Dangerous (Yandel album)

Background

After Wisin & Yandel's hiatus in the mid 2013, both artists had a great success with their respective studio albums, Wisin with El Regreso del Sobreviviente and Yandel with his Latin Grammy Award nominee gold record De Líder a Leyenda, as well as their hit singles as soloists. Yandel released two albums more before Dangerous: an EP and a live album both recorded at mid 2014 and titled Legacy: De Líder a Leyenda Tour, reaching the top position on Billboard 's Latin Rhythm Albums. On the other hand, Wisin focused entirely on his next studio album, Los Vaqueros: La Trilogía, which was later published on September 2015.

In that year, before Dangerous' release, Yandel was nominated for four Lo Nuestro Award and a Latin American Music Award, with no wins, as well as two nominations at the Latin Grammy Awards in November, two weeks after his album's release. Dangerous was the last album in which the rapper Christian Ramos, most known as Syko, worked as lyricist, as he died in his sleep in Orlando on December 27, 2015. Syko had co-written also in Yandel's previous two albums in the songs «La Cama» and «Jaque Mate».

The catchphrase "Dangerous" was first used in Yandel's 2011 song «Tumbao» featuring De La Ghetto (written by them and Tainy), from the duo's deluxe edition of the album Los Vaqueros: El Regreso, and wasn't used again until his 2014 EP Legacy: De Líder a Leyenda Tour.

On March 2016, Yandel became the first Puerto Rican artist to sign to Roc Nation, an American entertainment company founded by the rapper Jay Z in 2008. This will probably led to a collaboration wished by him with the singer Rihanna, who is also signed to the label.

Production and release

Dangerous was recorded between 2014 and 2015 at Earcandy Studios in Orlando, with Lil Jon's vocals on «Calentura Trap Edition» being recorded at Studio DMI in Las Vegas. 16 songs were chosen out of 30 recorded for the album. The song «Calentura» was released on March 16, 2016 as the album's lead single, reaching the top position on Billboard's Latin Rhythm Airplay chart in August. On May was released a remix version featuring Puerto Rican rapper Tempo and on September was released a trap version featuring US rapper Lil Jon, which replaced the original «Calentura» in the album's track list. The electropop «Somos Uno» was released on September and on October was released «Encantadora» as the lead single. Dangerous was finally published on November 6 trough Sony Music Latin, reaching the top position on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart after a week of its release. After the album's success, Yandel was ranked 28th on Billboard's Year-End Top Latin Artists chart.

There are two songs that were originally released with Yandel as a featured artist. «Báilame» was released on July 31, 2015 as an Alex Sensation's single from an upcoming album, and its music video was published on his VEVO channel on October 22. The music was taken from Oniel Anubis' 2014 namesake single, while the chorus was taken from that song and Latin Fresh's 1997 single «Ella Se Arrebata». «Yo Soy Del Barrio» was first shown on August 2015 on the radio show El Coyote The Show (part of La Nueva 94.7 FM radio station) as a purely promotional song for Tego Calderon's concert in the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum. Its jingle version is different from the Dangerous one because Tego changed his lyrics.

Yandel's voice was recorded using two Neve 1073 preamplifiers, a Vocoder Korg voice codec, a Solid-State Channel Strip preamplifier, The Mouth software by Native Instruments and Melodyne software. As well as on his previous studio album, his voice was multitracked on all songs and also has some delays.

The entire album was co-written by Yandel with additional lyrics by the song's producer and/or other lyricists. Dangerous hasn't a lead producer but it has work from various, such as Tainy (who produced 4 songs), Jumbo and Luny Tunes (who produced 2) and the rest (Onell Flow, Motiff, Saga Whiteblack, Haze, DJ Luian, Alex Killer, Nesty, Alex Sensation, Ray Casillas, The Mekanics, Nely and Predikador) who produced only one. Roberto Vazquez, most known as Earcandy, recorded and mixed almost the entire album, being «Riversa» (recorded by Luny Tunes and Predikador, mixed by them and Menes from the production duo Los De La Nazza) the only exception. The album was mastered by the producer Mike Fuller, who also mastered other reggaeton artists' albums including The Last Don 2 by Don Omar, Visionary by Farruko, La Melodía De La Calle: 3rd Season by Tony Dize and La Familia B Sides by J Balvin. Fuller also mastered albums from famous singers including Ricardo Montaner, Ricky Martin, David Bisbal, Chayanne, Roberto Carlos, Vico C and the duo Pimpinela. As to musical instruments, the album has the electronic keyboard and synthesizers as the lead ones, with exceptions including an acoustic guitar in «No Sales De Mi Mente», «Encantadora», «Imaginar» and «Yo Soy Del Barrio», as well as a trombone in «Fantasía» and an electric guitar in «Yo Soy Del Barrio». The album focuses mainly on reggaeton music (mixing it with reggae fusion in «Encantadora»), with electropop, latin pop and hip hop exceptions, and includes more collaborations than his previous studio album, De Líder A Leyenda, which has four out of 17 songs (representing the 23% of the album), while Dangerous has nine out of 16 (representing the 56%).

Singles

Dangerous Tour

Dangerous Tour is the second concert tour by Yandel, being De Líder a Leyenda VIP Tour his first one, which was from June to November 2014. After some months promoting his album and his future tour through other concerts around the Americas, Dangerous Tour started on October 7, 2016 in Puerto Rico, and will end on November 6, 2016 in Orlando, United States.

Credits and personnel

Most credits adapted from Allmusic and the CD information. The list's order is based on the track list.

Chart performance

Sales and certifications

According to Nielsen SoundScan, Dangerous sold 5,000 copies in the United States during its first week of release, a thousand less sales than his previous studio album, De Líder a Leyenda, which later received a latin gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for surpassing 30,000 copies sold in the US. Dangerous remained one week on the top position of Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart, in which it appeared 17 non-consecutive weeks from November 2015 to March 2016. In October 2016, Yandel was surprised by Puerto Rican boxer José Cotto, who gave him two RIAA certifications: Platinum (Latin) for Dangerous (60.000 copies sold) and 5× Platinum (Latin) for his single "Encantadora" (300.000 copies sold), which was also certified with 2× Platinum in Spain a few months before.

Accolades

In 2016, Yandel won a Tecla Award and was nominated for a Billboard Latin Music Award. On June 16, he confirmed that the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame is going to give him the Hero's Special Award during La Musa Awards. Desmond Child and Rudy Pérez, founders of the hall of fame, praised him for his achievements, saying that he created his own musical style and continues to inspire millions of listeners around the world, being a hero for Latin Americans everywhere.