DJ Negro
Félix Rodríguez, known as DJ Negro, got his start as Vico C's DJ and production partner, recording three albums together — including 1990's La Recta Final and Misión: La Cima — that helped invent rap en español in Puerto Rico. After being cut loose from Vico C's camp, he opened La Perla's The Noise nightclub in 1992, a freestyle-over-riddims night that Red Bull Music later called reggaetón's Motown; Baby Rasta & Gringo won a talent competition to appear on the club's first compilation album, one of many acts — alongside Daddy Yankee, Ivy Queen, and Tego Calderón — that The Noise launched toward the mainstream.
DJ Negro has said he discovered Vico C hosting an English-rap competition, was floored by his talent, and proposed they team up; they then "started selling cassette tapes" together and, in Negro's own words, "Spanish rap was born in Puerto Rico." The pair recorded three albums — La Recta Final, Misión: La Cima, and Hispanic Soul — before Negro was unexpectedly cut from the group ahead of the last one, which is what pushed him to found The Noise on his own.
listen forListen for how plainly Vico C narrates rather than sings on "Me Acuerdo" — the same unadorned, story-first delivery DJ Negro would go on to demand from the freestylers at The Noise, heard in the raw, call-and-response urgency of the club's own breakout cut, "Voy a Implantar."