Mexican-Korean American artist Samuel just released his new EP ‘SAMUELito’, and it directly merges K-pop precision with Latin reggaeton. The four-track project dropped on June 8 and marks a highly personal era for the Los Angeles-born singer as he leans into both sides of his dual heritage.
Key Details
- The EP features high-energy tracks like the lead single “ZIGI-ZIGI-ZIGI” alongside Korean-language songs like “Ddook Ddak.”
- He is currently promoting the release across major South Korean network broadcasts, including live sets on Mnet’s M Countdown and KBS’s Music Bank.
- The title ‘SAMUELito’ is pulled straight from his own childhood nickname.
Samuel is taking a highly calculated approach to his global crossover. The artist originally titled his lead single “Ardiendo”—Spanish for “burning”—but quickly changed course. He rebranded the track to the phonetically accessible “ZIGI-ZIGI-ZIGI” after realizing international fans and his own staff struggled to roll their Rs, a linguistic adjustment verified by Associated Press documentation. That kind of global vocabulary engineering is a major factor in international pop mechanics right now. The entire project reflects this push to blend his roots, according to a detailed Forbes interview discussing the cross-genre fusion.
The singer isn’t stopping with these four tracks. Looking ahead, Samuel confirmed his upcoming full-length album will push the bilingual, cross-cultural aesthetic even further. Fans can expect more blood-rooted tracks that mix K-pop visual standards with Latin rhythms as he builds out this new sound.