It is sensible that Eladio Carrión began out as a comic identified for his uncanny potential to impersonate any artist he got here throughout. Now a rapper himself, he retains leveraging that ability, shapeshifting and reworking his movement throughout surprising beats, arising with one thing a bit of totally different every time. The Puerto Rican artist, identified for his prodigious output and fixed ingenious streaks, has such eclectic tastes that he’s began to arrange his albums into totally different franchises: There are his vivid, effervescent Sauce Boyz editions, the place he typically explodes into a few of his largest experiments. And final 12 months, he launched Sen2 Kbrn, an album that exhibits simply how good he’s riffing over moodier entice sounds which have additionally outlined his profession.
On Sen2 Kbrn, Quantity 2, he goes deeper, delivering 10 songs which are a bit of darker and extra mercurial than his previous work, constructing on woozy entice touches, boisterous flexes, and occasional lovelorn lyrics. The discharge is a vibe, one which looks like a 180 from ecstatic electro-inspired moments on final 12 months’s Sauce Boyz 2, which included songs like “Sin Frenos,” a wild carnival of a experience that includes Argentine rapper Duki and manufacturing prodigy Bizarrap. And although collaborations have at all times been one thing Carrión leverages to shock folks, he flies solo on Sen2 Kbrn, Quantity 2, showing on every observe with simply his late-night ideas and beats to smoke to.
A number of the reflections on his fame and are available up are acquainted: “Gladiator” traces narrative terrain he’s hit on previous songs like “Vida Buena,” whereas the heartbreak of the standout “Caras Vemos” lets Carrión get in his emotions. There are much less up-tempo moments all through the file (although “Te Dijieron” is a bouncier, instantly catchy observe), however Carrión is sticking nearer to the road sounds that open him up for risk-taking — that is, in spite of everything, the man who acquired J Balvin on a drill observe with 2021’s “TATA,” which he later reinvented with Daddy Yankee and Bobby Shmurda. It additionally reinforces that irrespective of the place Carrión goes in his music, the connection he has to entice stays robust. (“Household, we’re right here with a primary album of simply entice,” he wrote in a caption displaying Sen2 Kbrn, Quantity 2 debuting on the high of Spotify’s world album debuts chart.)
It’s one among his largest debuts to this point, even thought the stakes are decrease. Nonetheless, Sen2 Kbrn, Quantity 2‘s success may be an indication that persons are catching as much as a man who can do all of it, and who’s continually being acknowledged by artists on the high of their recreation (Carrión’s Rimas label mate Unhealthy Bunny made a shock cameo on his hilarious hit “No Te Deseo el Mal,” which additionally featured Karol G.) Sen2 Kbrn, Quantity 2 is a visit down one avenue Carrión already is aware of he’s good at, one which leaves followers interested in the place he’ll swerve subsequent.
