“Getting to know my voice, finding my flow”: vocal and musical performance in Reggaetón and Latin Trap through the case of Bryant Myers

This article explores the relationship between voice and musical performance in reggaetón and Latin trap, through the case of the Puerto Rican singer Bryant Myers. We study how this artist uses different forms of vocal emission for the configuration of a vocal persona that interrelates with his musical persona and the characters assumed by him in his songs. Thus, focusing on the album La oscuridad (2018), we propose a characterization of the artist's vocal performance,which is distinguished by the use of two different modes of singing that we describe in terms of melodic range, phonation modes and studio treatment. Subsequently, we investigate how both voices are incorporated in his first album, focusing mainly on five songs through a textual-affective method of analysis. This approach demonstrates that Myers’s two forms of vocal emission are used in his songs to communicate different poetic intentions. The singer thus configures a single heteroglossic musical persona regarding emotional dimensions, narratives, vocal expression, and phonographic presentation.