The album is packed with collaborators including the rappers Busta Rhymes, Big Daddy Kane and Vico C (a Puerto Rican reggaeton pioneer) and the singers Rauw Alejandro and Christian Nodal, among many others. It dips into rock, old-school hip-hop, flamenco, Cuban son, Palestinian music, electro and — with tongue in cheek — pop. (“Quiero Ser Baladista” — “I Want to Be a Ballad Singer” — suddenly switches from a belligerent rap over electric-guitar chords to an ardent love-song chorus from none other than Ricky Martin.)
The set reclaims Residente singles like the fiercely percussive “This Is Not America” from 2022, which insists “America isn’t only the U.S.A.,” and “Problema Cabrón,” a blues-rock rap that revels in being a troublemaker. The album concludes with Residente’s 2020 single “René,” a gut-spilling seven-minute confessional that sets his fears and self-doubts to somber, sustained chamber-music strings — until Rubén Blades shows up for a conga-driven coda.
“René” apparently opened up Residente’s introspective side. The single he released this week, “313,” brings back the orchestral strings — along with a choir, a poetic spoken-word intro from the actress Penélope Cruz and a flamenco-tinged guest vocal from the Spanish singer Silvia Pérez Cruz — as Residente sings, more than raps, about love, time and eternity. (A version of the song’s backing track without Residente, which has the choir reciting numbers over an orchestra, hinting at Philip Glass’s “Einstein on the Beach,” reappears as the album’s title cut.)
“313” is as tender as Residente has ever allowed himself to sound — until, near the end of the album, he joins Jessie Reyez in “El Encuentro” (“The Encounter”), an unabashed ballad about lingering love. Residente stays reflective in “Ron en el Piso” (“Rum on the Floor”). It’s an elegy for a cousin, Julián, that turns to thoughts about growing older and having evolved from a rebel sensation to “a legend”; Residente turns 46 this week. Rapping over piano-ballad chords, he muses, “I know I’m not so relevant anymore.”
But while he has now mastered slow tempos, Residente isn’t growing complacent, much less mellowing. He supports resistance movements in “Bajo los Escombros” (“Under the Debris”), a song about Palestinian children with Amal Markus, and in “En Talla” (“In Stature”), which features the Cuban rapper Al2 El Aldeano; the song finds parallels between Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. territory and Cuba’s repression, denouncing government corruption. For all his options as a “legend” — lush production, famous collaborators — Residente is still contentious, still thinking about higher purposes and artistic aspirations, still determined to live up to hip-hop’s promise that the voiceless can make themselves heard.
