Colombian Breakout Rapper Verito Asprilla Wants to Be Seen,
Not Crowned
By Jeanette Diaz
Photos by Manuela Uribe
The day Colombian rapper Verito Asprilla became Tumaco’s next musical breakout at 16, she didn’t even realize it had happened. She’d released a song at midnight on Sep. 15, 2020, gone to sleep, woken up, and stepped outside to buy bread like any other morning. “Mamá, that’s her!” a schoolgirl on the street said as she pointed at her with the certainty of recognition. At the store, someone congratulated her on her release. Asprilla smiled, thanked them, and kept it moving, still unaware that turning on her data would make her phone overheat from incoming messages. Her music was everywhere. “The whole world knew I was famous, except for me,” she reflects with a laugh.
But it wasn’t an effortless breakthrough. Verónica Asprilla Ledesma was born and raised in San Andrés de Tumaco, Colombia, to a Chocoano father and a Tumacqueña mother, a mix of two Afro-descendant cultures she describes as “both Black, but totally different.” That duality shaped her early. “That mix characterizes the flavor I have inside,” she says, a blueprint that carries into her music. She grew up popular and magnetic, the kind of kid everyone knew. Music, however, was a secret talent she kept tucked away. She had intense stage fright, wrote songs she couldn’t finish, and convinced herself they didn’t connect. Her brothers teased her, but her mother refused to let the doubt settle. “My mom was always my anchor,” Asprilla shares. Even when it felt like simple mother-love optimism, it kept her going.
At 11, she joined a traditional group called Corazón de Arrullo under the guidance of well-known teacher La Negra Ardiente. The potential was there, but so was the pressure. Eventually, she quit. Years later, a friend dared her to write something on the spot. It was the first time she finished a full song and understood freestyling as a craft. She recorded herself in the most DIY way possible and posted it to WhatsApp under the name Verito, a moniker her friends claimed for her. That was all it took. Her voice moved like wildfire from chat to chat, eventually reaching beyond the coast and landing on a radio station in the Dominican Republic.
What caught people’s attention wasn’t just the intrigue of a young voice, but the instinct of a natural rapper. It’s that same sentiment that keeps listeners locked in. Now 22, Asprilla moves between fluid melody and percussive bite with assured command of the beat. Her flow balances conversational ease with deliberate control, shaped through a unique freestyle grounded in the rhythms of the Pacífico.
After more persuasion from her inner circle and signing with ZooMusic, she shared an official release for “Llegara” on Sep. 24, 2020, a date tied to the loss of a close friend to suicide. At the time, Asprilla had been planning to study psychology, hoping to help people like the ones she’d lost. Music wasn’t the plan, but it arrived anyway. Tying her first major release to emotional truth set the tone for everything that followed.
Outside of Tumaco, Asprilla was celebrated as a rising voice of the Pacífico. At home, recognition came slower, and sometimes not at all. “I’m not really regarded as an artist here,” she admits. Some hometown artists saw the viral moment and called it luck, overlooking the work, the family sacrifices, the years of doubt. “They feel like because I came out and immediately hit, I don’t deserve what I have.”
While her visibility came fast, so did the projections. As recognition grew, Asprilla became wary of how quickly artists are flattened into symbols. “When you become an artist, people stop seeing you as human,” she says.
Returning to Tumaco, where she isn’t treated like a star, gave her time to mature and balance her two lives. “If everything explodes tomorrow, I feel more prepared to handle it,” she says. That perspective shapes how she thinks about representation. For Asprilla, impact isn’t measured in views, but in contribution. “What have you done for Tumaco?” she asks. It’s the question that grounds her work as she carries the city’s name.
In the larger story of el movimiento in Colombia, her city is often treated as a footnote, referenced for stereotypes or tragedy over being heard on its own terms. Asprilla’s work pushes back against that simplification. “I want to demonstrate that Tumaco isn’t what outsiders make it out to be,” she says. “This is my flag, and I’m proud to carry it.”
That tension sharpened her sense of purpose. In a crowded music ecosystem, she learned quickly that the only thing that couldn’t be replicated was her perspective. “Nobody can be you,” she says. “I can imitate Bad Bunny, but I can’t be Bad Bunny. Being different and being yourself, that guarantees success.”
"I can imitate Bad Bunny, but I can’t be Bad Bunny. Being different and being yourself, that guarantees success.”
That grounding first took shape in her debut EP Mundo Lila, where she explored joy, grief, and self-trust with disarming clarity, expanding across dembow, dancehall, reggaeton, and hip-hop. That evolution continued when producer Cerrero introduced her to the African house sub-genre of amapiano. For a follow-up single, “Verito de la Perla,” she didn’t pretend to be fluent. She studied it, then built a bridge. Using an Arcángel trap instrumental, she mapped her flow and then translated it into amapiano. “I wanted it to sound very Verito,” she says. The result became her signature sound, African-rooted rhythms filtered through a Pacífico lens.
Signing with Discos Pacífico and a collaboration with Li Saumet of Bomba Estéreo marked another turning point. “She was the first global-scale artist who trusted me enough to share a song,” Asprilla says. The moment mattered as a meeting across musical generations between two unapologetic Colombian women, affirming each other’s place.
Now, her self-assurance runs through her upcoming debut album, ONCE ONCE, inspired by her birth: Dec. 11 at 11:11. “It was a birthday gift to my inner child,” she explains. The project moves through amapiano and dembow, grounding those sounds in stories of family, love, grief, and the life that shaped her. “It shows all the phases of me.” ONCE ONCE drops March 12.
As her career edges toward a global breakthrough, Verito isn’t interested in being crowned, only respected. What began as a lyric has hardened into a boundary. “I’m not your queen,” she says. “I’m your daughter.”
She isn’t outgrowing Tumaco. She’s unapologetically moving it forward and carrying its truth with her.
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Makeup Artist: Laura Velasquez Location: Madame Coquette Bodega Produced by: Discos Pacífico - Llorona Records Creative Director: Alan López Editor-In-Chief: Thatiana Diaz Music Editor: Alexis Hodoyán-Gastélum Social Media Manager: Alma Sacasa Director of Artists & Label Relations & Executive Producer: Joel Moya