{"id":1277,"date":"2009-01-28T11:36:51","date_gmt":"2009-01-28T16:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2015-01-07T14:03:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T18:03:31","slug":"reggaeting-o-reggaetang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/?p=1277","title":{"rendered":"Reggaeting o Reggaetang"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking of the difference between hip-hop and reggaeton<\/a>, there’s been a heated discussion over at Raquel’s reggaetonica<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

The debate was initiated by a polemic<\/a> published last fall by a god<\/a> named Sunez, editor of Lavoe Revolt<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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<\/a> among prominent rappers perhaps gestures that way).<\/p>\n

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<\/a> and<\/a> thorough<\/a> job of that. (Marisol is right to point out<\/a> 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.) <\/p>\n

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 —<\/p>\n

Clearly put, [Tego Calderon] is an average MC (If he grew up in Brooklyn, he\u2019d have no chance) who deliberately makes some sellout tracks to hustle his catalogue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a> 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 —<\/p>\n

I mean, if you can’t respect Tego’s technique maybe your Boricua Spanish needs a Windows Update, god.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For a little evidence, here’s some recent fuego from Tego<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/div>\n

Payaso (Part 2).mp3 – Tego Calderon ft. Chyno Nyno<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[91,404,10,145,417,405],"class_list":["post-1277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blackness","tag-hip-hop","tag-latin","tag-newyork","tag-puertorico","tag-reggaeton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1277"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1356,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}