Calle 13

Who is Calle 13? Calle 13 is an urban music band born in Puerto Rico, headed by René Pérez Joglar (Residente) and his brother Eduardo Cabra Martínez (Visitante). René is the lyricist and vocalist, while Eduardo is the composer, musical director and producer, and multi-instrumentalist performer of the band (playing piano, melódica (key-flute), electric guitars and others). Their sister, Ileana Cabra,(PG-13), is the female voice of the band. Why Calle 13? Their aliases, Residente (Resident) and Visitante (Visitor), come from the identification they were required to give to the security guard at the entrance of their home, located on 13th Street (in Spanish, Calle 13) of a gated community in Trujillo Alto, a town adjacent to the San Juan metropolitan area. One of their first cousins coined PG-13’s name, since she was underage when she began to sing with the band. What kind of music do they play? Calle 13 does not belong to any specific musical genre. Since its beginnings, the music industry, along with the media, have tried to pigeonhole them as reggaetón, hip-hop, rock or urban alternative. Regardless, the band is mostly characterized by being eclectic, frequently using a diversity of musical influences and imaginative fusions, which in turn have defined their unique style. So much so, that when people describe bands that experiment with different musical genres the way they do, they define these as having the “Calle 13 style”. In their music, you can perceive influences from rock, rap, ska, merengue, bossa nova, Balkan music, Latin American folklore, Colombian cumbia, cumbia villera from Argentina, candombe from Uruguay, salsa and afrobeat. The list of musical genres they experiment with is long and ever growing.