Dancehall and reggaeton collide as singjay Mavado collaborates with Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar De La Ghetto.
The 27 year old Rafael Castillo aka ‘De La Ghetto’ has been recording some of the biggest reggaeton songs such as ‘Es Dif’cil’, for the past two years. Castillo was in Jamaica last week for the first time to record a song with dancehall singjay Mavado. The street/club song entitled ‘Come And See ‘ is being produced by Jazzy T from Renaissance studios.
Castillo told the STAR how the collaboration came about. “I met Mavado a month ago in Miami – went to a Jamaican restaurant to eat Jamaican and he was there, it was like in the movies I was the only Puerto Rican light-skinned kid there. I w ent to Mavado’s table we sat down and talked he was very humble and we were talking bout doing a track but we couldn’t do it then cause he had to go to Jamaica the next day, he told me to come to Jamaica,” he said.
A dream come true
Castillo recently recorded his part of the single and Mavado passed through the studio, listened to the track and was impressed. The artiste has since recorded his part of the song. For Castillo working with Mavado was on the top of his list. “To me its like a dream come true cause in the early 90s in Puerto Rico there was no such thing as reggaeton only dancehall like Chakademus, Bounty and more. So we grew up listening to dancehall I never thought in my wildest dream I would be here to record. This is like the motherland of all music we’re so close together in the Caribbean but I never had a chance to come to Jamaica,” he said.
He continued “I’m a very big fan of Mavado, the very first time I heard Mavado it was a year and a half ago. I was looking in a Vibe magazine I heard he was like the top notch person over here so I looked him up on Youtube, I never knew I would meet up with him.
I’m surprised to record with a big super international artiste like Mavado, I know he got a new track with Jay Z that’s number one in New York and Miami. I travel the world and everywhere I go people talk about Mavado.Hopefully this song will do history.”
Street Ghetto
Having come from what he terms one of the baddest ghettos in the Caribbean ‘La Perla’ in Puerto Rico, Castillo says that he can easily identify with what he terms Mavado’s ‘street ghetto’ vibe. Not the first Puerto Rican artiste to record with a Jamaican following Daddy Yankee who recorded with Sean Paul and Randy who recorded with Beenie Man, De La Ghetto says that the track is strictly dancehall not reggaeton.
Hoping to come back soon De La Ghetto’s next album will be released in August/September of this year featuring Mavado as well as Chris Brown. He hopes that this song will open him up to the dancehall market and open Mavado to the increasing reggaeton market.
Source: JamaicaStar