Omar's iDon Takes Reggaeton Back to the Future

Dancehall king blends familiar with futuristic with foray into cyberpunk
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 20, 2009 10:32 AM CDT

Reggaeton superstar Don Omar blends dancehall with Blade Runner on new album iDon, Jody Rosen writes for Slate. The Puerto Rican’s journey into “dystopian cyberfantasy” features plenty of “cybernetic mumbo-jumbo, foreboding synth chords, and techno twitches,” Rosen writes, backtracked by some more familiar big booming beats.

iDon fires through 10 tracks in just 38 minutes, Rosen writes, loosely based on the concept of a futuristic scientist’s transformation of a Latin superstar into a cyborg. Behind the bleeps and effects, however, Rosen notes, lyrics about clubs and sex and disses of rivals and record execs make Omar’s latest a “stealth conventional reggaeton album.” (More reggae stories.)

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