Techy Fatule has earned two Latin Grammy nominations in the Best Tropical Song category, both for merengue, a genre that the streaming era has often treated as regionally contained rather than globally viable. Her fourth studio album, CHULA, arrives as a direct counterargument: 12 tracks pulling from merengue típico, merengue house, electronic mambo, Dominican palo, and afrobeat, built without the permission structure of a major label and without settling on a single sonic identity.

Born Marielle Stephanie Fatule Báez in Santo Domingo in 1987, Techy Fatule grew up the daughter of Dominican actor and singer Carlos Alfredo Fatule and television host Tania Báez, placing her inside the genre almost by inheritance. She released her debut single "Entregarte Todo" in 2016 and followed with her first full-length, A Su Tiempo, in 2017. Her public profile sharpened in 2023 when the Latin Recording Academy nominated her track "Que me quedes tú" for Best Tropical Song, a record that Billboard described as looking back to the 1990s heyday of romantic merengue while keeping Fatule's own melodic voice at the center. A second nomination came at the 2025 Latin Grammys for "Cariñito," also in Best Tropical Song, placing her among a small cohort of independent Dominican artists gaining ground at the genre's highest tier. Billboard

Techy Fatule Builds CHULA Around Two Sides of the Same Artist

Both Grammy-recognized tracks, "Que me quedes tú" and "Cariñito," appear on CHULA alongside two new focal songs positioned as contrasting portraits of the same artist. "Nada" occupies the album's romantic and nostalgic register. "Peligrosa" works the opposite angle: bold, sensual, and unguarded. The pairing is intentional. Songwriting credits include contributions from Claudia Brant, the Argentine composer whose catalog stretches across some of the most decorated Latin pop records of the past two decades, and Cuban songwriter Yoel Henríquez. Techy has said the project reflects three years of work she led herself. "Chula es una declaración de quién soy," she told reporters in Spanish ahead of the release, describing the album as the fullest expression of her artistic identity to date.

A Feature From Fefita La Grande Anchors CHULA's Generational Reach

Among the album's collaborators is Fefita La Grande, the Dominican accordionist who has been performing merengue típico since the 1950s and stands, as Wikipedia documents, as the most recognized female performer of the form. A pioneer in a male-dominated scene, Fefita paved the way for Dominican women in music across generations. Her presence on CHULA is not an ornamental gesture toward legacy. It connects Techy's genre-spanning work directly to the accordion-driven roots the album is simultaneously drawing from and rerouting. Colombian-Dominican vocalist Ella Bric also appears on the record, extending its collaborative breadth beyond Dominican borders. Wikipedia iASO Records

The album's scope, Techy has said, came from a period of personal reinvention rather than from market logic. "I'm in my most chula era. I feel relaxed, confident in myself, and no longer needing to prove anything to anyone," she said of this chapter. The self-directed production process, the breadth of genres touched, and the back-to-back Grammy recognition all point in the same direction: an artist who has clarified what she wants to make and chosen to make it without asking for approval first.

CHULA arrives as merengue is drawing renewed critical attention, with emerging artists hybridizing the genre through electronic-driven experiments and fusions that pull from Caribbean tradition while reaching outward. Techy Fatule's positioning inside that conversation is not accidental. Four albums in, two Grammy nods deep, and working entirely independently, she's among the artists most clearly shaping what the genre sounds like right now.