Cromo X is a Dominican songwriter, producer and performer, born Martín Rodríguez Vicente. He has written and produced across the Latin urban field for two decades, and most people who have heard his work do not know his name.

Capea el Dough

In 2008 he was one of the people at the head of a posse record that gathered some fifteen Dominican rappers over a Triggah beat, alongside Nipo809 and Alofoke. Records like that are how a scene announces that it exists, and Dominican rap was still arguing for its own existence at the time.

By 2017 the Dominican press was describing him as one of the country’s most internationally placed urban songwriters, which is an unglamorous way of saying that his name had started appearing in the credits of records made somewhere else.

The credits

The list is long and it crosses every border the genre has: Ozuna, Arcángel, Bryant Myers, Jon Z, Anuel AA, Yandel, Enrique Iglesias, Evaluna Montaner, Becky G, Daddy Yankee, Brytiago, Farruko, Ñengo Flow, Gigolo y La Exce, C. Tangana. Después Que Te Perdí, Tanta Falta and Díganle all went multi-platinum, and he has a credit on Anuel AA’s Emmanuel.

At home he has worked with La Insuperable, El Mayor Clásico, Secreto “El Famoso Biberón” and Tokischa. The Dominican work and the international work are the same job done in two markets, and the second only happened because the first did.

Owning the room

He co-founded the label MVP X Records with Raúl López, a house of producers, writers and artists rather than a stable of singers. That is the significant move: for most of the genre’s history the Dominican contribution has been talent hired by somebody else’s company, and a label of writers keeps the publishing at home.

In January 2022 he signed a global publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music.

In front of the microphone

La Para, made with Bryant Myers and La Insuperable in 2020, was his first outing as executive producer of a record with his own name on the front of it. It is a Dominican record built by a man who spends most of his working life making other people’s.