Calle 13's 'Los de atrás vienen conmigo' is out in stores everywhere

Calle 13's 'Los de atrás vienen conmigo' is out in stores everywhere

Move over Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Wisin y Yandel and Arcángel. Now’s the turn for Calle 13 with its new album “Los de atrás vienen conmigo,” which hit stores everywhere on October 24th.

Here’re some of the set’s highlights:

- It includes collaborations with Mexican alt-rockers Café Tacvba and Panamanian singer-songwriter and actor Rubén Blades on the songs “No hay nadie como tú” and “La Perla.”

- Its rhythms are as varied as the colors of a geeky shirt – urban, polka, reggaetón, Nigerian Afro-beat, New Orleans jazz and retro electro-pop.

- And here’s how the Puerto Rican duo (Residente and Visitante) describes its sound: “urban music at a crossroads.”

And this is what Jon Pareles of The New York Times has to say about the new effort of René Pérez (Residente) and Eduardo Cabra (Visitante):

Residente (René Pérez), the rapper in the Puerto Rican duo Calle 13, keeps insisting he’s crazy on the group’s third album, “Los de Atrás Vienen Conmigo”... But he’s crazy like a visionary, seeing trouble and utopia, vulgarity and exaltation, competitive put-downs and universal brotherhood all at once. In his world, he declares in “Bienvenidos a Mi Mundo” (“Welcome to My World”), everything is possible. Calle 13’s music, composed by Residente’s cousin Visitante (Eduardo Cabra), pushes in just as many directions; one song categorizes it as “urban music at a crossroads.”... This time there are more Latin American all-stars: the Mexican rockers Café Tacuba put a polka behind “No Hay Nadie Como Tú” (“Nobody Like You”) while the Panamanian songwriter Rubén Blades sings — and raps with ease — on “La Perla.”

But one hemisphere isn’t enough for Calle 13: various songs draw on Balkan brass bands and Nigerian Afro-beat, as well as New Orleans jazz and retro electro-pop. Residente’s rapping shifts meter and tone to ride each one. Variety alone wouldn’t make Calle 13 so remarkable. The omnivorous music, complete with horn-section hooks and women singing pop choruses, underlines the conviction that all potential listeners — well, except for the music-business sellouts mocked in “Que Lloren” (“That They Cry”), naysayers in “Ven y Critícame” (“Come and Criticize Me”) and the “gringa wannabe” in “Gringo Latin Funk” — should unite, both on and beyond the dance floor, as lighthearted rebels. Few hip-hop or urban acts, in any language, match so much ambition to so much fun.