WATCH ALL THE VIDEOS HERE + LISTEN TO THE EP HERE!
Years ago, Nathy Peluso told her mother she would make a name for herself so she could one day record a salsa album that everyone would hear. That album arrived Thursday. MALPORTADA, a six-track EP written in Puerto Rico, is out now, one week after its title track with Venezuelan band Rawayana introduced the project. Each song also has its own visualizer.
Salsa has never been a side door for the Argentine singer. Her 2024 album GRASA, released through Sony Music Latin and 5020 Records, won three Latin Grammys that November, according to the Latin Grammy Academy’s artist page, which lists 16 career nominations and five wins. Her official biography says that total ties her with Mercedes Sosa for the most Latin Grammys won by an Argentine woman, and that she was the first woman to win Best Rap/Hip Hop Song. Tracks like “Mafiosa,” “Puro Veneno” and “La Presa” had already pointed toward salsa. MALPORTADA is the full commitment.
Nathy Peluso wrote MALPORTADA in a rented house in Naguabo
Peluso rented a house in Naguabo, on Puerto Rico’s east coast, and developed a first batch of 14 songs with frequent collaborators Manuel Lara, Servando Primera and Benjamín Alerhand. She co-wrote and co-produced the project. The team then moved to San Juan for pre-production.
“We recorded reference vocals with a cheap microphone,” she said. “Some of those early takes remained in the final mixes because there was an indelible magic to them.”
She also handled the horns. “I also composed every single line performed by the brass section,” she said. The tracklist runs from the duet “Malportada,” with Beto Montenegro of Rawayana, to “Que Lluevan Flores,” which quotes “Juanito Alimaña” by Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón. The EP’s materials describe “Ángel” as a nod to the salsa romántica of the 1980s associated with Frankie Ruiz and Gilberto Santa Rosa, while other cuts echo the orchestral salsa sinfónica of the late 1970s.
Her stated way in is character. “I’ve always identified with salsa narratives told from a male perspective,” she explained. “Stories about drugs and the mafia; romance tackled from angles of infidelity, danger and the forbidden.”
Latin Grammy nods and a Barcelona finish frame Nathy Peluso’s salsa moment
The release lands in the middle of an awards run. Nathy Peluso is nominated at the 26th Latin Grammys for Best Urban/Urban Fusion Performance with Tokischa on “De Maravisha,” and for Best Urban Song with Álvaro Díaz on “XQ Eres Así,” according to the Academy’s nominee listing. The ceremony is set for Nov. 13 in Las Vegas.
Live dates come first. Her schedule starts Saturday, Oct. 18 at Festival Cervantino in Guanajuato, followed by Festival Pulso GNP in Querétaro on Oct. 25, Pepsi Center WTC in Mexico City on Oct. 28 and Coca-Cola Music Hall in San Juan on Oct. 30. In 2026 she plays Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona on Feb. 14 and Movistar Arena in Madrid on Feb. 17.
Whether salsa listeners accept a hip-hop minded reading of the genre will show up on stage first. The San Juan date puts the songs in front of a crowd on the island where they were written. Peluso, for her part, has framed the whole project as a defense of her place in the industry. “Being a rebel has always been my flag,” she said.
