Calle 13

Calle 13 has a new album Residente o Visitante. Props to the homie Fux for introducing this group to me on his blog with some youtube vids.

The MC from Calle 13, Residente, is a great practitioner of the now neglected steez of lyrical & hilarious punchline rap, in the tradition of Redman, Chino XL & Eminem.

Residente raps mainly in Spanish, with a some English & "Spanglish" slang. There's a lot of Puerto Rico slang there also, I can't understand it all, but it's still enjoyable.

I just heard a few random tracks from the 05 album Calle 13, I should listen to both the 05 & the new 07 albums.

Calle 13 is the 2nd quality reggaeton artist IMHO. The 1st one I discovered is Tego Calderon. The only other one I listened to was Don Omar, but that dude's rappin & womanly-steez singing sucks. Don Omar got the Recycle Bin destination after 1 listen.

Interestingly enough, according to wikipedia, both Calderon & Residente are distancing themselves from reggaeton, which they say is "too commercial & uncreative". I label Calderon & Calle 13 as quality reggaeton to distinguish from the wack dudes like Don Omar.

IMHO "quality reggaeton" is just a rap subgenre with different sounding beats & rapping in spanish. I mean other types of rap have completely diff types of beats, but are still under the rap umbrella. Wu-Tang & A Tribe Called Quest, for instance, have extremely diff beats, but both are still considered rap. Also Calderon & Calle use many type of beats, many are not "reggaeton-type" beats.

BTW Residente's lyrics on "Tengo Hambre" are hilarious:
"Cual es tu pendejismo?
Es que yo soy del verdadero hip-hop, hip-hop, tu sabes Redman, BIG, Nas, Mr...
Tu puedes sacar de la tumba a 2Pac, a 3-pack, a 4-pack, hasta un 6-pack,
y con to' y eso por el culo botas kit-kat,
si tu lo que tienes por cabeza es un tic-tac de menta
eres un monosapiens, cabeza mensa
Para el rock tue eres una ofensa!"