“Every time I look at that picture, I think that there’s nothing you can’t accomplish in life as long as you set your mind to it,” Brytiago tells Apple Music. He’s referring to a now-famous photo of an eight-year-old Bryan Cancel Santiago beaming with pride next to his idol and future mentor Daddy Yankee. Two decades later, Brytiago has become one of the most essential and instantly recognizable voices in Latin trap. “I can’t leave trap out, because that’s where I come from,” he explains. “But I wanted to give the album as much variety as I could without losing the essence of what Brytiago is about.” The songs on Orgánico go from reggaetón to R&B, from drill to dembow, as if capturing a moving image of the cultural moment in Puerto Rico and beyond. “I feel that I have finally reached the standard I’ve always looked for,” he says. Here he takes us through the stories behind his new songs one by one. Imán (feat. Omy de Oro) “‘Imán’ is a drill song. Drill is kind of like the new trap and a genre that I think a lot of artists are going to start exploring. It has that street spirit. We shot the video in the place where I grew up, a public housing complex that sits abandoned now but has a lot of history behind it. I still live nearby. We wanted to make the video before the whole place was demolished to keep its history alive forever. This is one of my favorite songs on the album for the street feel in it. I’m especially happy to start a new project with a new artist like Omy de Oro, who is getting big fast in Puerto Rico and all around the world.” Olvidando (feat. Darell) “Darell and I have an explosive chemistry every time we get together. Everything we’ve done has been a hit, so I just couldn’t leave him off the album. I knew that if he wasn’t here, everybody would be asking me how that could be. The song came together in Miami, and it’s the story of a girl who doesn’t want to be with her partner anymore. He wants to control her and won’t let her be free. Darell gives it his street touch, that neighborhood feel, and there’s also a very Miami vibe, a boardwalk vibe. I am positive it will be another classic for us.” Tik Tok “This one has a lot of feeling. It’s a heartbreak song about letting yourself get carried away when you drink. You’re not thinking straight and suddenly you want to call that person to tell her that you need her. Jowny and Hydro and the guys from Hear This Music worked on the beat. The same way I picked very specific artists for the features, I chose the producers for each track. Hydro and Jowny are strategic collaborators, and they had to be on the album.” Borracho (feat. Wisin) “For a long time, I thought about collaborating with Wisin every time I saw him. I grew up listening to his music and following his career. To me, he’s a root influence in the movement, and I have crazy respect for him, because not only is he a great artist, but he’s also a top producer. He is really open when it comes to producing, too; he always lets things flow naturally. ‘Borracho’ is a commercial track with that feel for reggaetón that Wisin has mixed with his own thing. It’s about being drunk at three in the morning and wanting to see someone. I can’t wait to sing it live with him, hopefully soon.” Cositas (feat. Rauw Alejandro) “This is one of the most different songs on the album. There’s some R&B, some trap, and some reggaetón. I’ve known Rauw for a very long time, and we have really good chemistry together. I put the idea to him and we went into the studio to work on the song. When we were done, I felt that there was something missing, and I had the idea of mixing the three styles together. It’s a very bold track. We just jumped at the concept of having three rhythm changes. People liked it a lot more than I was imagining. We shot the video in Puerto Rico, in the middle of the pandemic, but when you see it, you might think we’re in Colombia.” Te Fallé (Remix) (feat. Dalex & Lenny Tavárez) “This is one I feel really close to because it comes from my own experience. Dalex told me that he loved the song, that he couldn’t stop listening to it. I hadn’t originally thought about remixing it, but I changed my mind to do the remix with him. At that point I knew I wanted a third artist, and we both thought that Lenny Tavárez was perfect for it. We called him and everything happened really quick. It’s going to make history. This was the first video that we did while quarantined, and we shot it ourselves with our iPhones.” Condena (feat. Farruko) “Farruko is one of my favorite artists. Every time I work with him, it’s a hit. I wanted to have a song that combined his street feel with my own thing. I got the idea watching on the news how the US Army was sending troops to the Middle East and it all looked like a world war was on the way. I thought about how sad it must be to have a job where you have to go away and you don’t even know if you’ll ever see your family again. That’s the condena [sentence] that the lyrics are about.” Algarete (feat. Kiko El Crazy) “Every album needs a Dominican touch. Kiko El Crazy is one of the artists I follow because I just love his vibe and what he projects. This is the first time I’ve recorded dembow, and I wanted to do it with Kiko. The title comes from living al garete, which is Puerto Rican slang for someone who is a little crazy and doesn’t care much about anything. Kiko looks like he’s living al garete, but he’s really a very sane guy and really professional about everything he does. The track is just disco, disco, disco.” Quizás (feat. Ozuna & Lunay) “This is one that started while on tour, with the first producer I ever had, who is now my live DJ. Writing it, I was already thinking about Ozuna and Lunay. They have great chemistry together, and at the same time they both have very distinct styles of their own. I had already done ‘A Solas’ with Lunay, and with Ozuna I have four or five collaborations that were hits. I can’t leave them out. ‘Quizás’ is romantic reggaetón with a message that goes beyond the usual.” Tu Matas (feat. Arcángel & Juanka) “When I went into the studio with Arcángel and ‘Tu Matas’ came out, I knew from the start that it was one for my album. I have a collaboration on his new album, and I wanted him to be on mine too. Then we thought about bringing Juanka, who is just coming off from the songs ‘La Jeepeta’ and ‘Préndelo,’ and he’s in a really sweet point in his career. He’s one of the most versatile artists I know, and I wanted to hear him on a verse for the disco. He killed it even more than I imagined.” Dispo (feat. Jhay Cortez) “‘Dispo’ means disponible [available], as in ‘I’m available, take a chance. What can we do?’ It’s a reggaetón track I did with Jhay Cortez, one of the most talented artists of the new generation. We shot the video in December of 2019, and the girls on it are all wearing masks. We later realized the connection to the pandemic. Now I see it as an example for people to protect themselves and wear masks. I know that lots of people have seen the video, and I hope they feel the same way.” Crush (feat. Jon Z) “Jon Z is an artist full of very unique ideas, and I hadn’t worked with him since ‘High’ two years ago. We made a video recreating the old Blockbuster stores where you could rent movies. We were both big on that. It’s a funny story that fits really well with the images. Jon and I have been friends since he started in music four or five years ago. We make for a pretty explosive combination, because we both have the freedom to tell the other one if there’s something we don’t like. The video was like hanging out in the middle of the pandemic, an escape. You can totally feel the good vibes.” Cosas Malas (feat. Darkiel) “This one has a strange history. We recorded it about two and a half or three years ago, and we posted a preview on social media. Then we lost the computer the song was stored on and never found it. When this album was about to come out, many of my followers started asking about ‘Cosas Malas.’ In Chile, people were singing it, even though it hadn’t been released at that time. They insisted so much that I called Darkiel and we rerecorded the whole thing from scratch. I feel like I would have let my fans down if I had left it off.” Banda “Jowny produced this. We assembled it together, but he’s the one who came up with the concept. I loved the rhythm the minute I heard it, and it’s the most commercial thing on the album. ‘Give me banda’ is something you say when you want people to leave you alone. It’s a very Dominican expression, but you hear it in Puerto Rico and many other places too. It’s about heartbreak, but heartbreak on the dance floor. It’s a big dance track and one of my favorites on the album.” Te Fallé / Te Fallé (Live) “I wanted to close the album with the original version of ‘Te Fallé’ and then an acoustic one. We recorded it live in Mexico, which is one of the places where people are so supportive of my music. There’s a lot of feeling in the song, and it really hits you in this format. I wanted to show a more intimate side of me, to let people listen to my voice without any embellishments.”