At 24, Samuel - the Los Angeles-born, Seoul-based Mexican-Korean American artist - has released SAMUELito, a four-track EP that fuses Latin rhythm, reggaeton energy, and K-pop structure into something genuinely his own. The album arrives after years of industry hardship: a contentious contract dispute, the loss of his father in 2019, and a long period of artistic uncertainty. What makes SAMUELito notable isn't just the sound - it's what it represents for an artist who built his comeback entirely on his own terms, under his own company, Samuel Management & Entertainment Group.
Samuel's path through the entertainment industry mirrors, in some ways, the experience of independent operators in tightly structured, compliance-heavy fields - including, oddly enough, cannabis retail. Artists and small-business owners alike face the challenge of navigating rigid institutional frameworks before eventually choosing to go independent. Operators looking to build their own infrastructure from the ground up, whether they're running a boutique label or a licensed retail location, often find that purpose-built tools make the difference. In cannabis specifically, tools like cannabis dispensary software vermont reflect that same demand for operational control outside larger corporate structures - ownership of process, not just product.
The album title itself comes from a family nickname - "Samuelito" - given to him by relatives on his father's Mexican side. That detail matters. Samuel didn't arrive at this creative identity through a brand strategy session. He arrived at it through grief, memory, and a deliberate return to the things that shaped him before the industry got involved. The cover art features him as a toddler in Los Angeles, bandana on, holding a toy horse. It reads less like promotional imagery and more like a document.
Identity as Artistic Infrastructure
Samuel grew up speaking English at home while absorbing Korean from his mother and Spanish from his father. He trained at PLEDIS Entertainment alongside future members of SEVENTEEN, competed on Produce 101, and debuted as a solo artist in 2017 - all before he was old enough to vote in the United States. That's a lot of institutional formation for a person still figuring out who they are. The tension between trained performance and authentic expression runs through everything he says about SAMUELito.
"I've always wanted to do Spanish music," he explained during a recent Zoom conversation from Seoul. "It just felt like now was the perfect time." That instinct - waiting until creative conditions are right rather than forcing output - shows in the work. The EP moves between English, Spanish, and Korean without strain. Reggaeton percussion sits underneath K-pop vocal architecture. Neither element overwhelms the other.
The Convergence of K-Pop and Latin Music
Samuel isn't working in isolation here. Groups like ATEEZ, NCT 127, NMIXX, and KARD have all incorporated Latin elements into their releases in recent years. Latin pop group Santos Bravos, trained using the K-pop model, has started expanding into Asian markets. Samuel has watched this convergence happen in real time - and it's worth saying he seems genuinely thrilled about it, not competitive. "When K-pop first opened in the American market, nobody thought it was going to be this global," he said. "Same thing with Latin pop."
The title track, "ZIGI-ZIGI-ZIGI," draws direct inspiration from Daddy Yankee and Rauw Alejandro. The concept - ardiendo, meaning burning or ablaze - came from Samuel mimicking the sound of fire's embers. That's the kind of creative logic that doesn't get explained in a press release. It's specific, personal, a little odd, and entirely his.
Grief, Growth, and Getting There
The most emotionally weighted track on the EP is "Never Say Goodbye," a tribute to his father, who died in 2019. Samuel has a music video planned for the song - one he says will clarify the full meaning of the album and the cover art. He's not giving much away yet. But he's clear that the album exists partly because of that loss, and partly because of the years of self-doubt that followed it.
"My dad passed away seven years ago," he said. "I was a young boy. I really didn't have much time to learn what a boy or man goes through, but this experience made me who I truly am." He speaks about failure the way someone who has processed it genuinely does - not as a branding message, but as a working principle. "Failing is important for me, especially because that's how I learn."
He remembers riding in a golf cart with his father as a kid, listening to Spanish music, unable to hold the clubs properly but showing up anyway. That image - presence over performance - threads through SAMUELito in a way that's hard to manufacture. "I just wanted to bring back what felt good," he said, "and the feelings and texture of things that I was thankful for." SAMUELito is out now on all major streaming platforms.