Tainy is long overdue for his own album. Having come up under the legendary Luny Tunes during reggaetón’s mainstream rise in the 2000s, the Puerto Rican producer advanced from being a staple of the genre to one of its most important practitioners in the 2010s and 2020s. His extensive work with Bad Bunny in particular—not to mention nearly every contemporary Latin star—catapulted him into a spotlight that beatmakers rarely experience. Yet even as he dipped his toes into repositioning himself as an artist and not just a studio maestro with hits like “Callaita” and “I Can’t Get Enough”, he didn’t feel entirely ready for this next phase of his career. “I felt, as a producer, even though I had success and had relationships with artists, I could still grow even more to find myself,” Tainy tells Apple Music. A futuristic vision fuelled by influences like anime and science fiction, this 20-track effort was well worth the patience and labour, featuring vocalists from across his two-decade catalogue and musical collaborators he’d never worked with before. “Having the artists that I started my career with, but also the new generation, a combination of both, it was just the right time,” he says. Read more about DATA below, straight from Tainy himself. “LA BABY” (feat. Daddy Yankee, Feid, and Sech) “To be able to have those two generations combined together and create something different to me was ideally something that I wanted to have in the project. The idea started as me working with Feid. I really wanted Daddy Yankee to be a part of that. He loved it and he was down to work on it. He did his magic easily. I was working with Sech on some of the songs and showed it to him and he was super down. People get a bit happier when they listen to the track and have fun.” “11 Y ONCE” (feat. Sech and E.Vax) “The first time I heard Man on the Moon, Kid Cudi's album, it was mind-blowing. It was so different. I was already producing, so I'm really into all the details in the music. There were a couple tracks where I just felt like these guitars sounded crazy. And some of them have the same thing in common, which was Ratatat. Fast-forward to everything happening during the years and we get to a moment where it doesn't seem so far-fetched to at least approach [E.Vax]. I started working with live drums, live bass and these live instruments, so it could seem a little bit easier for him to jump in and do their thing. I always felt that Sech as an artist has so much to give because of his vocals and his tone and his delivery. I'm so happy that we were able to combine all those ideas.” “VOLVER” (feat. Four Tet, Rauw Alejandro & Skrillex) “I like going into the car and driving back home. I put my Apple Music on and put a song, but then it recommends me similar things—and that's how I find new bands, new ideas, new genres. This track popped up called 'Lush' from Four Tet. It just sounded great. As soon as I got home, I started to sample and work on it. And as soon as I got back to Miami, Sonny—Skrillex—tells me he wants to go in for a couple days. So I show him this track and he's like, 'Is this Four Tet?' He tells me Four Tet is a legend, he's amazing, one of his good friends. I didn't know that those two worlds were connected. It was really cool to see all of those things come together with people that really know each other but not directly everybody.” “FANTASMA AVC” (feat. Jhayco) “I’ve known Jhayco since he was just a writer. But I always felt the talent that he had, what he could bring to the table, and he started by getting songs out to different artists. I wouldn't say it's easy, but it's one of the coolest things to be with him in the studio because everything just comes naturally. I think we're really connected creatively and the sounds that we like, the ideas that we aim for, just on trying new stuff. It takes you on different vibes and you see his versatility, the first half and the second half.”