Trap Tumbado

Even before breaking out with the criminally minded hit “Soy el Diablo,” Natanael Cano was clearly looking to trap music for inspiration. “Of course it was something very important both in my career and my life,” he tells Apple Music about the Bad Bunny remix that helped the track blow up. Between that cosign and the game-changing single “Arriba,” it seemed only a matter of time before the regional Mexican scene’s most buzzed-about young star would deliver a project like this. As its title so bluntly indicates, *Trap Tumbado* marks his formal foray into the popular hip-hop subgenre. “I am inspired by the bars used in the two genres,” he tells Apple Music of the crossover. “They are very similar, so I feel like I can dominate it.” While countless artists have made bold lateral moves in their careers, with varying degrees of success, Cano comes across effortlessly—a natural-born trapero whose hedonistic and narcotized lifestyle flows through tracks like “La Reina” and the boss anthem “Me Tira por el Phone.” Though topically in line with his work on the *Corridos Tumbados* volumes, here he retains the production services of Pharmacy and Play-N-Skillz, among others, to keep the vibes authentic. “I love their sound,” he says of the latter duo. “Their beats are so hard.” New York hitmaker Lil Tecca guests on “Dime Pa’ Qué,” a perfectly timed collaboration that mixes Cano’s devilish tendencies with Tecca’s luxurious ones. Ultimately, *Trap Tumbado* acts as a subtle yet direct warning to the Spanish-language rappers out there, lest they get too comfortable in their current positions.