Darell

Rapper and singer Darell is the opposite of the proverbial spoonful of sugar: His gritty voice is a fistful of gravel that can turn even the sweetest reggaetón production into a rough-and-tumble street anthem. Born Osval Elías Castro Hernández in 1990, the Puerto Rican native had a brief run in the reggaetón duo Belto & Darell around 2010 but went solo shortly thereafter. He got a boost in 2016 when fellow reggaetónero Ñengo Flow signed him to his Real G4 Life label, opening the door to collaborations with heavy hitters like Anuel AA. That same year, Darell dropped his debut album, La Verdadera Vuelta, which translates to The Real Return. With a commanding baritone reminiscent of Tego Calderón’s authoritative bark, Darell rapped in his swaggering flow over woozy Latin trap beats, reeling off tales of street violence and bedroom conquests with the widescreen panache of a Hollywood blockbuster. It was the following year’s “Te Boté,” a bitter kiss off to an unfaithful ex, that announced his arrival as a major player: Apple Music Up Next artist Bad Bunny, Nicky Jam, and Ozuna jumped on the song’s 2018 remix, sending the diamond-certified single to the No. 1 slot on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart for 11 weeks straight. In 2020, Darell returned with LVV the Real Rondon, an album every bit as hard-boiled as his debut. While he’d been toying with releasing his long-rumored Everybody Go to the Discotek project, he first had to give his day-one fans something in the spirit of his roots. The concept was simple, he told Apple Music: “Street music.”