Plena Libre, the Puerto Rican ensemble founded in 1994 by Gary Núñez and Eddie Orraca, has released “Carnaval”, a collaboration with merengue singer Elvis Crespo. The track aligns plena’s Afro-Puerto Rican narrative tradition of hand-drum patterns and three-part vocals with the pailas and saxophone writing associated with Dominican merengue, placing both styles in a shared rhythmic frame.

Across three decades, the band has repositioned plena in contemporary settings. Their 1995 debut marked them as forward-looking within the genre, and Más Libre earned them a Grammy nomination in 2006. Crespo enters the collaboration with a long-established catalogue shaped by international recognition for “Suavemente” and “Píntame”, along with awards from the American Music Awards, Latin Billboard, Premios Lo Nuestro, the European Music Awards and the Latin Grammys.

Released through La Buena Fortuna, composed by Luis Delgado “Gaby” Nieves and Luis C. Noël, and produced with Cuban musician Víctor Varela Cox, “Carnaval” is built on a straightforward structural idea: place the merengue clave and campana pattern inside plena’s hand-drum foundation and let the horn line shape the harmonic movement. The result gives Crespo’s vocal a clear lane, with Plena Libre’s coro and percussion reinforcing the call-and-response phrasing that defines plena performance.

The composers describe the single as part of the carnival tradition shared by Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, pointing to the long-standing presence of Crespo and Luis Gómez’s “Báilame” in Dominican celebrations. Crespo has called the collaboration a point of respect for Núñez and Plena Libre’s work in maintaining plena’s cultural presence.

Stream “Carnaval” HERE