Yeah, I know reggaeton is probably not your favorite. It’s not ours either. But don’t dismiss this band and their album based on your preconceived notions of the genre. Empresarios are way more interesting than your average “urban latino” radio star and have a lot more to offer. The Washington, D.C.-based band plays a wide variety of Latin-inspired genres with reggae/dub and funk as their foundation. Last year they released the amazing instrumental cumbia “Cumbia” (they’re not very original with the titles, I’ll give you that), which I consider to be pretty much the best cumbia recorded by a non-traditionally cumbia band in a long time. They are signed to the prestigious Fort Knox record label, a DJ favorite when it comes to new funk and breakbeats, and they’re releasing their debut album today, Sabor Tropical.
So maybe selecting the one reggaeton track from the album as their introductory card wasn’t the smartest choice, especially if they wanted to reach us (Latinos who have been pretty sick of the whole reggaetonto thing for a while now). On top of that, they named the song “Pereo Intenso,” and we don’t know if the misspelling of “perreo” was a mistake by the gringos at the record label or if it was done on purpose to make it seem more “ghetto.” We do know these guys need some help with their song names. However, grammatical snobbism aside, Empresarios are freaking good and it’ll just take you one listen to their whole album to realize that. You’ll completely forget there was a reggaeton track in there, I promise.
DOWNLOAD EMPRESARIOS’ GRAMMATICALLY DUBIOUS “PEREO INTENSO” HERE.
Watch the video for “Pereo Intenso” below. This we won’t defend.