Químico Ultra Mega is a Dominican rapper, singer and songwriter, born Jesús Jiménez in Santo Domingo on 11 January 1993. He grew up in the Isabelita barrio and has been one of the most consolidated names in Dominican urban music since 2014.

Monkey Black opened the door

His mentor was Leonardo Michael Flores Ozuna, Monkey Black. It was Monkey Black who gave him the chance to be heard, and Monkey Black died in 2014 — the same year Químico’s own career is usually dated from.

That is a hard inheritance. He arrived carrying the endorsement of a man who was not there to see what he did with it, and the audience that accepted him accepted him partly on that account.

Street rap

What he makes is described in the Dominican press as rap de calle, and the description is doing work: it distinguishes what he does from the dembow that dominates the charts and from the reggaetón that arrives from Puerto Rico. Lápiz Conciente names his generation directly when he traces the line of Dominican rap.

The catalogue is large. Tu Ta Frío, El Big Papi, Chillin and Deluxe came in a run across 2016 and 2017. Limpio arrived in March 2016 on Con To’ El Flow Records, written as social criticism, and carried Celosa, Escápate and Te Busco. Los Tres Versos is nine tracks and includes La Pongo Fina, Nunca Pato and Coronamos, the last with El Alfa.

Que Sopa, Solamente Tú, Bellaca Putona, 21 Minutos and Diva de Humo are the songs people name. Órale, Si Somos Somos and Que Se Tiren — that one with Tivi Gunz — came in 2023.

Who he records with

He has worked across the whole Dominican urban field: Toxic Crow, Shelow Shaq, Tokischa, Ceky Viciny. He has also gone outside it, cutting Vamo’ a Da Una Vuelta with the Puerto Rican Bryant Myers in 2019 and recording with Anuel AA and Jon Z.

He appeared at the Premios Soberano in 2015 and has acted in two Dominican films, Pueto pa’ Mi and Dos Policías en Apuro.

Staying in it

Twelve years is a long career in a genre where most people get two or three. He has done it by not being only one thing — the records move between rap, dembow and reggaetón depending on what the song needs — and by keeping the register of the barrio he came from rather than trading it in.