Tokischa’s always been friki. The girl from Santo Domingo’s bajo mundo made her name rapping gleefully filthy dembow in space-punk regalia. A few years later, she boasts several star-studded collaborations under her belt, can say she shaved her head onstage at Madison Square Garden as FKA twigs’ opener, and built a buzz as rooted in teteo-tested smashes as it is in shameless sexuality and a willingness to scandalize. In other words, she’s just a rockstar.
This party-girl persona hides a tender heart. You can hear whispers of it in “SOL,” the quiet pop-reggaeton beginning to a new era around when she parted ways with her former management. Just before Tokischa’s new sun rose, the built-for-kitipo singles and onstage antics continued, but something was changing. She got sober and started moving more intentionally, leaving the blunt in the ashtray and wearing her heart prominently on her sleeve.
AMOR & DROGA, Tokischa’s long-awaited debut, reflects this shift, blending mess with melancholy. The pounding dembow riddims boldly crash into electro pop, rock, and trap, interspersed with gentle waves crashing and lyrics about lovers who never pulled up. It’s a Pisces party; let the hostess cry if she wants to. While there’s no lack of songs about love (or drugs, or love being a drug), Tokischa stays cohesive where a lot of chart-reggaeton Illuminati lose the plot beneath the aesthetic conceit, even as she stretches her sound far beyond the bouncy riddims that soundtrack La 42.
Tokischa allows herself to be more vulnerable than ever, starting with the cover—the artist sobbing by the stormy sea in a long dress, the little mermaid turned human and betrayed by her prince—but her raunch has never sounded so authoritative. She’ll sometimes let herself snarl, her cutting and quickly rapped verses tinged with an old-school ferocity à la Lil’ Kim. She’s cocky about it, too: “Besenme la mano/Que yo soy la fundadora,” she spits on “SU FRIDA” over atmospheric boom-bap beats, a don making lesser mafiosos kiss the ring.
A bit of Madonna must have rubbed off during that moment when the pair were collaborating, because Toki has never been more of a pop diva. You hear it in the confident vamping of “DIVA Y DEPRESIVA” and its spoken-word interlude—“Love is my addiction/Makes me high,” she whispers in English—and on bimbo anthem “DROGA DE DISEÑADOR.” Rather than intellectualize the club, the song gives in to a thumping house beat and fame’s champagne-gold façade. It’s cheesy and fun, a “Donatella” moment she finally gives herself permission to have. Elsewhere, “HEROINA” evokes the soaring drama of Charli XCX’s “Chains of Love” through rattling percussion, and “QUÉ ES EL AMOR?” rumbles with icy synths that prop up a spoken-word reflection on all the ways Cupid drugs us and stabs our hearts with his “daga de cuarzo rosa”.
Despite a willingness to go pop, AMOR & DROGA has no shortage of the horny homegrown dembow that made her. “Y al cuero que te singue/Le voy a quema’ la casa,” Tokischa growls on “CELOS,” embodying a badass woman scorned threatening her rival and taking raucous Dominican dembowsero Bulin 47 along for the ride. “MIAMI” is a more straightforward party song, which guarantees you’ll be hearing it at every block party worth being at this summer. It’s still weird, transformed by its end as the bass engorges to bursting. Those who’ve followed her for years will be happy to see she hasn’t abandoned the queercore spirit: On “MOTO” she invites a girl with ripped panties to ride on the back of her motorcycle, and on “LOLA” she tells the story of a femme fatale who evades sadness by fucking Toki at her ex’s funeral before smoking herself into oblivion.
Rather than hiding behind big-name features, Tokischa largely stands alone on AMOR & DROGA. Most of the heavyweight appearances are producers: Diplo (ethereal breakbeat intro “MI NOVIO”) and Skrillex (“SURFBOARD,” a sensuously slow lover’s dembow whose title nods to Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love”). Despite their over-the-top reputations, their contributions are less about adding a boisterous EDM drop and more about accentuating Toki’s strengths.
Maybe her most important one is the raw sentimentality that pervades even seemingly vapid moments. Take “PERREO LLORANDO”, where the neoperreo gospel of the sadgirl at the club enters chart reggaeton territory, or smoldering interlude “7PM.” A minute-long portal full of moaning featuring Toki smoking on the balcony waiting for a phone that won’t ring, what could have been a throwaway transition becomes a Gaspar Noé short set in the humid Caribbean night, drama emanating from a distorted vocal loop before the outro gives way to the incessant pleasure still echoing deep in her mind.
Rather than announce herself with a polished product of the Latin Music machine, Tokischa revels in sex-soaked sheets and the salty tears of her desire. OnlyFans is likely the only place where she’s been more naked than she is on AMOR & DROGA, an imperial suite at a love hotel where she lets us in, takes off her clear heels, powers down the kitipo, and soaks comfortably in the heart-shaped jacuzzi of her soul.
