His sharp baritone and slippery freestyle delivery, charting urbano rapper and singer Eladio Carrión exploded on the Puerto Rican latin urban scene in 2016 with his debut video single, "Me Enamoré de una Yal." It grabbed the attention of radio programmers and music critics but was welcomed by other artists due to his unique sense of beat craft, hooky writing style, and a very particular method for creating videos.
He has appeared on numerous videos and collaborations with everyone, including Jon Z (in a wonderfully sultry, atmospheric Spanish remix of Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road") and contributed the hit video for "Sigue Bailandome," which gained over 64 million views and spent over 120 days on the Latin Rhythm charts.
Born in Kansas in a military family. Eladio spent time in Alaska and Baltimore before moving permanently to Puerto Rico. As a teen, he dove deep into social media networks posting various popular comic homemade videos and he also composed songs for other artists. Before recording on his own, he made "2 × 2" with Flowsito, and "No Quiero Más Amigos" with Rawlenz. When Carrión debuted "Me Enamoré de una Yal," the first people to embrace it were other reggaetoneros who talked it up on their own social media pages, getting it before the public. He followed it up almost immediately with "Si Tú Te Vas, Mi Cubana," "Culpable," and "Ave María." The next two years he started to get asked to participate on tracks by Big Soto, Randy, Zion, Darkiel, Myke Towers, Rauw Alejandro, Noriel, and many more.
Carrión was regarded by other urbanos as an established stylist in Latin trap. "Sigue Bailandome" with Yann C, Darkiel, and Myke Towers put him over the top, making him one of the most in-demand Latin rappers. "Mi Error," with Zion, racked up a Top 20 chart position and over 33 million YouTube views. Other streaming hits from the period included "Candela" with Ecko, the smash party anthem "Animal" with Myers, and "Kemba Walker" with Bad Bunny. In January 2020, Carrión released his debut full-length album, Sauce Boyz, which featured guest appearances by Smokepurpp, Lil Mosey, Bad Bunny, and others. It debuted at number eight on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart.
Originally published on All Music by Thom Jurek
