Halfway through the second track off his newest album, Cosa Nuestra: Capítulo 0, Rauw Alejandro sings, “The Caribbean can’t be explained; it’s felt, it’s lived, it’s honored.” If the album has a thesis, those lines would be it.
On last year’s Cosa Nuestra — which he’s said Capítulo 0 (“Chapter 0”) is a prequel of — Alejandro explored different genres linked to the Caribbean, albeit through the lens of the cultural exchange that has occurred over the decades between the region and North America. It’s a dialog that fused son cubano, jazz, bomba, hip-hop, reggae, and more, and went on to birth salsa, reggaetón, bachatón, Latin trap, and other sounds featured on Cosa Nuestra. From the Nuyorican influences of that album’s art, visuals, and live shows, it was evident his attention was on the more urban and flashy manifestations of the tropics in music.
With Capítulo 0, his aim is more ambitious. Here he attempts to capture the Caribbean’s music and cultural offerings as a whole. Indeed, the album’s back cover art shows a stylized map that highlights all of the region’s islands and archipelagos, from the Lesser Antilles up toward Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. The comparisons to Bad Bunny’s AOTY contender DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS are sure to come at a breakneck pace. Even Alejandro’s previous album wasn’t spared a similar linkage, despite being released two whole months before Benito’s magnum opus. For those reasons, it’s apt to address this upfront.
Capítulo 0 is no DTmF, but that characterization shouldn’t be seen as derogatory. Both artists hail from Puerto Rico, and have been vocally proud of that fact throughout their careers. Yet whereas DTmF was heavily Puerto Rico-centric, Rauw’s album is more of an ensemble. Puerto Rican music is undoubtedly one of its main themes, but it stands as part of a wider cast of cultures that inspired the album. What Alejandro does, though, is mine that thread that connects all of these places — over their history and through its people — for what amounts to a pan-Caribbean artistic expression. “I believe we’re all one nation,” he said in a recent interview. At times, it even feels like he’s picking up threads Benito left dangling.
Take, for example, the album’s opening track, “Carita Linda.” While DTmF’s live shows incorporated lots of rousing bomba presentations — courtesy of band leader and Loíza native Julito Gastón — the album itself only had a faint smattering of samples of the folkloric Puerto Rican genre, specifically in the coda of “CAFé CON RON.”
Alejandro and his band embrace bomba even more here, dedicating the album’s opener to the genre and leaning into its Afro-Puerto Rican origins and ties to African religions. “Yuba cuembe, so you can dance it,” he croons during the bridge, a reference to the drum patterns of “yuba” and “cuembe,” which respectively mean “to restore balance” and “to release negative emotions” in their original African dialects. The song even includes a spoken-word outro by Gloria and Roberto Cepeda, of the acclaimed group Bomba Ashé. The neo-bomba sound is picked up again in “Besito en la Frente,” which is set to become the LP’s next promotional single.
The following track, “Caribeño,” features guest raps by Planta Industrial member Saso, who also tips his hat generously to the intertwined history between countries. “There’s no dembow without Shabba Ranks,” he says, acknowledging the Jamaican musician whose 1990 track “Dem Bow” is seen as the starting point of both reggaetón and Dominican dembow (so much so that the song is part of an ongoing lawsuit). A few lines later, he says, “Merengue without kompa wouldn’t exist,” which is a reference to the Haitian music genre that is often credited with inspiring merengue.
Lyrically, Alejandro doesn’t take long to remind us he’s still a horn dog at heart, even if he does so in the highbrow guise of a social anthropologist. “GuabanSexxx” may take its name from the Taíno deity of storms (guabancex, ‘natch), but all its talk of rising tides and downpours just serve as a metaphor for, well, you get the idea. “Buenos Términos” is a vintage Alejandro perreo, and surprisingly one of only a handful on the album. Elsewhere, last year’s pre-Cosa Nuestra afrobeats banger “Santa” makes an appearance, adding Jamaican producer Rvssian and Nigerian Ayra Starr to the festivities.
The Dominican Republic takes center stage in “SILENCIO” and “El Cuc0.0,” with the former being an old-school bachata (with DR superstar Romeo Santos helping on writing duties.) “This is my first bachata, baby,” he ad libs, and pulls it off admirably in a way that could probably spur multiple generations to their feet, even if a close listen to the lyrics might make your parents blush. Jey One makes an appearance on “Cuc0.0” and brings a frisky energy to the ripiao/dembow mix that powers the lively track.
Speaking of firsts, Alejandro impressed with his cover of the Frankie Ruiz salsa classic “Tú Con Él” on Cosa Nuestra, but some were left disappointed he didn’t attempt an original. He answers back in Capítulo 0 with three brand-new salsa tracks to close out the album. The first, “Callejón de los Secretos,” features popular Chilean Mexican artist Mon Laferte and is easily one of the LP’s standouts. “FALSEDAD” harkens to the same 1980s salsa romántica sound that Ruiz excelled at, while closer “Mirando Al Cielo” brings riotous Fania big-band spirit to an ode to Puerto Rico, offering a prayer for its protection from any future harm that could befall it. Each of the three songs reach farther and farther back in the genre’s sound, in effect providing a trip down memory lane that demonstrates how much a music can change while still maintaining its innate identity.
The album is not without some small stumbles. Newcomer De La Rose’s voice doesn’t quite sell itself on the ballad-y “Nostalgia de Otoño,” despite an earnest effort. In other instances, the lyrics feel a bit strained. The hagiography in “Caribeño” undercuts naturally poetic lines (“We’re not made of glass, we’re made of coral/Beautiful and resistant”) with others that come off heavy-handed (“The Caribbean man, his strength doesn’t shout, his strength builds/Even when the wind comes, he stands firm like the ceiba tree”).
Alejandro has said he calls Capítulo 0 a prequel because he’s exploring the root sounds from where all of the Caribbean’s contemporary genres bloomed from. It’s fitting he kept the Cosa Nuestra name, because just like in that album, his intention here is to underline the idea that this is undoubtedly music of the Caribbean and its people. Inextricably linked, and weaved into its ardent soul. He posits a region made up of dozens of small countries that have together created a cultural force that can’t be silenced.
