Residente’s long-awaited solo album is set to drop in March, and if you’re a faithful Remezcla follower, you know that the rapper has been slowly teasing the project with a multimedia website and a surreal, NSFW video for “Somos Anormales” (he also took some time out to make tostones with beloved culinary mastermind and rapper Action Bronson).
Now, in an interview with The New York Times, René Pérez has revealed even more information about the forthcoming project. You can read the entire interview here, but below, find five things we learned from the conversation he had with critic Jon Pareles:
1
Lin-Manuel Miranda will rap on the album.
Residente and Lin-Manuel have been friends for sometime, with René delivering a scorching verse on the much-hyped Hamilton mixtape. As the interview reveals, Miranda will be featured on Residente’s new project: “The album will open with Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, rapping about the concept in both Spanish and English. He rhymes about how DNA results can ‘send you to lands of ice, dirt and sand/a map of the world in the lines of your hand.'”
2
Residente and Lin-Manuel Miranda are third cousins.
As Pareles writes, the two rappers discovered they were related backstage at a concert in Puerto Rico: “Residente asked Mr. Miranda to introduce Calle 13 at a concert in Puerto Rico, and when Mr. Miranda met Residente’s family there, Residente’s mother instantly recognized the face of his grandfather in his.”
3
At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta’s Omar Rodríguez-López is also featured on the album.
The musician, who released 12 full-length projects over the course of six months last year, provided his talent for Residente’s upcoming album: “Omar Rodríguez-López, from At the Drive-In and the Mars Volta, provided frantic, shredding lead guitar for some of the new songs, recording at Electric Lady Studios in New York.”
4
Manhattan’s Loisaida Center was a second home for the conceptualization of the album.
The iconic facility, which was originally built by Boricua activists in the 1970s, provided an additional creative environment for the rapper: “Residente conceptualized and edited much of the album — words, music, videos, images, ideas — in a work space at the Loisaida Center in downtown Manhattan.”
5
Residente may release an English version of the album.
According to the interview, Pérez has already translated many of the rhymes into English, but is unsure whether to issue a full-length version of the record en inglés: “’There’s no way I can be as good as I am rapping in Spanish,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’m going to sing a little bit and rap in between. If I do it and it sounds credible, if you believe in what I’m saying, then it’s fine and I’ll put it out. If not, I’m not going to do it.’”