King Streetz is a Dominican rapper who works in English. The choice of language sets him apart from his Dominican contemporaries and is the main reason his catalogue is difficult to trace.

FACTS

The album FACTS and the Humble Beast EP both came out in 2015, and the videos around them carry the tag FLMG — Trendsetters, No Competition, Supa High, 2K15 Takeova. The sound is American East Coast rap, not dembow and not trap latino, and it was made at a moment when Dominican urban music was moving hard in the opposite direction.

Trauma, Letter From Streetz, X Pill, Spazz and Dope Boy are the tracks that have stayed in circulation since.

Writing from both sides

The titles say where he stands better than any biography would. Cocolo is a Dominican word before it is anything else — the name for the English-speaking Afro-Caribbean families who came to cut cane in San Pedro de Macorís, and later a word for a whole way of hearing music. 5AM in Punta Cana places itself. Bilingual says the condition outright.

Zero, made with Tivi Gunz, is the clearest link to the Dominican field he belongs to, and the one record of his that a Dominican listener is most likely to have heard.

Working without an audience on either side

A Dominican who raps in English occupies an awkward position twice over. At home the language keeps him off the radio; abroad he is one more independent rapper among thousands. The catalogue is small and the reach is small, and neither of those is a judgement on the records.

Nothing personal about him is documented. No legal name, no date of birth, no interview in any outlet. His pages put him in Santo Domingo and in Boca Chica; a caption of his own claims a New Jersey childhood. Both may be true, and nothing found settles which city he was born in.