‘The Lusophone Sound Is Coming’: Inside Dino D’Santiago’s Intricate Fusions
“Amarillo,” the first song on J Balvin’s new album Colores, opens with a riff that’s brassy and playful, like a child imitating the sound of a trumpet. That happens to be a sample cribbed from Saïan Supa Crew’s “Angela,” a fusion of hip-hop and zouk, a style of music from the French Caribbean; Balvin merges it with the reggaeton rhythm that has become global club currency. Tracing the jet-setting musical elements in “Amarillo” can be dizzying, but tracing the song’s impact is straightforward: More than 50 million ...