walking upstream…
Eladio Carrión
photo: latinos en pelota · cc by 3.0 ↗Eladio Carrión
Eladio Carrión Morales is a Puerto Rican-American rapper and singer born in Kansas City, Kansas, whose father's military career dragged the family through Hawaii, Baltimore, New York, and Alaska before they settled in Humacao, Puerto Rico when he was 11; before music, he swam competitively for Puerto Rico at the Central American and Caribbean Games and the Pan American Games. Coming up through Los de la Nazza's reggaetón pipeline, he became one of Latin trap's most technically fluent bilingual rappers, running English-language hip-hop craft — dense punchlines, internal rhyme, deadpan swagger — straight through Spanish-language trap hits. His 2020 debut Sauce Boyz and the Sen2 Kbrn/3men2 Kbrn album cycles made him one of the genre's most in-demand collaborators, culminating in a 2023 Latin Grammy for Best Rap/Hip-Hop Song.
the sound in question
2022
MbappeEladio Carrión
walk the tributaries ↓
Lil Wayne2000s · Hip hop / Southern hip-hop / Trap
Carrión grew up idolizing Wayne and says Wayne showed him "you don't have to wait every four bars to do a punch line — you could do a punch line every bar," a lesson he traces to the Tha Carter run; the debt became literal when Wayne guested on Carrión's own 'Gladiador (Remix),' which Carrión has called the most special song he's made.
listen: upstream & heresource: LilWayneHQ — "Eladio Carrion On Growing Up A Lil Wayne Fan + 'Gladiador'" ↗
2008
A MilliLil Wayne
2023
Gladiador (Remix)Eladio Carrión
listen forCount the punchlines per bar rather than per verse — Wayne rarely lets four bars pass without a left-turn joke or internal rhyme. Carrión packs 'Gladiador (Remix)' the same way, rapid-firing wordplay bar over bar rather than saving it for a hook.
50 Cent2000s · Hip hop / Gangsta rap / East Coast hip hop
Carrión grew up on Get Rich or Die Tryin' through his older sisters and has said flatly that 50 Cent "taught me the importance of feeling sure about yourself when you rap" — the icy, unbothered confidence that lets a 50 Cent verse land a boast without ever raising its voice.
listen: upstream & heresource: WBLK — "Eladio Carrion Talks Bobby Shmurda Collaboration, Lessons Learned From 50 Cent and More" ↗
2003
In da Club50 Cent
2023
Coco ChanelEladio Carrión
listen forNotice how little 50 Cent oversells a line — the menace is in the flatness, not the volume. Carrión's luxury-flex bars on 'Coco Chanel' work the same way: short, blunt, said once and left alone.
Eminem2000s · Hip-hop / Rap
Carrión has said Eminem "taught me about deliveries [and] wordplay," and has talked about dreaming of building albums the way Eminem built The Blueprint-era records — full of structure and cleverness rather than just a stack of loose tracks.
listen: upstream & heresource: Eminem.Pro — "Eladio Carrión Grateful to Eminem and 50 Cent for Rap Lessons" ↗
2013
Rap GodEminem
2019
Kemba WalkerEladio Carrión
listen forListen for the rapid-fire internal rhyme chains and the way a single word gets bent into two or three meanings inside one bar. Carrión's 'Kemba Walker' runs the same trick, stretching a basketball name into a whole verse's worth of double meanings.