Calle 13 (album)

Background

Calle 13 was formed when step-brothers Residente (real name René Pérez Joglar) and Visitante (real name Eduardo José Cabra Martínez) began creating music together in 2004. Before forming the group, Residente obtained a master's degree in art from the Savannah College of Art and Design while Visitante had studied music at the University of Puerto Rico. The step-brothers hosted their music on a website, and began searching for a record label in order to release their music commercially. After sending demo tapes to White Lion Records, the duo was offered a record deal. The duo gained recognition for their controversial song "Querido FBI", which responded to the killing of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, a key figure for the Puerto Rican independence movement.

Music

The album was mostly known for its new sound in reggaeton, where most of the tracks were composed of different rhythms and lyrics, without use of the dem bow beat. The album is a blend of reggaeton and hip hop, all with a humorous and sarcastic feel to it in subject matter. "La Jirafa" contains Brazilian-influenced percussion and combined with the theme music from the 2001 French romantic comedy Amélie. With Calle 13, the group started to be labeled as reggaeton, a genre that the duo wished to distance itself from. Visitante commented on the situation: "The truth is that the first record had only four reggaetons. Those were the cuts used for promotional purposes, and so that’s the brand that was put on us. But from the beginning, to me, reggaeton never offered anything musically. My brother liked it, yes, but we always tried to execute it in an organic way, with real instruments and mixing it with other genres."

Lyrics

On the album, Residente wished to address a diverse array of subjects as opposed to simply discussing politics, which he felt would be "a bore". Writing in his book Reggaeton, Raquel Z. Rivera describes "Atrévete-te-te" as "a call for liberation directed to anyone who listens, but above all to the Puerto Rican middle class, the so-called miss intellectual whose heady 'show' of racial and class superiority does not allow her to enjoy her body and dance down the hill with the rest of the reggaeton nation." "Se Vale Tó-Tó" contains sexual euphemisms, including the recurring phrase "anything goes in this sausage sandwich". The song's title is a play on words, substituting "to-to", a variation on the Puerto Rican slang term for a vagina ("toto"), for "todo" (all). An approximate translation of "se vale todo" is "all is allowed here" or, more accurately, "anything goes"; the song's chorus is a reference to grinding while dancing. Residente directed and edited the video for the song with the help of his cousin, which was filmed on a relatively small budget of US$14,000. The song "Pi-Di-Di-Di" mocks rapper P. Diddy, who had come to Puerto Rico earlier to scout out new musicians, and Residente felt that he was exploiting the island. Residente described "La Jirafa" as "a pretty song, a love song for a woman, but it’s about Puerto Rico too."

Track listing

All music by "Perez, Rene; Cabra, Eduardo", except where otherwise noted

1. "Cabe-c-o" — 3:34
2. "Suave" (Smooth) — 3:34
3. "La Aguacatona" (featuring Voltio & PG-13) — 4:01
4. "Se Vale To-To" (Everything Allowed) — 3:51
5. "Intel-lú-Ayala" — 0:29
6. "Tengo Hambre" (I'm Hungry) — 4:05
7. "La Hormiga Brava" (The Brave Ant) (featuring PG-13) — 3:46
8. "La Jirafa" (The Giraffe) — 3:16
9. "Intel-lú la comermierda" — 0:24
10. "Atrévete-te-te" (Dare you-you-you) — 4:01
11. "Pi-Di-Di-Di" — 3:31
12. "Vamo Animal" (Let's Go Animal) (featuring Severo Canta Claro) (Severo Canta Claro Independiente/Perez, Rene/Cabra, Eduardo) — 3:27
13. "Eléctrico" (Electric) — 3:21
14. "Sin Coro" (Without Choir) (featuring Tuna Bardos) — 3:49
15. "La Tripleta" (The hat-trick) (featuring PG-13) — 3:21
16. "La Madre de los Enanos" (The Mother of the Dwarfs) — 4:02
17. "Suave (Blass Mix)" (Smooth (Blas Mix) — 3:40

Commercial performance

Although the album was not a huge success on the Billboard 200, only peaking at #189, it was a major success on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart, peaking in the Top 10 at #6. It was also a huge success on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, peaking at #3.

Critical response

Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic praised the album for its unique spin on reggaeton, noting that Residente's lyrics display a "healthy sense of humor and an almost clownish approach to sarcasm...a world apart from the kingly bravado of most reggaeton vocalists, and the obligatory glimmers of misogyny and violence that accompany such streetwise swaggering." He described Visitante's beats as "inventive", enjoying the record's deviation from reggaeton's "industry-standard trademark of Luny Tunes and that production team's assembly line of bandwagon-jumping imitators."

Awards

At the 2006 Latin Grammy Awards, Calle 13 won three Latin Grammy Awards including Best Urban Music Album, Best New Artist, and Best Short Form Music Video for their first single "Atrévete-te-te".