Natanael Cano

Natanael Rubén Cano Monge (born 27 March 2001) is a Mexican rapper, musician and singer. Natanael is known for his fusion of trap music and regional Mexican corridos, known as corridos tumbados. The idea to fuse the two genres was proposed by Dan Sanchez who wrote Natanael's first corrido tumbado, "Soy el Diablo".
Cano was born in Hermosillo, Sonora. When he was seven, he showed off his talent at family events and parties or wherever he was invited. When he first taught himself to play the piano at thirteen, he learned Mexican band Maná's "Rayando el Sol" off of YouTube. Then he focused on regional Mexican corridos like the ones by Ariel Camacho who was his main source of inspiration. Three years later at 16, he released his first song on YouTube "El de los lentes Gucci" where he first fused hip-hop/trap with corridos, which he now refers to as corridos tumbados.
Cano began his music career in 2018 by uploading guitar covers to YouTube and later grew into performing underground. In 2019, he eventually signed to the independent label Five Music, where he released his debut single "El de los Lentes Gucci". Later that year, he released his debut studio album Todo Es Diferente. He would eventually get the attention of Jimmy Humilde, who is the owner of Los Angeles-based urban regional Mexican label Rancho Humilde, and signed him onto the label in March 2019 after watching Cano on an Instagram video in early 2019. Following the release of other independent singles, he would release his first single under the Rancho Humilde label, "El Drip", which eventually reached the US Hot Latin Songs chart. He would eventually collaborate with Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny on the remix for "Soy el Diablo", which was the second single from his debut album Todo Es Diferente. Following the collaboration, Cano released his second studio album Corridos Tumbados, containing collaborations with Junior H, Nueva Era, Dan Sánchez, among others. A month later, he would release his debut EP, Mi Verdad Corridos Tumbados, with him releasing another EP at the end of 2019, Mi Nuevo Yo.
Cano eventually had partnerships with Warner Music Latin and Apple Music. Cano was the first musician to fuse this variant of the two genres together which has made him stand out, which has led him to be the first Mexican to be recognized as the artist of the month through Apple Music Up Next, "a show aimed at discovering rising stars that in previous years advanced several of today's top talents". This accomplishment on Apple's huge platform shows that Cano, at the age of nineteen beat 300 million songs since his debut in 2019 and shows that he is the number one regional Mexican artist from his category of music.
The fusion of trap music and regional Mexican corridos known as corridos tumbados were born in Los Angeles where Cano arrived with Rancho Humilde to showcase his talents. Cano is best known for his creation of corridos tumbados which are inspired in the traditional songs of Mexico and combine the lyrics of trap music and sometimes hip-hop. He could be considered the "king of corridos tumbados" since he has been recognized for his interpretation of this subgenre of corridos. Cano states that the genre of music he specializes on is "the sound of regional Mexican music but with the sound of the new generation that young musicians added". Traditional corridos have consisted of daily tragedies, conflicts and even stories about crime with the subgenres like narcocorridos and lumbre corridos. Before his album, A Mis 20, he has stemmed away from his origins and mostly focused on trap corridos like in his albums Las Torres 3, Soy el Nata, and Trap Tumbado. Cano turned his focus back to corridos tumados because he said that they are his main focus right now.
Throughout the earlier stages of Cano's music career, Cano was heavily influenced by corridos he grew up listening performed by regional Mexican artists Gerardo Ortíz and Ariel Camacho. Cano says that he if he could see any artist perform dead or alive, it would be Ariel Camacho since he died before Cano got a chance to see him in concert. By his late teens, he became inspired by a corrido group from Orange County, California, Legado 7, known best for their "lumbre corridos" (fire corridos), which they became known for since they broke traditional values and wrote lyrics about weed. Cano's songs are influenced by experiences in his personal life or of his friends. His lyrics are based on events that he has gone through in his life. As a big fan of musicians like Bad Bunny, Jhay Cortez, and J Balvin, Cano is musically inspired by them.
Cano mentions that his goal is to collaborate with many different Latin trap artists, however he would like the collaborations to happen naturally rather than be forced. Cano's dream collaboration would be with Anuel AA In an interview through Univision, Cano admitted that he also would like to collaborate with Mickey Woods Jr. and Bad Bunny.
On 20 August 2024, Cano was arrested in Hermosillo for bribery; a video in which he appeared to give money to a police officer had spread on social media in March.
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