Eladio Carrión Shares How Lil Wayne Influenced His Rapping Style

Eladio Carrión has been keeping it lit. He is freshly off releasing a Billboard-charting album 3MEN2 KBRN (pronounced tremendo cabrón), preparing his first ever festival Sauce Boyz Fest and plotting a national tour, which includes a stop at Coachella.

While in Austin for his Billboard Presents The Stage at SXSW performance earlier this month, the Puerto Rican rapper sat down with Leila Cobo, chief content officer of Billboard Latin/Español, to discuss his history and latest whereabouts.

“Tremendo cabrón because this album has all the cabrones,” says Cobo, congratulating the artist for his star-studded release, which includes guests such as Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Future, Fivio Foreign, Bad Bunny and more.

“We really got to get my favorite artists on this album. This one is a very special album for me and my team,” says Carrión. “[Lil Wayne] is one of my favorite rappers. He’s the reason why I don’t wait every four bars for a punchline. Every bar can have a punchline. Wayne used to do it, so I do it.” (The “A Milli” rapper starred on Carrión’s remix for “Gladiador.”)

The Latin trap star mentions that there was never a Plan B for the album, “If Plan A does not happen, let’s wait until it does. Plan A until the end of the world.”

Born in Kansas City, the Puerto Rican, whose father was in the Army, moved around often during his youth, from Hawaii to Baltimore and Alaska. And before he became a rapper, he was a comedian as well as a songwriter to other artists. “There came a point when I just wasn’t satisfied [writing for others] when the music came out,” he reveals. “I was just giving them a piece of me, and it was some personal stuff, it was like, ‘D–n, he didn’t go through that, I went through that. I want to tell my story.’” 

Carrión discovered his love for the stage, saying that performing is a big part of what made him fall in love with being an artist and wanting to be an artist. He also tells Cobo to expect big surprises for his Coachella gig, which will take place the weekends of April 14 and April 21.

On May 18-20, the rapper will kick off his first-ever festival in Puerto Rico, and to expect performances from Argentine giants Bizarrap and Duki, as well as Dominican dembow artist Tokischa.

This week, his 3MEN2 KBRN album debuted at No. 3 on Top Latin Albums Chart, and reached No. 16 on Billboard 200.

Watch Billboard‘s full interview with Eladio Carrión above.