutes long, and we never know how the song after the one we’re currently listening to is going to sound like. He takes cues from all the producers and all the dive-ins he’s worked in throughout the years, and provides us with an admittedly stuffed but worthwhile moment of direct musing. If anything, you could separate this album into 2 separate ones, cut around by the 13-track mark. The first album is somewhat what you’d expect: the hits he got this past year, some reggaeton, and some further experimentation into the ‘tribal guarachero’ sound. The second album is a deeply profound look into Farruko’s insecurities, paranoia and isolation, where every track is clearly distinguishable from the next.
Then again, that theme is one persisting throughout the entirety of La 167, as Farruko feels more at home bashing in drugs and alcohol than sharing the success he’s accumulated. Looking at the lengthy list of features alone (23, to be exact), most of them are producer credits, and the actual features are mainly from artists in the underground - there’s no ‘easy hit’ here, it’s all up in the air. Well, maybe except for one. “Pepas” remains undefeated, a worldwide hit that feels like it’s traveling around the globe. A walk into a hasty night only to find yourself among a rave. The instruments sound plastic and cheap, but that makes it all better; you must work in order to give in to the artifice. There is only one song that tries to capitalize on “Pepas”, which is the following single, “El Incomprendido”, where producer Victor Cardenas gets a lead artist credit and DJ Adonis gets invited as a hype man. It’s the exact same formula, same passages, same tempo, same sense of artificial atmosphere - but even then, something has changed. The main lyric in the long pre-chorus is “I think I’m going to be alone the day I die / I’ve always been misunderstood, no one’s ever loved me for who I am”, and it’s sung in Farruko’s damp tone of voice, which makes the drop, interpolating Alice Deejay’s “Better Off Alone”, question everything that’s been said - is that really a group of friends joining him in to party? Or is he just being used once again?
The start of the album is already dislocating in that sense. “Ki” features producer O’Neill (CNCO’s “Reggaeton Lento”, Eladio Carrión’s “Mi Error”) on vocals, singing a desolate, dramatic hook on top of a bombastic trap beat about how the streets made him, and Farruko’s already boasting while reminding both us and himself how many times he’s been betrayed - it’s somewhat problematic that he gets ‘motivational speaker’ Daniel Habif to inspire us into thinking ‘happiness doesn’t forgive cowardness’ and how ‘your friends will forgive everything except your success’. Off start. Later on the album, he will try to emulate Post Malone’s warbly voice and focus on trembling guitars on “Cuervos”, where all the vultures are coming to him, and will destroy him once he’s down - therefore, he must never show weakness. Farruko seems to have shown so much aggressiveness by his peers that he’s bought into the dangerous ‘loyal yet vicious businessman’ attitude that many meritocrats and neoliberals will believe… yet, he seems to suffer because of it.
Thankfully, we get to deal with the after-effects of that later on the album, since, again, most of the first half is a light affair, for the most part. His emulation of Pharrell-influenced G-funk on “Lambo” is certainly colorful, as he seems to be cruising down a city in the middle of the day, and he sounds genuinely relaxed. He teams up with Dímelo Flow to make a song a la Sech’s “Relación”, to boast about how a woman’s completely moved on and enjoying her life, and reveling in how he’s still hung up on her. On a similar note, “F*LOVE” toughens up the percussion (again, quite a Sech/Dímelo Flow move) for a quick, breezy affair of seduction through rhythm. He tries to aim for a more dramatic sense of tension on “My Lova”, but the beat is too lightweight (besides the overly heavy percussion), and his inflections just feel too goofy. Meanwhile, “Baja Cali” is a success: based on a 6/8 acoustic base, Farruko gets to demonstrate the rapping skills he does have, as the beat chops its way through and he keeps going, even going for faster flows just because he can. Perhaps the best moment (aside from the 3 singles) on this first half is “Embalao” with constant songwriter White Star doing a vocal feature, a normal EDM that features a heightened melody in its pre-chorus that tries to show the urge of living in the now, and a drop that shines because of how small it actually is… until an oscillating synth shows up and never rises to something more paranoid; it simply is.
But the second half of the album is where things get serious, and this goes from being simply another bloated project by a mainstream Latin artist, and turns into something more personal, more heartfelt and more immediate. You can hear it already in “$”, a piano ballad that expands upon the feelings of isolation and fake friends Farruko’s surrounded by, as if his life was just smoke and mirrors; he thrives off the failures of his enemies, but inside he notices no one truly notices him. It’s his performance that truly sells this, alongside the soaring strings and dramatic sense of percussion; he never breaks, simply because he’s grown accustomed to it all. He just heightens the tension with each section, as he hopes someone will catch him and try to convince him otherwise… but no one does (the wailing outro is particularly moving).
All this paranoia comes to fruition in “Amigos Nuevos No” (literally called “No New Friends”), featuring a newcomer called Fresy Franklin (with only 4 songs on Spotify), a paranoid trap cut where the pianos always lurk in the background, too afraid of what would happen if they were to step up, and the drill-like drums never take out that mean bite that they could. There’s a reason for that: the song’s making room for Fresy Franklin, one of the most immediate and eye-opening new presences out there. His verse is relentless, a combination of bravado that could fall apart at any moment; clearly influenced by early Bad Bunny, but taking out the vocal tenacity he hasn’t had in a while (“Ahora, to’ lo’, outfit, son brand, NEW!”), he spirals into 16 bars of ferociousness. Someone to stare into the face of the abyss.
So, a lot of backstabbing, a lot of worrying, a genuine unnerving feel to the sound and the production too. But it’s all for a reason. Farruko’s not simply aching for his own self-interest and millionaire attitude, but he also aches for his own land, Puerto Rico. He tries to homage the ideals of his land and its natives in “Jibaró” with Pedro Capó, as he tries to paint a fine picture of constant solidarity within Puerto Rico’s own people. But no, that won’t cut it. Farruko seems far too concerned with the way things are going. The title track, “167”, featuring Gallego doing a long spoken word intro and outro, might be the album’s main thesis. A caribbean mood that calls out for authenticity and spits venom at those who are so clearly fake, but also criticizes the inherited violence; how ‘fair’ ways of fighting, with no knives or guns, went away and now, if there’s beef, you’ll get shot in the face and die. Puerto Rico has become a homage to gun violence where you either end up in jail or dead; a cement jungle, and the hypocrisy Farruko finds among its own people is cutting.
He gets to combine his own paranoia of fame and his own people on “Guerrero” with Luar La L, where the message is quite simple: he’s got angels protecting him from up high, and demons on the ground with assault rifles. He’s a warrior from the streets, one who survived and made it through, and even there he can’t find peace. Farruko puts out 3 lengthy verses alongside Luar, whose verse presents a more aggressive sense of tonality to his vocals. All this makes a moment like the diving into caribbean salsa, “La Bendición”, with Lenier, is quite refreshing, since both artists get to fool themselves into thinking everything can be alright with a grim and a smile and maybe a couple of dollars, even if they may not believe that completely.
The most surprising and most ambitious moment on the album comes in the revealing and stark “Apunta y Dispara”, near the end of the project. A stark, somber moment of storytelling where Farruko puts out his biggest indictment against gun violence in a multi narrative way. Farruko, an omniscient narrator, details the story of a man determined to kill someone, high on pills and alcohol, and when he gets to shoot at him, he also kills a little kid in the backseat of the car. A stark moment of reality. And that’s where he lets the man himself tell his side of the story, in the hands of Lito MC Cassidy, who adds in the previously not mentioned context of losing his brother to this man and wanting revenge, detailing the horrible mourning he and his family went through, and the deep regret that comes with killing an innocent child. All along, India Martinez functions as some sort of guardian angel, repeating the lack of compassion found in street violence and conflicts like these. It’s a difficult moment to discuss, and the song leans heavily into the drama without becoming melodramatic. No redemption to be found.
So, “Siempre Seré”, a posse cut with Myke Towers, Tempo, Pacho El Antifeka and Secreto “El Famoso Biberón”, is tragic in its way. These are all men who are past the drug dealing and the dangerous gangs, yet they find themselves mentally stuck in that world, trying and failing to move past it, unable to fully trust anyone, hoping some poor soul will pray for them. It’s dangerous and hard to think this way, but it’s all they know, even with so many open doors waiting for them.
So, what are we supposed to make of La 167? What do we end up thinking of Farruko as a personality? Irrevocably paranoid, done with surrounding himself with those who’ll only mash with him for profit, and he seems to be walking the walk too, if we take this album into consideration. Well, his view on the world may be a tad too cynical, to the point where he might be shutting off genuine people because they don’t match his perception of ‘real’ (and that perception is quite warped by motivational mongul hacks). But the amount of talent at his disposal is something to be acknowledged, as he keeps on working with his regular producers, and also pushes for new talents that seem to be doing something right, at least in Farruko’s eyes. Maybe, as “Pepas”, a celebration of giving in successfully to the trends with his pals and collaborators, became as big as it did, Farruko might have to change his tune, at least for his own sake. After all, he’s a man of his word, and he will stand for his land - that’s commendable and worth fighting for. Maybe if he finds the right allies, things will be back on track. He’s in the process of that right now. So, let’s let him do it, see how much he sticks to his own script. Myself? I’m rooting for him.