Tropicoqueta

Album ∙ Latin ∙ 2025

KAROL G

With every album since 2017’s Unstoppable, KAROL G progressively moved beyond expectations. Clearly not content with being the top reggaetonera on the scene, the Colombian singer refined and repositioned herself with each new full-length, from the beach dreaminess of OCEAN through the diverse sides of her MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO era. Her unapologetic eagerness to cross genre lines while still building with longtime allies like Ovy On the Drums grew her global fanbase exponentially, outpacing just about everyone else in Latin music who emerged during the mid-2010s boom.

Now fully vested in the trappings of megastardom, she offers what is easily her most ambitious album to date in Tropicoqueta, its titular portmanteau a marked pivot that reflects how reggaetón’s baddest bichota successfully evolved into one of the world’s biggest pop artists. Among the album’s triumphs is just how at ease KAROL sounds on these 20 shapeshifting tracks, adapting and thriving over different sounds in ways that even some of her famous peers could never.

Aiming to genuinely connect with and honor Latin musical cultures more broadly, she faithfully plays to homegrown vallenato on the pleading “No Puedo Vivir Sin Él” and reaches for cumbia villera on “Cuando Me Muera Te Olvido.” Decidedly Caribbean forms like bachata and dembow feature on “Amiga Mía” with Greeicy and “Un Gatito Me Llamó,” respectively. Her fusions spark joy as well, combining New York City’s sexy drill with Brazilian baile funk on “Bandida Entrenada” and embracing tropical pop on bilingual standout “Papasito.” And while Latin Afrobeats is essentially its own active subgenre at this point, she holds space for herself within it on the somewhat mysterious “Canción 13.”

None of this means that KAROL’s given up on reggaetón, of course. She sprinkles in a gratifying amount of it throughout, beginning with the poppy perreo of “LATINA FOREVA” and continuing on deeper cuts like “Tu Perfume” and the Mariah Angeliq reunion “FKN Movie.” Elsewhere, as on “Se Puso Linda,” that familiar polyrhythm operates more like a texture than a driver, leaving room for her femme-forward storytelling to shine. The sheer power of her relatable lyricism is hard to deny as well, from the character-driven world-building of “Ivonny Bonita” to the romantic mischievousness of “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido.”