Cosa Nuestra: Capitulo 0

"It started in Africa, con la conga; skin on wood," explains Nuyorican salsero Izzy Sanabria in a now-ubiquitous video. I see it at least once a year on Instagram. I reposted it today. Rauw’s album Cosa Nuestra paid homage to an era of Puerto Rican music rooted in New York City, even as its sounds and rhythms came from the Caribbean. The heyday of Fania Records—with Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón, Ismael Miranda, and La Lupe—painted a gritty portrait of El Barrio. Despite crime, violence, and poverty, you could still pasarla bien entre familia y amistades. You could still find your Sofía and fall in love, hoping she wasn’t playing you. Or your Puchi, who barely spoke Spanish but could sing La Borinqueña without missing a note.

Artists like Rauw Alejandro carry that lineage. You can tell he grew up with music. His father played guitar on Cosa Nuestra and joined his most recent tour. That’s different from someone who just digs in crates for old sounds. Rauw’s breadth is natural, and the depth he brings to each project is like a researcher scrolling through microfiche to find primary sources.

Cosa Nuestra: Capítulo 0 widens the timeline but dives deeper into the music. It highlights the Caribbean rhythms that powered its predecessor. Listening, I think of Izzy breaking down salsa—where it comes from, how its parts build the ritmo, and how those parts echo across all Caribbean genres.

"It started in Africa, con la conga, skin on wood. El bongo. The basis of salsa, el clave." That’s what Carita Linda, Caribeño, and GuabanSexxx bring: a foundation that goes back centuries to enslaved Africans who carried their cultural practices to new, hostile shores. Bomba carried resistance, plena rose from the hunger—jíbaros y jíbaras singing himnos on the mountainside—songs that sustained them while American banks and corporations (fuck Domino Sugar) stole their land (see Nelson Denis, 2015). Voices crying for libertad, dignity, and humanity.

From there, the album transports us to the 1900s as Puerto Ricans arrived in the Bronx, mostly post-WWII. Saso steps in to represent that collective, fortifying the foundation. The ancestors walk an invisible air bridge between the archipelago and places like the Bronx, Loisaida, Spanish Harlem, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Hartford (ask Elena Marie Rosario about Hartford, she can speak for days). Saso brings plena and its descendants, and Rauw honors the “Great Family” of Taínos, Africans, and Spaniards whose sounds mixed into our heritage. (For more on the myth of the Great Family, see Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, 2024.)

That foundation is set like cured concrete in GuabanSexxx and Buenos Términos. Traditional percussion layered with a modern tresillo, like only Los Sensei can do. Rauw’s menacing bars on GuabanSexxx float like the feet of bomba dancers directing conga players. The haunting tones of Buenos Términos don’t scare—they invite the ancestors into the room like an incantation. All that’s missing are candles and a salt circle.

"El ritmo. De África pa’l Caribe. Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo..." Rauw goes beyond música típica de Puerto Rico. This is love for Borikén and El Caribe. SILENCIO, co-written and co-produced by Romeo Santos, takes us to la República and Barrio Obrero in Santurce, carrying sounds perfected by our neighbors. That crying guitar strings stand out like Jenniffer González at a PIP rally—except their presence is actually embraced. El Cuc0.0 slaps with a dembow/mambo hybrid, transporting us to Kiskeya, before a track that feels straight from The Noise in 1995. Contrabando, with Wisin y Yandel and Ñengo Flow, honors reggaetón’s history of being policed by parents, government, and authority figures. Play it in the mid to late 90s and watch mano dura break down your door (see Marisol Lebron, 2016 or listen to LOUD, The History of Reggaeton). Pure perreo joy—like Fania in the ’70s—where youth carved out happiness against oppression and shrinking opportunities. It serves as the heart of the album that unites generations.

"Here mixed with the Indians; el timbal; el güiro, todo un ritmo; las maracas..." The album slows at its bridge like an intermission before the final act of a play. Romantic melancholy spills through, the kind Los Adolescentes, Lalo Rodríguez, or DLG might create today. Rauw and De La Rose’s voices ache on Nostalgia de Otoño, echoing Aquel Lugar as they mourn a lost relationship, albeit more lust than love. Náufragos finds Rauw, like Lalo, pleading with a lover to see that beyond the passion they share, there’s something real. Besito en la Frente is a bomba-filled promise, like La Quiero a Morir—an eternal love meant to outlast them all. Love, lust, heartbreak— central to Caribbean music of this era.

At first, Santa felt misplaced, like a play to get up the streaming numbers. But pairing Rauw with Nigerian singer Ayra Starr and Jamaican artist Rvssian on an Afrobeats track reframes it for me. A modern echo of the African sounds that built Caribbean music. A nod to Jamaicans who migrated to Panama and birthed rhythms that decades later became reggaetón (have you stopped and listened to LOUD yet? ReggaetonConLaGata is another great resource and her podcast is a must listen). You could make the case, at least. Shrugs.

"And now, the heartbeat, the SOUL, el corazón de la salsa; the bass... From Europe, Europa, the 88s; el piano... The sons and daughters came to the United States, the influence of jazz; the brass!" Sanabria’s words ring as the album closes with Callejón de los Secretos, FALSEDAD, and Mirando al Cielo. BOY, am I hooked. Rauw mixed the parts into a whole, like a curandera preparing a remedy in a pilón. For this 34-year-old Boricua of the diaspora, it cures homesickness, sparks belonging (and Saturday cleaning), and radiates joy—a sonrisa, a loud WEPA. The duet with Mon Laferte recalls La India and Marc Anthony’s Vivir lo Nuestro: two singers sparring, bar by bar, over love and forgiveness. FALSEDAD is no cover; it’s Rauw embodying a salsero in his prime, as an ode to Frankie Ruiz, Eddie Santiago, Héctor Lavoe, but adding his own fire. Finally, Mirando al Cielo closes the circle. I can see the full salsa band, beckoning the floor to move beneath me, cross-body leads, double turns, shoulders shimmying coming out naturally. I’ve always dreamed of singing backup in a salsa band, and Rauw makes that dream real for three minutes.

Artists like Rauw and Benito honor those of us raised in the diaspora. We grew up with a fierce love for an archipelago we didn’t live in. I’m lucky I spent summers with tíos Gillie y Iván, titis Millie y Yoly, abuela Nellie, and of course, to’ los primos. Luckily I can still return each year and show Amaree the land of her ancestors. But even if I couldn’t, Rauw Alejandro brings that essence: continuation of culture, recognition of history, and deep love for Borikén.

Gracias, Raúl.