The Puerto Rican rapper wanted to feel like a master chef serving up something new for fans. Now, he's ready to share

Álvaro Díaz is the first to say that his last album Sayonara represented a massive breakthrough for him. After years building a reputation as Latin music’s most beloved underground rapper, Sayonara shot up the charts and landed on multiple best of lists (including Rolling Stone’s Best Latin Albums) and scored several Latin Grammy nominations.

And yet, last November, while Diaz was celebrating all the accolades and recognition, his emotions were all over the place. He’d just bought his first house, and he was performing at the Latin Grammys ceremony. “I was so proud to be there because it was like, ‘Wow, I’ve been dreaming about this and singing in front of the mirror with a remote control since I was a kid,” he says. But he was going through some personal issues, too. He’d been through a few losses, and he’d just ended a situationship that week. Later, he found out he hadn’t won the Latin Grammys he was hoping to. “It was like a bunch of mixed feelings, and it felt really crazy, to be honest,” he says. “It really felt like an omakase of emotions, almost like a collage. I was really proud of myself, and then I felt really let down about all these other things.”

So exactly that week, right when he got home from the ceremony, Diaz decided to pour everything into a new project. “I said, ‘It’s album time,’” Diaz remembers and soon, he locked himself in his studio. He started creating freely, making some of his bizarre and most left-of-center tracks — and that’s saying a lot for the Puerto Rican rapper, who has always been ahead of the musical curve. Here, he felt like he could mash up heartbreak, dembow, and cumbia, or morph traditional plena into weird chord progressions from avant producer El Guincho. He got some of his most galaxy-brained friends and rising acts to join in: The features include Mexican trio Latin Mafia, R&B singer Jesse Baez, Chilean upstarter Akriila; hidden vocals from Rauw Alejandro and Maria Zardoya; and a sample from Spain’s Ralphie Choo.

But as the album started coming together, Diaz realized he needed a way to organize it. In the studio, he was deep in conversation with a friend who compared the sounds on the album to a chef laying out a menu. “He was like ‘It’s like an omakase in Japan, and you’re the chef laying everything out,’” Diaz remembers. The name stuck, and it’s exactly how he ended up approaching the project. He wanted to think of himself like a chef, so he spent hours at his cousin Tino’s restaurant, watching him run the kitchen and serve up different ideas to guests. He took the same approach and decided to call the project Omakase, a masterful, mind-bending album out this month.

Diaz thought of the sequencing like a multi-part dining experience. The beginning, he says, is full of the hard-hitting raps that recall his early days in the Puerto Rican underground, gaining fans on SoundCloud. “This is the raw part, like the crudo section, where I’m saying everything I want,” he says. He thought of the next section as “el sazon,” or the flavor, with tons of beat flips and rich, unexpected rhythms, from reggaeton to plena. All of it leads up to the final song, “LAULTIMACENA,” set up as a family meal and a chance to sit down in community.

But it was also an emotional journey. There’s stories of break-ups and heartache; some of the best are “Perdiste el Emmy,” featuring Tainy’s signature sentimental synths, and “No Podemos Ser Amigos,” which blends hints of drum ‘n’ bass and electronic flourishes. However, Diaz also touches on deeper losses that he’s grieved over the last year. He lost his grandmother while making the album, and he wanted to honor her across the record. On “LAULTIMACENA,” he raps about missing eating dinner at the table where she’d gather the family and includes audio of her alongside his grandfather. “It was a way to remember them on the album,” he says. The song ends with his mom saying a prayer, something she does before every meal.

Those aren’t the only tributes on Omakase. In February of this year, the popular Latin producer Milkman died at the age of 36 following complications of what his brother called “a severe internal hemorrhage.” He was a close friend of Diaz’s and before he died, he’d been playing a few beats for him. He shared the demo for “Pienso En Ti,” which Diaz immediately fell in love with. “Milk was so peculiar because I’ve worked with him for years and he always made the best beats, the best melodies, the best sounds, but he would never release them or let you have them,” he remembers with a smile on his face. “I’d be in the studio with him and like, C. Tangana, and he’d play something crazy and you’d be like, ‘Milk, give me that beat!’ and he’d be like, ‘No, I’m saving that for my album.’” Milk never released an album — but through what Diaz calls a miracle, he called Diaz up one day and let him have the beat for “Pienso En Ti.”

“I was in Japan and he called me out of nowhere and said, ‘I just emailed you the track. Go as hard as you can on it,’” Diaz says. “I was like, ‘What? How?’ It had become a joke by then to even ask him for songs because he’d never give them to you, but somehow I convinced him. I think I understand why now.”  The song is completely unexpected in a way Diaz loves now. “Milk was always unpredictable, but you could sometimes see where he was going with a song. What I loved about this one is that never in a million years did I think it could turn into a cumbia. My head exploded 300 times.”

Diaz says that a bunch of Milk’s friends and family members are working on a way to finally release the album Milk talked so much about. “It makes me sad to know that all these wonderful things we talked so much about, and all these things he wanted for us are happening,” he says. “It weighs on me a lot that I won’t be able to call him the night the album comes out and it affects me a lot, but I do feel at peace knowing he’s not suffering anymore. Every creative step, I think about how much he taught me and I always say, ‘What would Milkman do?’”

Omakase isn’t everything Diaz has in store this year. He recently announced a joint project with the Colombian artist Feid, who he says he’s been working on music with off and on for a long time. “We recently got together and made like 25 songs because we just flow really well,” he says. Not all the songs will end up on the project, but he’s excited for fans to hear what they have. “We’re super happy because fans have been asking for this.”

Right now though, his mind is on sharing his new music. He’s not totally sure how people will take the sonic risks on the album, but at this point, he’s used to being ahead of the curve. “I’ve always felt a little left out because it can feel like everyone is coloring with the same palette or doing folkorico-influenced music or stuff like that and all of a sudden, I’m the weird brother with the 808s and the synths,” he says with a laugh. “But I think all the artists I love have taken risks and I feel inspired by that. Whether this is the most successful album of my career or just a statement, I’m happy with it.”