Née: Randy Pedrón.
Raíces: Caracas, Venezuela.
Sounds like: a bit of a ’90s underground hip-hop vibe with dashes of reggae, merengue, and more.
You should listen to Truko because…dude just dropped his best album yet.
Venezuelan rapper Truko abides by an idiom of his own making: “once the novelas come to an end at 9 o’clock, the news comes on.” In other words, there’s a time for fun and games and a time to face the truth, a balance between fun and seriousness, which he expresses through his music.
Truko’s career began with a political awakening in 2002. A lot went on in that year in his home country, including the failed US-backed coup d’état against then-president Hugo Chavez and the General Strike/Oil Lockout. Eight years later, Truko released a very politically-charged, self-titled debut album. He switched things up in 2012 with La Novela De Las 9 where he borrowed elements from popular telenovelas to create a type of concept album.
His latest album, Horario Supervisado, finds a perfect balance of his previous works, straddling the fine line between novelas and the news thanks to powerful bilingual hip-hop tracks such as the title track and slower jams such as “Voy A Enseñarte A Volar” all under the guidance of Héctor González (HPC Records) and Jorge Herrera (Rap Latino Records).