7. Omega, “Tu Si Quieres” and “Merengue Electronico/El Rompe Consola” (Dominican Republic)
“Chambonea,” with its dubby bassline might be be more Pan-Caribbean in spirit but these two late ‘o9 gangster mambos from Omega El Fuerte owned Latin radio in 2010. And rightly so, as he continued to reinvent merengue in his own image with electronic riddims and a flow sometimes gravelly, sometimes ghostly–the Tego, the Mavado and the Demarco of the Dominican Republic, all in one. I called it here but properlies go out to DJ Rupture for bussing this artist outside of the DR-Washington Heights corridor.
