With little fanfare, San Antonio professor, rapper and cultural commentator Marco Cervantes, known as MexStep, this Friday released the new EP Tráfico, a six-song collaboration with South Texas beatmaker and screwmbia pioneer Svani Quintanilla, or Principe Q.
The EP is the first multi-song solo release from MexStep — also part of the celebrated hip-hop group Third Root — since 2021’s Vivir. It also marks the first extended collaboration between Cervantes and Quintanilla.
The duo teased this EP last fall with the release of the single “The Eagle,” a clear-eyed, sharp-tongued banger of a rumination on the social construction of borders and how out of tune they are with both nature and humanity.
With a low-swinging beat that manages to conjure images of a revolutionary march and a Saturday night cruise at once, “The Eagle” put fans on notice that Quintanilla’s talent for crafting inventive and endlessly satisfying beats is a perfect match for Cervantes’ adroit, socially minded lyricism.
Tráfico’s five other songs only expand on that promise.
One sonic hallmark that dominates the production on the album is the combination of traditional Latin music forms with chopped and screwed hip-hop/trap elements. It’s hard to think of a better sonic marriage of Houston with the rest of South Texas.
Nowhere on the EP is this effect more pronounced than on standout closer “Cumbia de la Lucha,” which flips a classic cumbia sound into a lurching beat that’s equal parts ominous and celebratory. The song marks the first time Cervantes, who often mixes Spanish phrases into his raps, has dropped a track using Spanish only.
Cervantes told the Current that his use of Spanish on the song brings home the message about “the unification of different Latino groups, including, especially, Chicanos and Mexicanos.”
“The language and the musical genres can be strong points of unity for communities that are often divided,” he said.
Quintanilla also noted that the Spanish in the song parallels the reminder that Mexicans and Chicanos “carry the same energy.”
The EP’s other songs, including the title track, another standout, find Cervantes critiquing capitalism’s effects on the flow of both information and humans, railing against systemic racism and government corruption. At the same time, importantly, he offers hope that people’s movements can be built to force changes.
“They love our culture, but they deport us / Since the beginning, smuggling through roads, records, airwaves,” he raps on “Tráfico,” addressing the way U.S. society exploits members of the Latinx diaspora.
For Cervantes, it’s just natural to treat hip-hop as an important tool for both self-expression and educating for liberation. He takes inspiration from his own experience with having gaps in his education filled by the lyrical content of hip-hop artists including Public Enemy and N.W.A.
“These artists showed me history, especially Black history, in a way that I just wasn’t exposed to in school,” he said.
It’s important, Cervantes added, to never lose sight that hip-hop can be a powerful tool for teaching, for inciting change and for keeping motivation and inspiration high.
Quintanilla, who “only work[s] on music when it is calling [his] heart,” was quick to praise Cervantes.
“I feel like MexStep’s music is important,” Quintanilla said.
Quintanilla said that when working in the studio with the often-reserved Cervantes, he knew he’d found a perfect beat when he “could hear his keyboard really clacking in the background.”
I guess that’s just what it’s like writing rap bangers with El Profesor.
Check out the album for yourself on all streaming platforms as of today. Who knows … you might even learn something or get radicalized for revolution — or at least have a damn good time trying.
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This article appears in Sep 3-17, 2025.