The electrifying nasal flow that drives El Mellao belongs to Julio Ramos, better known as Voltio (voltage), one of the best reviewed – yet, often overlooked – reggaetón artists in the game.

Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, Voltio began rapping in his teens alongside Rey 29 and Héctor "El Father" in a trio called The Masters of Funk. The trio struggled to get signed – it was the mid-'90s and reggaetón was still too ghetto for radio – and eventually disbanded. For Ramos, the next few years would land him in jail, see him electrocuted and thus reborn as Voltio.

In 2003, Voltio landed an indie recording deal with reggeatonero Karel and the pair released their debut,
Los Dueños del Estilo. A year later, Voltio went solo, eventually signing with While Lion Records after Tego Calderón recommended the thirty-something to label founder Elías De León. Although his solo debut, Voltage AC, was well-received, it wasn't until Voltio released his eponymous sophomore effort that he scored a bona fide hit: the cheeky "Chulin Culin Chunfly" featuring Residente of Calle 13 – memorable for both its witty lyrics and comedic music video.

Voltio's forthcoming release, En Lo Claro (In The Clear) features all-star appearances from Calle 13, Tego Calderón, Jowell & Randy, Arcángel, Pirulo, Cucu Diamantes, and Vivanativa, as well as production from heavy-hitters DJ Nelson, Nelly, DJ Dan and Wise.

It's one of the ironies of history that Spain, which gave the world the Spanish language, to say the least, has yet to produce a Spanish-language rapper or reggaetónero on par with Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Calle 13, Tego Calderón or, for that matter, Ivy Queen.

Maybe it's the funny way the Spanish spit their "jotas" or the sometimes vast cultural distance between Europe and the New World. Or, just maybe, without access to the long, violent history of Spain's outcasts, its gitanos and moros, its economic refugees and political prisons, Americans wouldn't recognize an authentic Spanish voice if they heard it.

Emphasis on "if." Malamarismo is Mala Rodríguez' third album, but since it's nearly impossible to hear her first, the raw and sometimes dazzling Lujo Ibérico (2000) and much of her second record, Alevosía (2003), never made it on the Interwebs, you could say this is her American debut.

It certainly sounds like one. Less present are the minimal, old school beats and monophonic synthesizer basslines, the chiki-wah-wah guitar hooks and mind-numbingly insistent piano lines. In their place are, well, lotsa shiny new things: from the rubbery rhythm of "Caida Libre" to the layered staccato samples in "Memos Tu," from the crystalline, spiraling beats in "Toca Toca" to the stuttering, twisted orchestra on "Enfermo". Even the record's first single, the club banger "Nanai," sprinkles syncopated sticks, bells and metals over the length of the entire song.

While positively future-forward, these accents can get in the way of a good line, as on "Memorias del Futuro," where a strapped up 1-2-3 beat and nasal synth line cut through the vocals like a headache on a sunny day. It's a weird, dizzying effect: unlike other summer blockbusters where the special effects are designed to shine, what makes La Mala Rodríguez a natural star is her voice. She's the reason you buy tickets to the show.

Fortunately for her current and future fans, there's still plenty of La Mala on Malamarismo, even if it's squeezed into fleeting moments. On the standout Toca Toca, her aggressive diction, potent rhymes and sultry southern pronunciation (she drops consonants like strippers drop panties) blend perfectly with the musical base leaving the listener hungry for seconds. The album's closing track, "Déjame Entrá," may start with a drunken sample but it snaps to attention with the Sevillana singsong that makes La Mala as charmed as the words she dedicates to a lover on this shuffling chill-out jam.

Where her previous records were sometimes marred by out-of-wack collaborations with lesser talents, there are two pairings on this collection worthy of the occasion. A minute into the sweet "Tiempo Pa Pensa," Mala deftly drops into an understated flamenco flourish only to suddenly bump into – and yield much of the rest of the song to – Julieta Venegas. On Enfermo, the flow is smoother, as Tego Calderón gracefully shares and even propels the track, trading both verse and chorus duties with a poised Mala.

Our review copy also included a bonus video of Por La Noche off her previous album, a terrific "classic" Mala track that will hopefully point millions towards her back catalog of hits and, perhaps, guarantee their release in the U.S. where their black magic can only do her career good. In the meantime, interested parties would do well to track down and order jaw-droppers like "La Cocinera", "La Niña", "Tengo Un Trato" and "Con Los Ojos De Engaña," which has the added distinction of lyrically foreshadowing her first strike this time around:

Si vas a engañar
mírame con los ojos de engañar
Si vas a matar
mírame con los ojos de matar...
Pa tí na es to, para mí to es na

If you're going to lie,
Look at me with lying eyes
If you're going to kill
Look at me with killer eyes...
For you, nothing is everything, for me everything ain't a thing

Who invented reggaetón and when?

If you're thinking it was Daddy Yankee or Don Omar and "five years ago," think again.

In the 1920s, skilled Jamaican immigrants arrived in Panamá looking for work on the Panama Canal. These former African slaves brought with them their food, their religion and their beats – as well as ties to their island homeland and its pop music. A generation later, in the late 1970s, Panamanian rude boys were still keeping those roots alive by trying covers of popular English-language dancehall tracks in Spanish. A decade later, these covers morphed and spread to other countries in Central and South America thanks to innovative Panamanian artists like Pocho Pan, Chicho Man and Nando Boom.

Pocho Pan would flip Chaka Demus & The Pliers' now-classic Murder She Wrote on Pantalón Caliente while Chicho Man kicked melodic raps over Muevela, a banger made out of machine-gun snares and subterranean bass. On the vocal side, Nando Boom showed off his tongue-twisting, Barrington Levy-influenced flow on the romantic Enfermo de Amor, stepping up his game even further when he began writing his own lyrics. Soon enough, dance floors from Boquete to the Bronx were packed with dancers grooving to "Mi Amor, Solo Pienso en Ti ," and "Mi Resistencia."

But it was the toothy Edgardo A. Franco, better known as El General, who took over Spanish-language radio throughout Latin America – and the U.S. – with his hip-shaking reggae en Español. Franco, the son of Jamaican and Trinidadian immigrants, was a master of explicit wordplay – his rhymes had mothers squirming and daughters grinding. A commercial success, the charismatic El General, often decked out in gaudy military gear, was named best Latin rap artist by Billboard magazine five years in a row, scoring major hits with the frantic Rica Y Apretadita, the relatively mellow yet still dirty Tu Pum Pum, and the flirty Muevelo. Eventually, the lanky MC won over a multitude of listeners in Puerto Rico, a nation with its own bustling reggae movement, and home of emerging rap superstar Armando Lozada Cruz, better known as Vico C.

With songs by Nando Boom, El General, Vico C and Jamaican dancehall mainstays like Shabba Ranks blasting from cars and clubs, it was only a matter of time before Puerto Rican DJs would blend each style and create one of their own. Today, Puerto Rican reggaetoneros have a firm grip on the mainstream, but artists like Tego Calderón are quick to give credit where it is due: "[W]e started doing reggaetón … because El General and Nando Boom were hitting hard."