INTERVIEW
Many of the 11 hip-hop tracks on Prznt’s new album, Night of the Rose, have a distinctly Latin flavor. That is new for Prznt, and it is by design and heritage.
The Cuban American artist, living in Fort Myers, Florida, is returning to, honoring, his Latin roots.
“It’s a collection of a sound that I've been working on for a lot of years now,” he said. “I feel like it’s a sonic gift from myself to the world. I want the world to enjoy it.”
Prznt has been putting out music consistently since 2018 and has attracted millions of streams and a dedicated fan base. Until this year, hip-hop has been dominant, but he has always thrown in some twists and turns that make it his own — playing with the instrumentation and the sound. With this album, he is turning more to a Latin/urban sound.
“The sound that I’m talking about is mainly the guitars with the very melodic hooks and the very melodic lyrics and the sounds that you hear in the songs. It’s not so much straight rapping. It’s a lot of melodies all throughout the songs and the guitar essence on the trap beats. Specifically very Latin guitars, Argentine and Cuban and Mexican guitars.”
And, here and there, Latin brass.
“Yeah,” he said. “I like to include those. It’s part of what I think of as Latin origins. A lot of the samples that we have in those songs are from very old songs — very old Latin songs.”
The different strains combine with each other and the lyrics to make something new. The guitars give a decidedly acoustic vibe to hip-hop, especially when it is the guitars that carry the beat. He calls the overall effect a “starkly melancholy sound,” by which he does not mean depressing but relaxed, meditative, mellow.
The beats, instead of rampaging through the music, take the listener on a tour of musical elements.
“It’s more like just a description of the overall vibe of the album,” he said. “It’s very chill at times, but it can get energetic.”
The single he released to tease the album, which dropped early in March, was “Or Nah,” a song more in the hip-hop mode.
“It’s a very fun song. It’s meant for you to have fun — turn it on with your friends, or on late-night drives, whatever you want to do. It’s less a message and more of an experience that I want people to have.”
Well, have fun or nah:
Hoppin’ in the whip or nah
Tell me if you lit or nah
Coming for the lick or nah
It was kind of a fan choice.
“I chose that one because of the reaction of the people. I went live and showed it to a bunch of fans, and they were leaning towards that one for it to be the single, so I released it.”
This more Latin/urban sound is where he is going to live going forward.
“I have a fan base that has been following me for years now, and I gained them through original songs like ‘Laudy Daudy’ and stuff like that years ago.”
“Laudy Daudy” has drawn more than 16 million streams on Spotify alone.
But even with that music he was presenting — pun intended — “hints.”
“I cultivated myself into making just this specific sound, and I’ve always dropped hints of it along the way. But this album is like, ‘Okay, I got all of that and put it all into 11 songs. Here you go.’ You know what I mean?”
Night of the Rose makes his meaning clear.
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Night of the Rose
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