Chencho Corleone
In 1999, a computer-repair student in Ponce named Edwin Vázquez Vega walked away from his degree to chase a beat, bringing along his cousin Orlando Javier Valle Vega. Vázquez became Maldy; Valle became Chencho Corleone, and — nudged into a duo by producer DJ Blass — the two built Plan B into one of reggaeton's defining vocal pairings, Chencho's melodic hook trading against Maldy's rougher chanteo across hits like "Fanática Sensual" and "Es un Secreto." When the duo split in 2018, Chencho's solo run found an even wider audience through "El Efecto" and Bad Bunny's "Me Porto Bonito." Ask him what carries a song and he doesn't cite a trend: "mi voz es una voz que la gente identifica," he told Rolling Stone en Español — a voice built, deliberately, to still sound like reggaeton's beginning.
Before Plan B existed, there was a university acquaintance from Ponce named Vladymir Félix — DJ Blass, Chencho's cousin — who was assembling a compilation called Área 51. Maldy remembered it plainly: "Fue DJ Blass quien propuso unirlos como dúo," he told Primera Hora in 2023, crediting the producer with the very idea of the duo Chencho would spend two decades inside. Blass's own account of his method — chopping vinyl, splicing dembow under Puerto Rican hip-hop — became the actual sound the two cousins were handed as their starting point.
listen forPlay Blass's 2001 mixtape Sandunguero and listen to how he locks a chopped, syncopated dembow under insistent vocal ad-libs — a stripped, DJ-built groove designed purely to move a room. Then drop into Plan B's "Es un Secreto": the same tight, chattering rhythm bed still drives underneath, but now it carries a sung, aching hook instead of a chanted one — Chencho's melodic instinct layered onto the exact perreo chassis Blass built him on.
By 2010, reggaeton had drifted toward electronic and tropical fusions, and Plan B pulled back toward the sound's foundation — a move Chencho framed by naming the artist who'd already proven it worked. "Ahora que ven que Plan B regresa a sus raíces como lo han hecho Wisin & Yandel, Daddy Yankee y Don Omar que les funcionó, otros lo hacen," he told Primera Hora, describing a near-psychological pull: fans hearing that older, harder reggaeton and recognizing exactly what they'd wanted all along.
listen forCue Yankee's "Gasolina" and listen to how the beat refuses to let up — a relentless dembow kick under a single, gang-shouted hook built to detonate a dance floor. Then play Plan B's "Choca," from nine years later: the same driving, unadorned pulse anchors the track, with a chant-along chorus engineered the same way, for the same room. It's the "reggaetón de antes" Chencho pointed to by name — not a sound he invented, but one he chose to keep returning to.