Raquel, mi querida co-editor, was recently in Puerto Rico to talk Reggaeton. Among a variety of venues, she also ended up on video –
While watching I was surprised to see, suddenly in the mix, a wordle I made from my chapter in the book. A fitting backdrop, sin duda –
Have you read it yet? It may be my best piece to date. Just sayin.
If you missed me & Raquel on /Rupture’s radio show last Wednesday, you can still hear it here.
Update! If the audio is no longer available at WFMU, you can stream it below, but see the link above for tracklist, etc.
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Thx to all who came to the NYC book launch events! The Hunter College reception was lovely & lively, and I think Que Bajo!? just mighta been the best party I’ve had the pleasure to play. No mentira. It was really great to have a crowd so primed to dance dembow — and cheer for Tego tracks! Hope to post the audio here pronto. Anyone get pics? I didn’t get drunk & lose my phone, but I did run out of batteries.
Anywho, shouts again to @gekojones and @uprootandy for putting me on! And to everyone who came out and shook a tailfeather–
Hopping the Fung Wah this pm in order to make it down to NYC/FMU in time to join Sñr /Rupture, Sñr Fofana, y mi querida compi, Raquel Rivera, on MuddUp Radio to talk (and play) reggaeton. As Jace sez –
From Panamanians to Playeros to post-DemBoleros, [we]’ll be spinning rarities alongside discussion of the genre’s complex roots and current possibilities.
We’ll be continuing that conversation tomorrow (Thurs, May 7) at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at 6:30 pm in the Faculty Dining Room on the 8th Floor of the West Bldg., Hunter College (68th & Lex). Joining me and Raquel will be two of the stellar contributors to the book, Alexandra Vasquez and Frances Negron Muntaner, as well as the eminent Juan Flores, who wrote the preface and will deliver the main remarks. I’ll offer a muymuy brief tour of reggaeton’s socio-sonic circuitry, and then we’ll mingle to the reggaetony sounds of DJ Mellow G. Should be a blast.
Even blastier, estoy THRILLED that Geko Jones, Uproot Andy, and the extended Dutty Artz fam will be hosting an afterparty at their Latin low-end weekly, Que Bajo! (I’m still holding out, but here’s an FB event page for those of you who’ve joined the ZuckerBorg.)
I’ll be dropping a heavy reggaeton set from about 12-1 and perhaps some additonal sabor on the later side (i.e., early morn) if the vibes are right. You NewYorkers party hard & late! Color me (provincially) impressed, and excited to drop some BASOOKKA bajos on y’all –
Finally, gran thx to alexis for the kind review! To think that our anthology “puts the ‘tra’ in transnational” — well, that just says it better than I ever could.
Looking forward to talking reggaeton, Nueva York. Hasta pronto –
I’m heading to Seattle tomorrow to attend EMP’s Pop Conference for the second time (the last time was back in 07). I think EMP might have the best vibes of any music conference I’ve attended (and I’ve attended a few). The reason is simple: it brings together people — generally academics and professional music writers — who: a) are excited about music, and b) are excited about the challenges and joys of finding words to talk about music. Neither of these conditions is necessarily — or even commonly — found among the attendees of academic music conferences, in my dreary experience. (Don’t get me wrong, though, I also feel quite at home nerding out with a few fellow excited-abouts at SEM each year.)
This time around I won’t be “giving” a “paper”; instead, I’ll be speaking on a roundtable alongside two fellow Reggaeton contributors, Alexandra Vasquez (who wrote an imaginative, interesting piece about Ivy Queen for the volume) and my co-editor Raquel Rivera. The topic of our panel has to do with reggaeton but, rather than presenting summaries of our chapters or something wack like that, we’re turning our attention instead to perreo and the myriad questions posed by the genre’s provocative dance. Here’s the blurb from the conference website:
Friday, April 17, 2009:
2:00 – 3:45
>> iReggaetón! Perreo and Beyond
Venue: JBL TheaterReggaetón and especially perreo, the genre’s doggystyle dance, has been accused of facilitating corruption. This discussion, keyed to a new book, links sympathetic and critical observers from the humanities and social sciences, visual artists and genre performers, and a perspective from Jamaica.
Moderated by: Alexandra Vazquez
Featuring: Wayne Marshall, Raquel Rivera, Alexandra Vazquez
I’m sorry to report that our “perspective from Jamaica” will be absent from the conversation. We were excited to have Sonjah Stanley Niaah join us, but at the last minute she was unable to make the trip. That’s unfortunate, especially since I’m eager to talk about perreo (aka, winding, grinding, freaking, etc.) in cross-cultural perspective, not to mention reaffirming the links between reggaeton and reggae. We’ll still do all that, no doubt, especially anticipating all the knowledgeable colleagues who might be in the audience. But it would have been great to have Sonjah inna the house.
For my part, I’ll be discussing the circulation of “perreo” outside of Puerto Rico — both traveling with and, interestingly, also without reggaeton. See, e.g., Colombia, where you get perreo con champeta —
Or an old favorite of mine: Peru’s own Perreo Chacalonero (see also). Recuerda esto?:
Among other things, I’m interested in how perreo enters into (inter)national(istic) discourse around race, class, gender, and morals. I also think there are some interesting ways in which Peruano instantiations of perreo call special attention to dimensions of the dance that challenge too easy an understanding as patriarchal/submissive.
I’m quite looking forward to hearing what Alex and Raq have to say too. For her part, and I hope she doesn’t mind my sharing this, Raquel wants to discuss
recent written/visual work focused on dance/music and eroticism/explicit sexuality in hip-hop, dancehall and reggaeton… and explore how those works grapple with issues of power, healing, objectification, commodification, liberation, etc. I want to understand better the points of contention among feminists/”progressives.” My focus will be perreo in reggaeton but since there has been so little on the subject… I want to discuss it within a broader framework.
That’s a lot of stuff I’ve also been trying to wrap my head around lately in various ways, partly in conversation with Raquel and Sonjah and others. I can’t wait to hear what other perspectives emerge on Friday. (I’m also looking forward, among other things, to this.)
Finally, let me leave you with our initial abstract for EMP, as I think it lays out in greater detail (and fine concision, if I don’t say so myself) what we’d like to talk about —
¡Reggeatón! Perreo and Beyond
In the last decade, reggaetón has risen from the Puerto Rican underground to the global mainstream. Reflecting as it informs the shifting shapes of American society, the genre’s hyper-modern, synth-driven mix of rap and reggae, with occasional “Latin” flourishes, has topped international charts while finding grassroots adherents across the Americas. Ubiquitous in urban soundscapes and penetrating the heartlands via digital media, reggaetón animates vociferous debates around race and nation, class and gender, morals and mores. Crucial to its appeal and rejection alike, reggaetón travels not simply as music, but as image, fashion, and dance. As such — and especially as perreo, the doggystyle dance so part and parcel of the genre — reggaetón has been accused of aiding and abetting the dirtiest of dancing, providing the default soundtrack for sex work, and facilitating the corruption and deflowering of young people on dancefloors worldwide.
¡Reggeatón! Perreo and Beyond celebrates the production of critical literature on the genre, the forthcoming volume Reggaeton (Duke University Press, February 2009), as it offers new directions for subsequent scholarship by extending the book’s topics and analyses. Edited by Raquel Rivera, Wayne Marshall and Deborah Pacini Hernandez, the volume is the first of its kind to stage a conversation between scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and the genre’s performers. Our panel gathers representatives from all three constituencies and adds a perspective from Jamaica, a crucial source of inspiration for reggaeton music and dance. As sympathetic and critical observers, we engage reggaeton’s twists and turns in order to better see it, hear it, feel it, and tell it like it is.
I suspect there’ll be a few friends & readers of this humble blog in the strangely shaped house. Hope to see some of you there —
I know, I know, I’m flogging at this point. But I’m really quite excited to hold this thing in my hands.
Plena is Spanish for ‘full.’ But it has other meanings too, depending where yr @ –
In Puerto Rico, plena refers to street music played on panderetas (see, e.g., Sorongo’s comments here).
In Panama, plena refers to reggae — homegrown reggae en español in particular.
The riddim method has been alive and well in Panama for many years. Before Puerto Ricans took up the mantle, it was Panamanian pioneers such as Nando Boom and El General who showed the way for gente to rap (or better, deejay) over dancehall riddims in Spanish. As demo’d by collections such as this one, a good number of formative Panamanian reggae jams were essentially traducciones of contemporary Jamaican hits. That tradition — of translating and transforming the latest greatest Jamaican reggae songs for Panamanian audiences — continues apace today.
When I was writing my chapter for our reggaeton book, I surveyed the contemporary Panamanian scene to see how that time-honored reggae tradition was faring and found a good number of cover songs amidst the current crop of productions. Here’s part of what ended up in a footnote:
… in 2006, one could hear Panamanian DJ Principal proclaiming himself “El Rey del Dancehall” with the same cadences and over the same riddim that Jamaica’s Beenie Man used to crown himself “King of the Dancehall” a few months earlier, or Panama’s Aspirante employing for “Las Cenizas Dijeron Goodbye” the melody from Jamaican singer Gyptian’s “Serious Times” over a reverent re-lick of the strikingly acoustic Spiritual War riddim that propels the original (though Aspirante changes the text from a meditation on the state of the world to a failed relationship).
All of this is un poco preamble to put into context the tip I received from a reader this week (thx, Tom!), reporting that Panamanian reggae artists are, unsurprisingly, enthralled by the “Miss Independent” riddim. No doubt this is well below the radar — none of these Panamanian versions are about to get played on, say, Hot 97 as Vybz’s “Ramping Shop” was — so I doubt that N_-Y_ or St_rg_te or E_I will be sending threatening emails anytime soon (certain vowels omitted to evade litigious Googlers).
Tom says that he counted no fewer than 11 (!) songs employing the riddim. Here are a few, including one which, funny and densely, simply features someone rapping in Spanish on top of Vybz and Spice’s song. The rest employ the instrumental riddim-wise –
RUFF DAD ft VYBZ KARTEL & SPICES REMIX.mp3
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SCAREDEM FISH feat SUPPOSE —- ESTAN DEAD.mp3
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EL_HOMBRE_INDICADO_-_CARAMEL.mp3
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If you want to hear more along these lines, check out this mixtape of Panamanian dancehall, aka “Da Spanish Reggae Blue Print” –
& if you want to learn more about the plena / bultrón / reggae/ton scene inna Panama, check out the blog by MTVU Fulbright scholar, Larnies.
Finally, talk about plena — this site has more mp3s than you could shake a bot at. Basta! I’m full –
c/o some frens around the ‘osphere, a couple transnational texts for yr viewing pleasure –
first, from @ripley, my favorite musical meme rears its head once again, thus time in a mid-90s Swedish rave-pop setting!? sez rip:
note the ZUNGUZUNG at 1:04! [Leila K.]’s of Moroccan descent but from Sweden & this song was number one in sales in Europe in the 90s
#1 in sales un Europe in the 90s?! Can anyone confirm this? That would be surprising in itself, and it would make for yet another rather significant instantiation — if an oddly tuneless one — of Yellowman’s well-propelled vocables –
…
second, from @nila, my source for sepia mutiny of all sorts, is this bit of “desiton,” a track which very clearly riffs on Yankee’s “Gasolina” gallop with its 32nd-note stutter-step synthline –
keep em coming, kids! &thx, as always..
thx again, lmgm
Like I try to do with most fruits of my labors, I’m liberating some recent words of mine here (shhh!), composed last week for a relatively well-consulted (by music grad students?) music “dictionary.” It’s likely that none of you will read them otherwise, not that you’d necessarily want to. (I’ve received requests to share, however, having tweeted about the inherent challenges.)
Boiling down any subject into so few words seems an intrinsically painful, reductive enterprise. At the same time, it’s also a semi-enjoyable task in the way that any thing which challenges you can be.
I was asked to write a 500 word description of reggaeton and 200 word profiles of Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Ivy Queen, and Tego. I agreed for a few reasons. For one, the challenge. For two, the relative (and I mean RELATIVE) prestige of contributing to a widely recognized publication. For three, and this is the most important: because I care a lot about representations of reggaeton, esp how the genre animates rather heated debates about national/racial/ethnic identity.
That said, I don’t know to what extent these encyclopedia entries will have any impact at all on how people think about and tell the stories of reggaeton. Our (very!) forthcoming book is a lot more likely to be read. But these may have a greater chance of “getting out there” now that I’ve put them on the web. (Wha gwaan, Wikimaniacs?)
At any rate, here they are. Don’t hate me p/q I’m concise. I HAD TO BE. Why don’t you give it a shot? Edited and alternate versions invited in the comments ;) PLZ STICK TO WORD COUNT –
REGGAETON
Although some dispute the national character of the genre, reggaeton is most frequently represented as a Puerto Rican and, increasingly, pan-Latino fusion of hip-hop and dancehall reggae. Featuring lyrics in Spanish and propelled by a modified reggae rhythm referred to as the “dembow,” the genre also travels in the form of a suggestive, sexualized dance called “perreo.” In 2004-05 reggaeton performers such as Daddy Yankee and Don Omar scored chart-climbing hits on US and international pop charts, bringing widespread attention to a genre that had been growing in popularity since the early 1990s, especially in Puerto Rico and New York City.
Origin narratives acknowledge the crucial role played by Panamanian vocalists, among the first to record reggae songs in Spanish. The music of Jamaica infused the Panamanian soundscape via descendants of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Anglo-Caribbean labor migrants to Central America who maintained cultural and family ties to the island. By the late 1970s, groups such as Franco y Las 4 Estrellas were performing Spanish-language versions of contemporary reggae songs. For all the continued engagement with reggae in Panama, however, such influential Panamanian avatars of dancehall reggae “en español” as Nando Boom and El General made many of their most popular recordings in New York City, working with Jamaican musicians and producers, typically translating the lyrics of contemporary reggae hits while employing the same (or re-recorded) rhythm tracks as the Jamaican originals.
While such recordings circulated widely among Spanish-speaking audiences in New York, the records resonated especially strongly with young Puerto Ricans, both in the city and on the island. Taking as a template the pioneering productions by Panamanian performers, Puerto Rican DJs and producers, including DJ Negro and DJ Playero, employed excerpts from the instrumental versions of these recordings to support performances by Puerto Rican vocalists. Initially a live practice, these sessions, in which a series of rappers declaimed over a shifting sonic accompaniment sampled from the hip-hop and reggae hits of the day, started to circulate as “mixtapes,” copied and passed hand-to-hand after an initial dubbing of a few dozen copies.
During the 1990s the Spanish-language mix of hip-hop and reggae produced in San Juan was alternately known as underground (or under), melaza (molasses), dembow (after the Shabba Ranks recording, “Dem Bow,” a frequent sample source for producers), and sometimes simply hip-hop or reggae. Occasionally it was called “música negra,” bearing witness to the racial cultural politics expressed by an embrace of hip-hop and reggae. The term reggaeton became dominant shortly after the turn of the millennium, around the same time that producers and performers sought to market the music to a broader audience, packaging recordings in the form of singles and albums rather than mixtapes and infusing the “dembow” beat with pan-Latino musical signifiers from salsa to bachata to cumbia. The great hope of the Latin music industry, reggaeton remains a grassroots phenomenon, embraced and localized across Latin America.
DON OMAR (William Omar Landrón), b. 10 Feb 1978
Puerto Rican vocalist Don Omar is one of the few reggaeton performers to enjoy success on US pop charts and airplay on MTV. Raised fatherless in an impoverished area of San Juan, a subdivision of Santurce called Villa Palmeras, Omar spent his late teens working as a youth pastor and singing in church choirs (including a group called the Christian Rappers). After leaving the ministry and turning to reggaeton, Omar built a following through live performances and appearances on mixtapes, distinguishing himself through his gruff voice and melodic rapping. Recruited by popular duo Héctor y Tito as a ghostwriter, Omar caught the attention of Juan Vidal, president of VI Music, who offered him an album deal. Omar’s first single, “Dale Don Dale” (2002), became a huge hit among reggaeton audiences. In 2005, his chart-topping song, “Reggaeton Latino,” symbolized the genre’s ascendancy to mainstream visibility and refigured reggaeton as a pan-Latino product. Omar often employs Christian symbols in his music and videos, and his themes reach beyond braggadocio to serious topics from suicide to AIDS. His 2006 album, King of Kings, debuted at #7 on the Billboard 200, the highest appearance by a reggaeton album to date.
DADDY YANKEE (Ramón Ayala), b. 3 Feb 1977
Best known for his massive, international hit, “Gasolina” (2004), Daddy Yankee is not only reggaeton’s most recognized performer, he is also one of the genre’s original and most consistent voices. Born into a musical family in Río Piedras, Yankee grew up in the Villa Kennedy housing project. After being shot in a case of mistaken identity, Yankee set aside aspirations to play baseball and dedicated himself to music, making a name for himself by performing rapid-fire raps at house parties. By the mid-90s, sometimes under the name Winchester Yankee, his distinctively nasally-tinged, tongue-twisting vocals featured prominently on DJ Playero’s popular mixtapes. Yankee released his first album, No Mercy, in 1995. Beginning in 2000, he started issuing albums at a steady clip of one per year, making inroads into the Latin Billboard charts while becoming a major star in Puerto Rico. He struck gold (or platinum) with his 2004 release, Barrio Fino, propelled by the runaway success of “Gasolina,” which effectively introduced reggaeton to the world. Having become his own brand, including merchandise endorsement deals with Pepsi and Reebok, Yankee remains restless, collaborating with hip-hop and R&B artists to reach new audiences.
IVY QUEEN (Martha Ivelisse Pesante), b. 4 March 1972
Ivy Queen has reigned as reggaeton’s practically sole female voice for well over a decade, remaining a central and respected figure while transforming herself from fierce battle rapper to sentimental sophisticate. Born in Añasco, Puerto Rico, she started singing to her father’s guitar accompaniment and identifies Celia Cruz and Selena as role models. She lived in New York city from childhood into her teenage years, moving to San Juan after high school. While writing for other acts and performing in talent shows, she grabbed the attention of DJ Negro, who added her to the roster of The Noise, an influential crew of DJs and performers. After making a splash on several mixtapes by The Noise, she embarked on a solo career, in part to distance herself from sexually-explicit and violent lyrics, addressing a range of topics from domestic violence to single mothers, fidelity to feminism. Her first album, En Mi Imperio (1996), sold briskly in Puerto Rico and was picked up by Sony. She has since released a steady stream of albums, broadening her audience, garnering industry awards, and settling into a style that finds her crooning bachata-infused ballads as often as rapping in her distinctively deep rasp.
TEGO CALDERÓN, b. 1 Feb 1972
Puerto Rican rapper Tego Calderón looms large in reggaeton, respected as a witty lyricist with a beguiling flow who anchors his sound and image in symbols of negritude. Born in Santurce but raised in Río Grande and Río Piedras, Tego expresses a strong connection to Loíza, where he was exposed to Afro-Puerto Rican traditions. Tego studied percussion at the Escuela Libre de Música of Puerto Rico before moving to Miami in the late-1980s where he was introduced to hip-hop and began composing lyrics in English. He credits Vico C with providing a model for rapping in Spanish. Returning to Puerto Rico, he established himself as a force in the local hip-hop scene before trying his hand at reggaeton, a savvy career move. His first album, El Abayarde (2002), was a local smash, and subsequent releases have been widely distributed and critically acclaimed. Tego’s music incorporates a variety of genres, including bomba, salsa, blues, and roots reggae. As a vocalist, he is known for his gravelly baritone, unique enunciation, love of slang and puns, and sense of swing. He has become a popular guest artist for hip-hop collaborators (including Terror Squad, Cypress Hill, and Wyclef Jean).
Amazing how an Amazon link makes our book finally feel real. (Pre-orders in teh house!)
And though they don’t have any imgs yet, I’m happy to report that I do, and — having lobbied HARD for this particular photo by Miguel Luciano to grace our cover — I’m thrilled to share it with y’all:
On the other hand side, I may be as excited about the back cover as the front, since we were able to land such luminary thinkers and wordsmiths re: music and race and nation as Jeff Chang, Mark Anthony Neal, Juan Flores, and Residente (!).
…
Since I’m in a sharing mood, here’s a pdf of an article by Flores that makes a wonderful argument about diaspora “as source and challenge” what with its many “cultural remittances” “from below.” (Incidentally, Centro is offering many more pdfs at their site; see, e.g., the 2004 issue on “Rican Structing Roots / Routes,” from which this piece comes.)
Flores’s narrative centers on salsa and rap, but I’ve found the thesis utterly illuminating wrt reggaeton (as readers of my chapter in the book will see) –
…
& while I’m at it, here are two excerpts featured on a relatively recent Tego mixtape (almost a year old now, actually). I offer these up as each wonderful examples of how reggaeton “works,” if you will, consistent with the rich remix/reference culture that it is.
The first is a reworking of Fabolous’s unavoidable track from last year (and/or 2007), “Make Me Better” (incidentally, is it just me or does that central string motif sound awfully close to a recurring bit from the Lost score?). We hear here, among other things, how reggaeton artists — just as their “underground” bredren did in the 1990s — continue to version contemporary US/urban pop, translating and transforming the sounds that surround us:
>> Tego Calderón (feat. De La Ghetto), “Tú Me Haces Sentir”*
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As you hear toward the end there, that track leads into a rowdy cumbia parody (sounding remarkably similar to a Manu Chao song in the chorus). I like how it shows reggaeton’s ability to incorporate / allude to other genres — and the “cultural work” inherent to such (re)figurations — not to mention how it shows off reggaeton’s (and Tego’s) sense of humor, with El Negro Calde putting on an extra coarse accent for “realism”:
>> Tego Calderón, “El Hijo’e Puta Sin Saludar”*
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* for some reason, the tracks above sound distorted when listened to through the player; click on the song titles to hear more clearly.
I’ve already discussed and DJ-demo’d the degree to which the Dem Bow riddim underpins the lion’s share of reggaeton tracks (try this cached version if that first link is broken). But one remarkable part of the story I haven’t given much focus here is how “Dem Bow” the song — in particular, the chorus melody, but also the basic theme of the lyrics — has also seen its share of reincarnations (often in the form of creative, localized translations).
Last year I wrote an article that specifically traces the migrations, transformations, and connotations of Shabba’s “Dem Bow,” a song released in 1991 and, that same year, covered (twice!) en español. Shabba’s tune has inspired versions of varying fidelity to the original by Jamaicans, Panamanians, Puerto Ricans, and Frenchmen, no doubt among others I’ve yet to hear. Over the course of its already long life, it has gone from a relatively stable anti-gay anthem to a floating signifier for reggaeton’s sexy beat — or, in the case of Paris-based Daddy Yod, a Verlan inversion (“delbor” from “bordel”) for trouble or agitation (h/t Guillaume pour la traduction*). I try to make sense of the implications of such shifts, linking translation to transnation, or the audible articulation (pace Stuart Hall) of communities that transcend as they traverse state borders — something I hear deeply embedded in reggaeton’s sonic structures themselves.
But enough about the article, here’s the thing itself. It was an invited contribution by the editor of a special issue on popular song in Latin America, published in a German journal. Please note that the copy I’m making available here is a pre-print proof, though the final version is quite close to this. Here goes –
Having tracked down all these versions of “Dem Bow” (including no fewer than THREE songs by Wisin y Yandel, who seem quite content to rip themselves off), I couldn’t resist putting them alongside each other “in the mix,” as they say. It’s a little weird to put a bunch of anti-gay anthems “to tape,” but then again, one thing that’s interesting about the history of this song is that, despite the musical continuities, only the first third of the mix contains homophobic sentiments (many of them, as I describe in the article, quite colorful and imaginative). As you’ll hear, however, “Dem Bow” quickly comes to stand for other things (in other words, it becomes THE dembow, dembo, denbo). Notably, even in the suave hands of W&Y (or w&w for that matter), it remains a chant centering a heteronormative/macho subject. What’d you expect?
>> w&w, “Dem Bow Dem” (11 min | 24 mb)
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TracklistUnattributed, “Son Bow” (The Beats: Pistas De Reggaeton Famosas Vol.3)
Shabba Ranks, “Dem Bow” (Just Reality)
Nando Boom, “Ellos Benia” (Reggae Español)
El General, “Son Bow” (The Hits)
Grinds Man, “Dem Bow” (At The Super Stars Conference)
Unattributed, “Dembow ‘The Original’” (Pistas de Reggaeton Vol. 2)
Unattributed (Luny Tunes?), “Dembow ‘The 2004 Version’” (Pistas de Reggaeton Vol. 2)
Wisin & Yandel (Luny Tunes), “Dembow (Pista)” (Pistas De Reggaeton Famosas)
Wisin & Yandel, “Dem Bow” (Jamz Tv Hits, Vol. 2)
Wisin & Yandel, “Dembo (remix)” (A Otro Nivel)
Wisin & Yandel, “Llamé Pa’ Verte (Bailando Sexy)” (Pa’l Mundo)
Wisin & Yandel (ft. Tempo), “Deja Que Hable El Dembow”
King Daddy Yod (ft. Flya, Ragga Ranks, Jamadom, Tiwony), “Delbor 2006″
* sez Guillaume via email re: “Delbor” –
Yeah so no reference to sexuality, just straight up social problems and that the society is fucked up. You even have an eschatological reference at the end of the song. What’s interesting is that they use verlan only in the first verse, like an indication for the listener to make the chorus easier to understand at first. They don’t use verlan in the rest of the song as far as I could understand. Bottom line, it’s pretty safe to say that this song reference the 2005 riots and expand it to express a view of a fucked up society.
thx to bill@immanentdiscursivity for sharing this hilariously awesome lookinassnigga-style google-img setting for el chombo’s pre-chacarron reggae/ton panameño classic, “el gato volador” –
i wonder how this might shed light on ethanz’s cute-cat theory?
I promised to post about “raveyton” a long time ago, and twice. A recent ghettobassquake post serves as a fine reminder. Noting that reggaeton synths have been “sliding into more Trancedelic wave forms,” Sñr Vamanos acknowledges that “[d]ramatic synths have been there for a while.”
Sin duda! Working in an utterly omnivorous genre, reggaeton producers were waaaay ahead of the trans-regional trancehall curve.
Allow me to offer an excerpt from my chapter in the forthcoming reggaeton book (pre-orders available!) which describes the turn toward synths — even if often samples of synths — among late 90s underground/dembow/reggae/ton producers:
Around the same time the genre was becoming known by a new name, the music had begun to accrue several of the stylistic features that propel today’s radio-friendly, club-ready confections. The advent of new music production technologies, in particular synthesizer and sequencer software, has a great deal to do with this shift in sound. Programs such as Fruity Loops, with telltale “pre-set” sounds and effects, served to expand and change the sonic palettes of reggaeton producers. In part because such programs were often initially developed as tools for techno producers, the genre started to move away from reggae and hip-hop samples and toward futuristic synths, cinematic strings, bombastic effects, and (especially just before a “big” downbeat) crescendoing kick drums, snare rolls, and cymbal splashes. The latter formal devices sound more derived from trance-style techno anthems than anything else, if also, notably, sometimes syncopated in a manner more reminiscent of breaks in salsa or merengue. Established producers such as DJ Playero, DJ Nelson, and DJ Joe, as well as relative newcomers such as DJ Blass, helped move the genre’s primary sound sources from samples to synthesizers, introducing the use of heavier kick drums, ravey synth “stabs,” and trancey arpeggios as well as cartoonish digital sound effects (wind blowing, explosions). Their productions were not uniform or mutually indistinguishable, however, and each offers an interesting look at the development of the genre during a crucial transition.
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[Several] tracks on Playero 41 strongly embody the genre’s new techno- and pop-oriented directions. Notty Man’s “Dancing,” for example, features various techno synths, evoking the distinctively “squelchy” sounds of the Roland TB-303 and employing the characteristic filtering, or frequency sweeps, of electronic dance music. Daddy’s Yankee’s “Todas las Yales” is another case in point. The track begins with a “detuned” synth riff evoking any number of trance or techno tracks. As a four-on-the-floor kick drum augments the riff, one could easily mistake it for a standard, if not cliché 90s club anthem, at least before the dembow drums enter. Once the 3+3+2 snares come in, along with Yankee’s voice, there is no mistaking the track for anything other than reggaeton; nonetheless, it offers a clear example of how synthesized (and/or sampled) techno references came increasingly to supplant the genre’s affinity for hip-hop and dancehall sources. The track still moves somewhat starkly between a hip-hop groove and a dembow rhythm, however, and such alternation maintains connections to mid-90s style. Moreover, at points Yankee propels his lyrics with a couple (characteristically “out-of-tune”) melodies borrowed from Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon” (1984) and the Bangles’ ballad “Eternal Flame” (1989). Although these references to 80s pop hits might seem slightly odd here, not to mention rather far from the symbolic links which borrowed hooks from reggae or hip-hop songs might once have evoked, they are actually quite consistent with what has long been an ecumenical outlook for the genre—an approach derived in part from hip-hop’s and reggae’s own voracious practices. Finally, “Todas la Yales” also offers a window into the enduring presence of Jamaica via Panama: the term yales, which Yankee at times interchanges here with mujeres (i.e., women), comes from the Panamanian slang guiales, which itself adapts gyal, a Jamaican creole version of girl or girls.
Productions by The Noise and DJ Joe during this period demonstrate similar trends. On The Noise 9 (2000), for instance, one hears the telltale sounds of Fruity Loops pre-sets and effects alongside other synthesized sounds, especially the pounding bass drums for which techno is known. One also hears, however, the same big bass synths, chopped-and-stabbed hip-hop references (e.g., squealing Cypress Hill samples), repeatedly triggered vocal lines, allusions to dancehall melodies (Ruben San crams several into a single song), and Dem Bow samples (especially the snares, but also the riddim’s resonant bass drum) for which melaza had been known. The Bam Bam, Fever Pitch, and Poco Man Jam riddims also rear their heads in the mix. Although the pistas still shift in shape and feel at regular intervals, sometimes fairly radically, the music is less pastiche-like than on earlier recordings, however, and the song forms more closely resemble standard pop fare. DJ Joe’s millennial mixtapes also seem to confirm these directions. Whereas the producer’s late 90s mixes retain a great deal of melaza style, shortly after 2000 the influence of Fruity Loops and nods to techno become far more pronounced. With the exception of Dem Bow drum samples, by the release of Fatal Fantassy 1 (2001), big, cheesy club synths, digital explosions, and melodramatic percussion crescendos dominate the tracks’ textures, overshadowing any sample-based connections to earlier styles. Vocalists still employ dancehall related melodies as well as various pop allusions (including the 50s hit “Mr. Sandman”), though one also hears a refinement of such a melodic approach: a distinctively Puerto Rican approach to melodic contour and vocal timbre—often evoking the nasal singing styles of many soneros—seems to emerge after a decade of recycling a handful of tunes. A connection between the sounds of techno and the sexual already appears rather reified by this point, underscored in DJ Joe’s case by the suggestively (mis)spelled reference to a popular video game (Final Fantasy) on his Fatal Fantassy series.
Despite these parallel movements across the reggaeton scene, during the first few years of the new millennium DJ Blass might rightly be credited as most audibly promoting the tecno sound, conflating it with sexual license, and ushering in a good number of the elements which remain staples of the genre today and mark most of its mainstream hits. Blass’s Reggaeton Sex series employs the futuristic, tactile synths and bombast of rave-era techno and contemporary trance to great effect, creating physically and psychologically compelling music over which (male) vocalists and (female) “phone-sex” samples repeatedly invoke the body and the bawdy. Over saw-tooth synths and ping-pong arpeggios, crescendoing kicks and snares and cymbal crashes, vocalists exhort (and/or order) women to “move it,” perreo, and do a fair number of other, more explicitly sexual acts. Rather than the pliant, reggae-derived basslines of the mid-90s, synthesized bass tones serve instead to accentuate the kick drums on each beat, often with a I-V (“oompah”-style) movement and sometimes tracing out simple chord progressions—a rudimentary rhythmic and harmonic role for the bass which has remained a feature in a great many commercial reggaeton productions. Against these steady bass tones and heavy kicks on each beat, the snares—sampled from Dem Bow, Bam Bam, and other favorite reggae riddims—frequently come to the fore, pulling against the foursquare feel with their 3+3+2 accents and making quite prominent what is, at times, the only audible, timbral connection to the genre’s underground roots. Gesturing to the regularly shifting forms of the mid-90s, Blass often switches between different snare samples at 4, 8, or 16 measure intervals, creating a subtle sense of form against the otherwise somewhat static synth vamps.
That Daddy Yankee track described above, “Todas las Yales,” has to be heard to be believed. You’re very welcome –
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Funny story — I sent that track to techno sage Philip Sherburne (almost three years ago!) and he responded, somewhat stunned:
… those vaguely detuned chords are a pretty standard trance trope – a popular present on synths like the access virus, which are highly valued in trance circles.
thanks for sharing, i had no idea that reggaeton was going in this direction. is this an anomaly?
to which i replied:
i think reggaeton already went in this direction, actually, with producers preferring techno-y synths (often b/c of the adoption of digital sequencers, e.g., FL — pace your lil jon observations) to hip-hop and dancehall samples since the late 90s, if not a little before. i’m still trying to get a date on this track, but i think it’s from around ‘98, which is almost ten years ago! pretty wild. …
if indeed this is from ‘98, does that change your reading?
in turn, sez phil –
this is eight fucking years old? whoa. it doesn’t change my reading, necessarily, but it blows my friggin mind….
in that case, it does make me feel like reggaeton’s regressing (unless there is similarly bananas shit out there, but i haven’t heard it, not in 2006 anyway).
I couldn’t resist pointing out to Philip, neologist extraordinaire, that there was an artist on a DJ Joe album named “Microhouse.” (Good luck hunting that one down!)
Speaking of neologists, Simon Reynolds, to whom I also sent the track, said something pretty Simon-esque in reply –
all those riffs sound like anagrams of each other!
Speaking of anagrams — or perhaps analogs — it’s worth noting that reggaeton is not a lone vanguard in this regard. So let me to make another promise and offer, at some (not so?) future date, a similar look at funk carioca’s own millennial flirtation with ravey synthstabs & techno kicks, experiments which well predate the pós-baile-funk efforts of guys like DJ Sany Pitbull.
Speaking of the difference between hip-hop and reggaeton, there’s been a heated discussion over at Raquel’s reggaetonica, redrawing yet again the lines in the sand between the two genres and rehashing lots of tropes about Puerto Rico, blackness, hip-hop, and so on.
The debate was initiated by a polemic published last fall by a god named Sunez, editor of Lavoe Revolt. I find Sunez’s tone a little too pedantic for my tastes (and “musicological” his analysis is NOT; don’t get me started on his description of how hip-hop emerges from reggae), but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t raise good questions, as evidenced by the lively argument that ensues.
As for his wider points, I can see some merit in them, especially the critique of postcolonial “mental slavery” via the embrace of conspicuous consumption and degrading images of self/women, etc. But, really, that kind of criticism is not so different from the sort of stuff Stanley Crouch or Juan Williams say about hip-hop all the time. Much as I’m sympathetic to some of that, I guess my own pleasures listening to reggaeton and commercial hip-hop derive from a couple things: 1) the way that dance music, music that engages the body, serves as a kind of apolitical “politics” (an embrace of the sensual self that militates against the repression of our bodies in wider society); 2) the framing of conspicuous consumption as a militant stance re: enjoying the “good life” (flaunting symbols of wealth that have been denied to people of color for so long). In a sense, then, esp re: the latter point, I guess my position is kind of pragmatic / strategic. And overall, I suppose I do believe that the way such popular genres create communities holds some promise toward actual political mobilization, even if we haven’t seen much like that yet (tho the support for Obama among prominent rappers perhaps gestures that way).
I don’t feel the need to go through and debunk Sunez’s slandering of reggaeton point for point, especially since an anonymous commenter does a fine and thorough job of that. (Marisol is right to point out that the exchange becomes too much of a masculinist pissing contest and too “mired in issues of racial/cultural authenticity,” though I think Anonymous was simply seeking, in some sense, to playfully meet his interlocutor on some shared discursive ground.)
I have to chime in, though, along with Raquel & Anonymous, in defense of Tego. I guess I can understand how a dyed-in-the-wool New York rap fan might level such charges as –
Clearly put, [Tego Calderon] is an average MC (If he grew up in Brooklyn, he’d have no chance) who deliberately makes some sellout tracks to hustle his catalogue.
But that just doesn’t compute for me. And I can’t even claim to follow all the nuances of Tego’s deployment of Spanish, English, and old and new slanguage; I’m mostly reacting to flow when I listen to Tego. He’s an MC’s MC far as I’m concerned. I’ve weighed in on El Negro Calde here before, so I’ll save you my own treatises. I found the following pro-Tego jab by Anonymous to be both funny and spot-on –
I mean, if you can’t respect Tego’s technique maybe your Boricua Spanish needs a Windows Update, god.
For a little evidence, here’s some recent fuego from Tego, clowning on some clowns, no dembow needed. Love the line in the first verse which inspires the title of this post. Reggaeting o reggaetang? Dude can flip it flippant, seen? A little levity goes a long way.
in under 14 seconds, by beatbox, c/o Vico C –
The Duke U Press catalog for Spring 2009 is already out. Why should you be excited? See pg 1 –
I'm an ethno-
musicologist, internet annotator, and rapper-ternt-blogger.
wayne at wayneandwax dot com
