Rauw Alejandro’s Vice Versa, released last summer, was carefully crafted for the pop charts, punctuated by a cotton candy lead single that managed to soften his rough edges. But it also offered a glimpse of why the Puerto Rican singer can be so exciting, channeling transportive UK rave and drum’n’bass vibes to multiple dancefloor climaxes. If that record suffered from Alejandro’s splitting the difference between pop for the charts and for the club, his latest project, Trap Cake Vol. 2, a genre exercise in Caribbean trap soul, represents clarity of vision.
Maybe the stakes are lower with an EP, but there’s no pandering here. Alejandro just sounds like he’s having fun, a street kid with great taste making expensive-sounding records with his homie (El Zorro, who produced much of Vol. 2) and his girlfriend (Rosalía, who shares a writing credit on “Caprichoso”). Much of the record is a mix of robot soul and dick-swinging over trap beats, but the more narrow palette works in Alejandro’s favor, serving as gentle guard rails for experimentation. On “Red Velvet,” Rauw and Jamaican producer Rvssian craft a moodier vibe for nascent dancehall star Shenseea than we’re used to hearing from her, and the distorted guitar opening “Gracias Por Nada” transcends from radio rock to resplendent when the drumbeat melts into a pool of sub-bass on the chorus.
Even on a dedicated trap EP, Alejandro can’t stay off the dancefloor; “Wuepa” features a minimal palette but a relentless four-on-the-floor bassline, and guest vocalist Ankhal’s grit keeps the song from being too slick. His appearance is not insignificant; it was the remix of Ankhal’s “Si Pepe”—a posse cut featuring Alejandro, Arcángel, Farruko, Miky Woodz, and Jhay Cortez—that launched Alejandro’s beef with Cortez, who had no shortage of barbs aimed at both Rosalía and his music. The project’s standout is the Future/Rvssian trap master class “Fck U X2,” which bounces from Manhattan’s Latin Quarter to Atlanta’s Magic City before meeting somewhere in the middle for a codeine-coated outro. “I showed you the real me,” Future bleats as the song fades out. We believe him.
Trap Cake Vol. 2 is ostensibly a sequel to a similarly named 2019 mixtape, but at most, the two share only a general vibe. Just three years removed, Alejandro is significantly more polished. He’s a heartthrob with dancing skills, an R&B crooner with hip-hop swagger, and the platonic ideal of Chris Brown without the toxic personality. If this is merely the in-between project, it feels like Alejandro’s ceiling remains in the clouds.
