Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Raquel Z. Rivera is a Researcher at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York. She is the author of New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone and many articles for magazines and newspapers including Vibe, Urban Latino, El Diario/La Prensa, El Nuevo Día, and Claridad. She blogs at reggaetonica.blogspot.com.

Wayne Marshall is the Florence Levy Kay Fellow in Ethnomusicology at Brandeis University. He blogs at wayneandwax.com, from which a post on reggaeton was selected for the Da Capo Best Music Writing 2006 anthology.

Deborah Pacini Hernandez is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University. The author of Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music and a co-editor of Rockin' Las Americas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America, she has written many articles on Spanish Caribbean and U.S. Latino popular music.

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"The kinetic contributions in "Reggaeton" melt false borders--ones wrapped like straitjackets around peoples, knowledges, and cultures--and move the crowd. More than an exciting, exhaustive treatment of this vital musical culture, this anthology is a fine blueprint for engaged cultural scholarship right now."--Jeff Chang, author of "Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation"

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REGGAETON

Duke University Press

Contents

Illustrations........................................................................................................................................viiForeword: What's All the Noise About? Juan Flores...................................................................................................ixAcknowledgments......................................................................................................................................xiiiIntroduction: Reggaeton's Socio-Sonic Circuitry Wayne Marshall, Raquel Z. Rivera, and Deborah Pacini Hernandez......................................1From Msica Negra to Reggaeton Latino: The Cultural Politics of Nation, Migration, and Commercialization Wayne Marshall.............................19Placing Panama in the Reggaeton Narrative: Editor's Notes Wayne Marshall............................................................................79Reggae in Panama: Bien Tough Christoph Twickel......................................................................................................81The Panamanian Origins of Reggae en Espaol: Seeing History through "Los Ojos Caf" of Renato Interview by Ifeoma C. K. Nwankwo.....................89Muvelo (Move It!): From Panama to New York and Back Again, the Story of El General Interview by Christoph Twickel..................................99Policing Morality, Mano Dura Stylee: The Case of Underground Rap and Reggae in Puerto Rico in the Mid-1990s Raquel Z. Rivera........................111Dominicans in the Mix: Reflections on Dominican Identity, Race, and Reggaeton Deborah Pacini Hernandez..............................................135The Politics of Dancing: Reggaetn and Rap in Havana, Cuba Geo Baker................................................................................165You Got Your Reggaetn in my Hip-Hop: Crunkiao and "Spanish Music" in the Miami Urban Scene Jose Davila.............................................200Visualizing Reggaeton: Editors' Notes Wayne Marshall and Raquel Z. Rivera...........................................................................215Images by Miguel Luciano.............................................................................................................................218Images by Carolina Caycedo...........................................................................................................................221Images by Kacho Lpez................................................................................................................................222(W)rapped in Foil: Glory at Twelve Words a Minute Flix Jimnez.....................................................................................229A Man Lives Here: Reggaeton's Hypermasculine Resident Alfredo Nieves Moreno.........................................................................252How to Make Love with Your Clothes On: Dancing Regeton, Gender, and Sexuality in Cuba Jan Fairley...................................................280Chamaco's Corner Gallego (Jos Ral Gonzlez).......................................................................................................297Salon Philosophers: Ivy Queen and Surprise Guests Take Reggaetn Aside Alexandra T. Vazquez.........................................................300From Hip-Hop to Reggaeton: Is There Only a Step? Welmo E. Romero Joseph.............................................................................312Black Pride Tego Caldern...........................................................................................................................324Poetry of Filth: The (Post) Reggaetonic Lyrics of Calle 13 Frances Negrn-Muntaner..................................................................327Bibliography: Selected Sources for Reading Reggaeton.................................................................................................341Contributors.........................................................................................................................................345Index................................................................................................................................................349

Chapter One

From Msica Negra to Reggaeton Latino The Cultural Politics of Nation, Migration, and Commercialization

When Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina" galloped up the charts on a catchy chorus, some shifty snares, and a riff befitting a bullfight, it expressed as much a sense of where reggaeton had come from as where it might go. Though some detractors heard it as little more than the latest quasi-Caribbean commercial confection (and a rather sexist bit of ear and eye candy at that),8 a closer listen, with ears attuned to the genre's aesthetic history, reveals a number of ways that the song embodies a complex history of social and sonic circuitry. In particular, if one attends more carefully to the pista, or track, propelling the lexically and musically suggestive vocals of Daddy Yankee and his eager foil, Glory, one can hear Luny Tunes' sleek, powerful production not only as a quintessential example of contemporary, commercial reggaeton style but as a musical text engaging with a long history of circulating sounds, people, and ideas about self and other, race and place.

One might hear such social and sonic circuitry in the explicitly electronic sounds of "Gasolina," which include brittle, chintzy, "preset" virtual instruments from such popular music software as Fruity Loops (or, as it has rebranded itself, FL Studio) as well as more sophisticated "synth patches" offering sounds, such as orchestral strings, with a greater verisimilitude. Ranging from bright and needling to low and buzzy, the track's interwoven synthesizer lines evoke engagements with contemporary hip-hop, pop and R&B, dancehall reggae, and even techno as they provide a dense harmonic texture for Yankee's sing-song, rapid-fire rap. Conjuring club culture, the track's crescendoing kick drums and periodic "breakdowns" seem more clearly borrowed from "trance" and dance anthems than from any of reggaeton's more typically cited "tropical" sources. The harmonic movement of the track, shifting a semitone or half-step every other measure-especially with its galloping figures, adding 32nd note flourishes to propel the pista forward-may suggest to some, including listeners who first heard such clichs via the producers' namesake (i.e., Looney Tunes cartoons), the classic contours of bullfight music or pasodoble, as typified by Pascual Marquina Narro's well-worn sporting anthem, "Espaa Ca." Appearing to affirm such associations, Yankee boasts, "En la pista nos llaman los matadores" (On the track they call us the matadors). Figuring Spain in this manner, or Spanish colonial legacies (as mediated by pop culture fantasies), "Gasolina" not only features the harmonic movement and marchlike figures associated with bullfight music, it also employs, as do many contemporary reggaeton productions, a I-V or "oompah" style bassline, hence gesturing as well to the polka and other social dance forms that have long resounded across the colonial Americas (as can also be heard in Mexican banda).

Daddy Yankee's vocal style similarly embodies a range of forebears, from the nasally tinged projections of salsa soneros (or, for that matter, of bomba singers), to the double-time deliveries and lilting melodies of dancehall DJS, to the more complex rhyme...