Natanael Cano Talks New Onerous-Hitting Album ‘NataKong,’ Recording at Drake’s Home & Extra

Natanael Cano strictly information music when he’s in a temper — extra particularly, when he’s “destroyed,” as he places it. So it’s no shock that his new album, NataKong, out Friday, is a mirrored image of the uncooked feelings he was feeling at that very second, which he narrates with daring and brooding lyrics.

He opens the set with the extremely private lure tune “Free Nata” — which is a tune he now not likes however left it as the primary monitor as a result of “all my mates appear to love it,” the Mexican chart-topping artist tells Billboard. In it, Cano talks about feeling nostalgic and particulars his comeback. “I don’t really feel the feelings I felt once I began. Time passes slowly, I’ve to hold in there,” he raps. “This tune I sing so that you could be looking out for my comeback and so that you can know that cash wasn’t the one factor I needed.”

The set comes lower than a 12 months after his album A Mis 20, which topped Billboard‘s Regional Mexican Albums chart, and drops at a time when Cano goes by means of each skilled and private transitions. He not too long ago launched his personal label Los CT — after a very public tiff along with his label Rancho Humilde (NataKong might be collectively launched underneath Los CT and Rancho Humilde) — he’s been acting at main festivals, and he’s set to make his debut at Coachella subsequent week. On a private stage, he’s prepared to go away behind the child mentality.

“This album is the separation of the 17-year-old Nata who was simply beginning. It mirrors who I’m now. I can now not faux I’m a child as a result of I by no means actually received the chance to be a child so in actuality I used to be faking it. I don’t need to appear dumb or get into issues. I need to hold doing music as a result of I like it.”

NataKong, half lure and half corridos tumbados, permits the 20-year-old singer-songwriter to dwell in a state of duality. “I solely document lure songs to have the ability to specific what I’m feeling in the mean time. I say no matter I need to say. In a corrido, there must be a tune. I’m fairly positive someday I’ll simply keep on with corridos however proper now, I like each types.”

All through the 18-track set, Cano explores completely different moods that tread up to now and the longer term, and in “Nataaoki,” produced by Steve Aoki, he experiments for the primary time with EDM. From the get-go, Cano knew he’d need to document an digital tune with Aoki. “I don’t thoughts recording the style of my collaborator. I respect that as a result of I do know I’m younger and I’d by no means dare to go in and ask them to document a corrido with me. I at all times inform them: Let’s do what you do. I don’t need to power anybody to sing in my model.”

One other tune with a particular which means is “Toronto,” which was recorded at Drake‘s home. Though he by no means received to satisfy the Canadian-born artist, he recorded the monitor in his studio. The lyrics had been born throughout a freestyle session, which is how the vast majority of his songs begin, with producers who don’t converse Spanish. “They liked no matter I used to be singing and I simply saved going. They usually had been all from Toronto so I figured that’s what I’d identify the tune “

Specializing in what’s to come back, Cano additionally says that he’s now on good phrases along with his label Rancho Humilde after saying he needed out of the recording contract throughout an Instagram Reside again in November. On the finish of the day, he says, it is a enterprise. “We’re working properly proper now, which is what’s essential. And if this album, the primary one to be co-released with my very own label, turns into successful then it’ll be my greatest achievement to this point.”

After he releases NataKong on April 8, Cano will take a break from the studio, he says, and put all his vitality into an upcoming tour. “I need to keep away from that studio mentality for a bit as a result of each time I am going in I’ve to be destroyed or going by means of one thing loopy. Proper now, I’m feeling fairly chill.”