“It's a special moment for me,” Dei V tells Apple Music on the eve of his full-length debut. “After this, it's blessings that's coming.” Though the Puerto Rican rising star had been grinding for some time, he became a ubiquitous and welcome presence in recent years via standout singles and some stellar collaborations with the likes of KAROL G, Mora, and YOVNGCHIMI. This momentum culminates with Quién es Dei V?, a revelatory proper introduction to one of Latin music’s most promising would-be leaders. Teaming with hitmaking producers like Foreign Teck, Hydro and Sky Rompiendo, among others, he delivers on the promise of fan favourites like “CLIMA” and “Martini” while ambitiously broadening his genre range further. “What I wanted to do with this album was throw a bunch of flavours in there, not just what I'd done before,” he says, citing Afrobeats and R&B alongside the trap and reggaetón styles the fans have come to expect from him. “I just threw a whole bunch of flows in there.” Read on to learn more about Quién es Dei V?—in the artist’s own words. “David” “I say something in the song that's like, 'I feel good because I'm sustaining my family.' That's what it's all about to me, so that's why I wanted to make it the first song. I named it how I named it because it says a lot about me.” “Ticke” (feat. YOVNGCHIMI) “That one came together after we did ‘Los Que Son’ and ‘Tu$$I’. I wanted to do something different to what we already did, and that's where the reggaetón old-school beat came about. Chimi was the perfect one to hop on it. I did it first by myself, [then] I called him. I knew he was the one for it, and he killed it.” “VNKLF” (feat. Foreign Teck) “Foreign Teck is a New York guy. Me and him just clicked as soon as we met. We just go to the studio, vibe, and music just comes out. I think we got 10 songs that haven't dropped. I enjoy working with him. We worked in Miami, we worked in New York, we worked in LA.” “Hot” (feat. Lunay) “I'll be listening to Burna Boy like crazy. That's one of my favourite artists, so that's where the Afrobeats thing came from—like he does it, but with the Puerto Rican flow. I was in the studio one day and Gaby Music put on that beat out of nowhere. I just started doing the melody in my head. I wanted to do something for the beach, for people to go on boats, that want to ride Jet Skis, girls that want to get a suntan. And I wanted to do it with somebody that was big commercially, and Lunay was in the studio. He hopped in it right away.” “Mueve el QLO” “I just wanted to put something out there like ‘Trending’, ‘Single’ and ‘Tu$$I’ and go a little harder with it. I wanted to do something for the girls to dance and party in the strips clubs, go crazy on the TikToks. It's about to go crazy in the clubs.” “PPV” (feat. De La Ghetto) “[De La Ghetto] is one of my favourite artists since I was a kid, because he had that New York thing, that Puerto Rican New York style. It's a dream come true. He threw a bar from the famous song to 'Tu Te Imaginas'. That's a song that I had in the stash for a very, very, very long time, like three years maybe.” “Rapido” (feat. Cris Mj) “I got stuff for everybody in the album—for the old people and for the young people. I wanted to do some old-school reggaetón, and I think ‘Rapido’ is the perfect song, where it got the essence of the old-school vibe. I did the ‘Diabólica’ thing with Cris Mj, so this song is going to go crazy. People are going to definitely want to listen to it.” “Maña” “I wanted to do some Money Wayy flow. I called Hydro; he sent me a couple of beats, and I picked that one. That one just stood out, that gave me a feeling that it was going to be a hit. I think people going to go crazy with that one. That's going to be one of the favourites in Puerto Rico.”