Amongst Atlanta’s immensely prosperous music scene, one artist shows an abundance of promise in leading the future shaping of the sound in trap music. Born in Costa Rica, Don Tico uses his experiences from both his homeland and new found home to accurately reflect both cultures and find the perfect balance between ATL’s original trap sub-genre and the rising Latin Trap Spanish sub-genre.
His new mixtape “El Don Del Trap” takes us on a three part journey through his greatest ups and downs that have been a result of the Trap lifestyle. The project progresses not only in the story carried out from start to finish, but also sonically, as each chapter carries a different sound and theme than the last to mirror the evolvement as a man and artist that came with these lessons. “El Don Del Trap” is available on all streaming services now.
Don Tico- The Price
- Your sound definitely holds to true to what you rep in your Instagram bio “Costa rican baby, but Atlanta made me” This track was definitely a good balance and representation of what you claim your identity to be. What made you go with the dirty south beat and verses in spanish instead of the other way around? Being that I represent both cultures, it’s very important to me that I’m fully authentic to both. I don’t make trap music just because that’s my favorite type of music. I make it because its a reflection of the life I had been living for the past 6 years, which is why it resonated with me to become my favorite sub-genre of Hip-hop. So its also important that sonically I reflect that. There are songs where I rap in either English, Spanish, or both over latin influenced instrumentals but that decision is usually based off the subject matter of the song.
- Keeping elements of your heritage is clearly very important to you, are there any tracks on your upcoming new project that are all in spanish? Yes it truly is, the final song of the Mixtape is completely in Spanish. I worked very hard to make sure this project as a whole felt like a movie when you listened to it. So even though there is Spanish mixed throughout many songs off the project, I wanted the last one to leave you like “Damn, he just switched the whole game up, what’s next?” And you’ll just have to stay tuned to see.
- The beat to this track is dope, we get to hear more of who you are as an artist lyricaly on a slower track, was that the outcome you were going for ? Thank you, my homie and I produced it ourselves from scratch and it’s the first song I rapped over any beat that I had some influence on so that essentially allowed me to take full control of shaping the sound as a whole. I wanted you to feel the emotion from the beat, while the vocals tell a story as if I was sitting next to you speaking it to you.
- In the beginning of the track we hear a female voice say “chapter 3, the revelation, can we expect a story to unfold throughout your new project ? Yes, the concept behind my project is the journey behind the last 3 chapters of my life. Chapter 1: The Ascension, is the come up. Chapter 2: The Lust, is the turn up from the newfound success. And as you said the final chapter: The Revelation, is me learning the hard way that despite the fact that I put in the work so that I could be in a position to turn up, balance is key in order to maintain that position. I hope that aside of the progression in the music, that you can see the advancements in my personal growth and mental elevation from the first chapter to the last.
Don Tico – Cartel
- This track is definitely a club banger, what was the inspiration behind adding some auto tune to the track? As you said its a cub banger and right now that’s the sound of our generation’s wave in the clubs, so I’d rather cater to it than drown in it.
- The second half of the track, you gave us some bars in spanish,was your goal to showcase your versatility ? Yes that and also because it felt authentic to the track. The song is called “cartel” but not in efforts to glorify or benefit off of them but rather because the message behind the song is despite how I obtain my success, the police will always profile and harass a young latino in a nice car, clothes and jewelry as a drug dealer regardless. So I felt the need to really put on for both cultures in two languages and just maybe people of different backgrounds will see we are more alike than similar, and once we stop being so divided maybe we can actually defeat the oppression we complain about decade after decade.
- Would you consider yourself a latin-american rapper or do you prefer to not be labeled? I would because at the end of the day I was born in Costa Rica but I am extremely blessed to also have citizenship in this country as well so that is what I am. Labels don’t bother me as long as they are fit, however being boxed in because of a label does because even outside of what language I do it in, I am so much more than just a rapper.
4. We all know trap beats with heavy bass lines are really popular right now, Can we expect more club tracks on the upcoming project ? Yes there is plenty of trap music throughout “El Don Del Trap”, the majority of it can be found toward the beginning of the mixtape in the first 2 chapters of the project. There are some trap elements found in the third one as well, however sonically that chapter is more diverse.
