Florentino’s proven his relevance in this amorphic reggaeton moment — check the Manchester-based founder of label/party Swing Ting’s “Bloodine”/“Sientelo” pack for proof of the way he’s mined the genre for expanded capabilities via injections of cardio club energy and hard edged perreo romántico for AI agents.
With such a forward-thinking audio profile, it should come as no surprise that the Colombian producer has been signed by Dre Skull’s Brooklyn based label Mixpak. Built of dancehall heavies Spice and Popcaan and restless producers like Jubilee and Palmistry, the crew has stolen the scene with well-planned, impossible to predict mutations. Case in point: the moment when Mixpak smashed the competition at last year’s Red Bull Culture Clash with an explosive, previously unreleased Drake dubplate.
It’s tempting to hypothesize about how Florentino’s steel lined acumen will evolve in such company, and what it could lead to in terms of collaborations with the label’s talented vocalists. For the moment, Mixpak’s left us with a teaser: Florentino’s flex on a track off of Jubilee’s After Hours EP featuring Bronx Jamaican emcee Hoodcelebrityy. Florentino’s spin on “Wine Up” claws apart the dancehall track, leaving an electronic juggernaut in its stead that hits you with the layers only possible on a label with an enviably deep bench.