Reggaeton Nation

...Although it was initially produced by and for the island’s urban poor, by the mid-1990s, reggaeton’s explicit sex­ual lyrics and commentary on the violence of everyday life had caught the ears of a wary midFrances Negrón-Muntaner is the author of Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latiniza­tion of American Culture (NYU Press, 2004...

...With increased sales beyond Puerto Rico, a formerly resistant global music industry finally recognized reggae­ton’s “artistic” merits when the upstart duo Calle 13— composed of two middle-class, light-skinned, college-educated men, Residente and Visitante—nabbed three Latin Grammys during the 2006 ceremony...

...Two years after “Gasolina” greased the way, reggaeton albums were going gold, platinum, and even double-platinum, ranking among the top sales suc­cesses of the Latin music industry...

...She helped us commercialize the genre...

...The song that pumped up the world and brought reg­gaeton’s global appeal home was Daddy Yankee’s aptly titled “Gasolina” (2004), an ode to what women want from an unabashedly male perspective...

...4 Originally dubbed “underground,” among other names, reggaeton is a stew of rap en español and reggae en español, cooked to perfection in the barrios and caseríos (housing projects) of Puerto Rico.5 Drawing on U.S...

...hip-hop and Jamaican reggae, Spanish-language rap and reggae devel­oped parallel to each other throughout the 1980s in both Puerto Rico and Panama...

...In the end, reggaeton’s story is a pro­ductive point of entry into Puerto Rico’s changing sense of itself: While still a poor colony of the United States, with more than half of its population living in the continen­tal United States, and widespread discontent at how the country is going, Puerto Rico is playing the national game better than ever—on the global stage...

...In a nutshell: commercial success—achieved, however, in the most unexpected of ways...

...Reggaeton is, as so many of its artists have clearly seen, no more law-abiding or corrupt than the island’s ruling elites...

...How did a Spanish-language musical phenomenon originating in a poor colonial possession of the United States make it so big that even its former enemies must now pretend to like it...

...It would not be an exaggeration to say that condemning reggaeton has ginal to notorious, boosting its appeal as the new idiom of rebellion for many of the island’s youth...

...Only a year before, the same senator had led public hearings aimed at regulating reggaeton’s lyrics and the dance moves that accompany it, known as el perreo, or “doggy-style dance,” in which dancers grind against each other to the Jamaican-derived dembow rhythm that serves as reggaeton’s backbone.1 Using her reputation as a champion of women’s rights, González chastised reggaeton for its “dirty lyrics and videos full of erotic movements where girls dance virtually naked,” and for promoting perreo, which she called a “triggering factor for criminal acts...

...By early 2007, when no one complained after Mexican pop singer Paulina Rubio told the media that her reggaeton single was a tribute to Puerto Rico, since “it is clear that reggae-ton belongs to you,” writer Juan Antonio Ramos declared the war against reggaeton officially over...

...For instance, many of the dramatic censorship acts undertaken against reggaeton were partly a response to widespread rumors that its recordings were financed by narco-trafficking...

...Raquel Z. Rivera is the author of New York Ricans From the Hip Hop Zone (Palgrave Macmillon, 2003) and editor, with Deborah Pacini Hernandez and Wayne Marshall, of Reading Reggaeton (Duke University Press, forthcoming...

...If Puerto Ricans and other Latin Americans have celebrated Spain as the “motherland,” reggaeton redirects the gaze toward Africa’s diasporas...

...But with Dad­dy Yankee’s global success, Tego’s populism, and Calle 13’s “alternative” sound and tirades against state power, reggae-ton now has all the necessary qualifications to become a na­tional music that is presentable beyond the island’s borders...

...R eggaeton’s global rep arguably forced Puerto Rican elites to accept it as a valu­ able cultural export that brings attention and prestige to the island...

...Many people tried to stop us,” recalled Daddy Yankee, reggaeton’s biggest star, in an interview...

...hip-hop music and culture.19 In this regard, reggaeton may at times imagine the nation as a contained space, but this notion of the local is com­posed of globalized cultures...

...This is evident in the proliferation of labels like DJ Nelson’s Flow Music, Daddy Yankee’s El Cartel Records, and Wisín and Yandel’s WY Re­cords, which have allowed performers to main­tain a much greater degree of control over their products and earnings than salsa musicians ever enjoyed...

...Reggaeton calls attention to the centrality of black culture and the migration of people and ideas in (and out of) Puerto Rico, not as exotic additions but as constitutive elements...

...If Calderón was the reggaeton champion of an Afro-Caribbean work-ing-class aesthetic, Calle 13 fused a wide range of music styles with unusually surreal lyrics for the genre...

...The intent may have been to crush reggaeton, but the result was quite the opposite...

...8 Faced with an unprecedented and seemingly uncontrollable crime wave, the state also paid close attention to reggaeton...

...but also Europe (particularly Spain and Italy), Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Japan, and Australia...

...In contrast to rap en español and salsa romántica, reggaeton spoke directly to the social conditions prevalent in Puerto Rico, like outrageous unemployment rates, failing schools, and government corruption...

...attention was the musically, po­etically, and politically sophisticated 2003 debut album of Tego Calderón...

...Before the media paid attention and the state seized on reggaeton as a convenient symbol of the country’s social woes, the genre was largely a contained class phenomenon...

...6 Running contrary to middle-class values, reggaeton has been attacked as immoral, as well as artistically deficient, a threat to the social order, apolitical, misogynist, a watered-become a sacrilege...

...The point was dramatically driven home last year, For starters, reggaeton calls attention to the centrality of black culture and the migration of peoples and ideas in (and out of) Puerto Rico, not as exotic additions but as constitutive elements...

...While reggaeton exploded across Puerto Rico, the media, religious organizations, and cultural gatekeepers coalesced to contain and regulate it, producing a chain of events with unan­ticipated consequences...

...She teaches Latino and Caribbean literatures and cultures at Columbia University...

...T he popularity of reggaeton at home was vital to the genre’s new status as a national music...

...I t is a great irony that the road to reggaeton glory was paved with the best inten­ tions of the genre’s very detractors...

...While the island is poorer than all the states in the union, by using an independent production model inspired by U.S...

...As a pioneer, I think I can talk about that, about how the gov­ernment tried to stop us, about how people from other so­cial extractions . . . looked down on young people from the barrios, underestimating and seeing us as outcasts...

...recording industry desperately looking for the next big thing to sell on the urban youth market...

...If much of Puerto Rican high culture is invested in distanc­ing Puerto Rico from the United States, reggaeton brings Puerto Rican culture closer to the U.S...

...Although Calle 13, like other reggaeton performers, typically comment on sexuality, gender relations, and the racism and violence of barrio life, Residente has fashioned himself as the nation’s digestive system, transforming the garbage of desire, poli­tics, and violence into a usable language to criticize the sta­tus quo.17 “It bores me to talk about the system,” he raps Angelo fAlcón NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 report: puerto rico in “Tributo a la policía,” a recent song protesting the shoot­ing of an unarmed civilian by a police officer...

...Five or seven years ago, such a statement would have been interpreted not only as an unfortunate mistake, but as a monumental insult to the dignity of the Puerto Ri­can people,” Ramos wrote...

...the Bambinos), the senator, sporting tasteful makeup and a sweet, matronly smile, was lightly swinging her hips and tilting her head from side to side to a raucous reggaeton beat...

...Hip-hop labels developed Latino imprints and signed the top talent...

...Flanked by reggae-ton stars Hector and Tito (a.k.a...

...cArolInA cAycedo NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: puerto rico dle class that responded to the new sound with its own brand of hostility...

...mainstream than ever by becoming a part of the “hip-hop nation...

...The entry of Calle 13 into the reggaeton pantheon also represented a significant change in other ways...

...10 Though Ramos is overstating the point that reggaeton has no enemies—as recently as August, a local TV per­sonality promised to explore how reggaeton is “fueling the country’s current wave of criminality”—he calls at­tention to the genre’s trajectory from a feared and mar­ginalized genre rising out of Puerto Rico’s poorest neigh­borhoods to the island’s primary musical export.11 How could such a dramatic change happen so quickly...

...Al­though the avowed objective of state censorship was to stop the music, the result was radio-friendly lyrics that now reached and appealed not only to barrio kids but also to middle-class youth...

...Yet as im­ portant, if not more, was its validation by interna­tional music markets, including not only the United States venturA mendozA NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: puerto rico Reggaeton stresses the island-diaspora connection, integrating into the long-standing history of Puerto Ricans in hip-hop...

...Velda González gave us the best promo­tion, because she sparked the whole world’s curiosity...

...His populist lyrics—which reminded many of salsa’s El Sonero Mayor, Ismael Rivera—together with his innovative musical fusions, use of world-re­nowned musicians in live shows, and charismatic yet humble demeanor appealed to the old-school salsa lovers and the intellectual left.15 Fusing an experimental reggae-ton style strongly rooted in the working-class Caribbean aesthetics of classic salsa with a strong dose of hip-hop, Calderón’s innovation strategically reached back in time to working-class, Afro-diasporic musical roots...

...Seemingly coming out of no­where, the song and its phenomenal success attracted the attention of a sluggish U.S...

...hip-hop and based in the grassroots, reggaeton art­ists are not only global stars but also local entrepreneurs...

...Equally revealing, the political economy of reggaeton exposes the blurriness of elite and other spheres of power...

...How down version of hip-hop and reggae, the death sentence of salsa, and a music foreign to Puerto Rico.7 In the exemplary words of the late poet Edwin Reyes, the genre is a “primitive form of musical expression” that transmits “the most el­ementary forms of emotion” through its “brutal­izing and aggressive monotony...

...With Calderón’s successful debut, it started to dawn on some of reggaeton’s critics that the problem might not be the genre itself, but the underground, amateurish way it had thus far been produced...

...NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 report : puerto rico Reggaeton Nation El perreo, reggaeton’s signature dance, was described by one politician as a “triggering factor for criminal acts...

...From 2002 to 2003 alone, sales increased exponentially, with new reggaeton releases selling be­tween 50,000 and 100,000 units a month, consistently accounting for about a third of the top 10 albums sold in Puerto Rico.14 By entering pop culture respect­ability, the genre became a vehicle to launch the careers of schooled artists with eclectic musical tastes...

...By Frances negrón-Muntaner and Raquel Z. Rivera I t was a stunning sight...

...Through expedient interventions into mainstream politics with hip-hop tracks like “Querido FBI” (2005), which denounced the killing of the militant independentista leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, Calle 13 redefined what a reggaeton vocalist’s relationship to Puerto Rico should be...

...When you prohibit something, that’s when a kid will most want to know about it...

...Of course, reggaeton’s growing sophistication does not mean that everyone in Puerto Rico accepts it...

...Associated with Puerto Rico’s poorest and blackest citizens, and their presumed disposition toward indiscrimi­nate sexual depravity and violence, reggaeton was targeted by the island government as a dan­gerous criminal...

...Reggaeton quickly became the norm at dance parties, discos, and other gatherings...

...But the efforts to censor reggaeton transformed it from marBut slowly throughout 2003, a campaign year, the body politic began to swing the other way...

...In rapper Eddie Dee’s pro-rap anthem “Censurarme por ser rapero” (To censor me for being a rapper) for ex­ample, he criticizes the moral corruption of the island’s elites by referring to the ex-secretary of education, Víctor Fajardo, who was convicted in 2002 of stealing federal funds, and to Edison Misla Aldarondo, a former speaker of the House of Representatives found guilty of extortion, money laundering, and attempted rape of a minor: To censor me for being a rapper Is like censoring a whole people I don’t care if you like me or not After all, my high school diploma Was signed by a man who was corrupt...

...A turning point in gaining critical spread drug violence...

...In contrast to the commercialized and sanitized rap en espa­ñol and salsa romántica that largely replaced the barrio-centric lyrics of salsa’s classic period, reggaeton spoke directly to the social conditions prevalent in the country: outrageous unemployment rates of up to 65% in some towns, failing schools, government corruption, and wide­ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 report: puerto rico Unsurprisingly, this had a major impact on sales, transforming reg­gaeton from a cottage industry, in which recordings were homemade and sold from people’s cars, to big-time releases by established record labels that sold in department stores...

...Major stars like Daddy Yankee were now not only making millions but also being hired for product endorsements, going on tours, and running clothing lines...

...16 Since reggaeton was here to stay, perhaps the answer was not to demean it but to nationalize it, that is, to nurture artists like Calderón who could be trusted to carry on the nation’s officially recog­nized musical traditions...

...Today the genre represents one of the most impressive stories of Puerto Rican economic and cultural success in the last decades—one that may also be particularly welcome at a time when many people in Puerto Rico have lost confidence in the government and are uncertain if the island will ever recover from its rampant corruption, incompetent leadership, and party factionalism...

...of Puerto Ricans in U.S...

...In becoming the island’s most important cultural export since Ricky Martin, reggaeton showcases how social groups writ­ten off by the state, educators, and the media have transformed a homegrown product from underground infamy to global popularity...

...If Puerto Ricans on the island pride themselves in being whiter and wealthier than all other Caribbean islanders, reggaeton insists that Puerto Ricans are as much a part of the Unit­ed States as they are of the Caribbean.18 If island-based Puerto Ricans have looked down on Nuyoricans and the rest of the diaspora as not-quite-Puerto Ricans, the reg­gaeton generation stresses the island-diaspora connection in order to integrate itself into the long-standing history when the killing of alleged drug dealer José “Coquito” López Rosario was for months top headline news in Puer­to Rico, largely because of his ties to both reggaeton art­ists and elected officials...

...Government officials tried to blame the music for many of the island’s problems...

...onstage in 2003 at San Juan’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium, five-time senator Velda González—former actress, grandmother of 11, and beloved public figure— was doing the unthinkable...

...Most of us are better people than them No rapper on this island Has been accused of crimes as dirty as Misla’s.13 Even more ironic, the state’s success in scaring reggae-ton producers into cleaning up their act backfired...

...It became common to see politicians besides Senator González on the campaign trail stiffly dancing reggaeton to show off their hipness and try to appeal to younger voters...

...Tropical” salsa sta­tions in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami quickly changed their format to accommodate reggaeton and other “hurban” (Hispanic urban) genres...

...Finally we have an important dilemma to fill the huge emotional vacuum that we are left with every four years by electoral vic­tories and plebiscitary failures...

...In capturing the imagination, it also tells us much about what kind of nation Puerto Ricans are imagining and inhabiting in the global era...

...Yet, as is also the case with the government’s operations, the lines between legality and illegality are extremely blurry...

...At the same time, reggaeton’s success story highlights Puerto Rico’s contradictory location in the global economy...

...In earlier years, to be­little reggaeton was to denigrate poor, black, ur­ban youth culture, an easy target...

...Reggaeton’s success has been such that it no longer has any enemies...

...Reggaeton’s story, then, holds the hope that even under dire conditions, the people of Puerto Rico can find creative ways to make a mark in the global economy...

...The anticipation that reggaeton could do for Latinos what hip-hop had done for African Americans prompted a wave of change throughout the industry...

...It’s only logical,” Ivy Queen, the genre’s lone female star, has said...

...But the reg­gaeton generation understood the music’s crude language, explicit sexuality, and gritty street commentary as no less obscene, violent, or morally suspect than Puerto Rico at large...

...2 Her efforts as reggaeton’s “horsewoman of the apoca­lypse” touched off such a media frenzy around perreo that Puerto Rican writer Ana Lydia Vega humorously noted the irony of transforming a mere dance into a national obsession.3 “To per-rear or not to perrear,” Vega wrote with char­acteristic flair...

...In 1995, the Vice Control Divi­sion of the Puerto Rican police, assisted by the National Guard, took the unprecedented ac­tion of confiscating tapes and CDs from music stores, maintaining that the music’s lyrics were obscene and promoted drug use and violence.9 The island’s Department of Education joined in and banned underground music and baggy clothes in an effort to remove the scourge of hip-hop culture from the schools...

...The ability of the island’s lower classes to see through upper-class hypocrisy further underscores the greater role of global markets in valuing the nation’s culture and how local consumers, audiences, and corporations have largely displaced the traditional local elites in shaping ideas about the nation...

...12 Once reggaeton burst out of the barrio, it became im­possible to repress for a second reason: It was “real...

...We have to be grateful for that...

...As journalist Laura Rivera Melé­ndez commented in a glowing review of a 2003 Calderón concert in Puerto Rico, which included the participation of musical heavyweights Roberto Roena and Tempo Alomar, “Any genre cultivated with musical care and a generous time investment can transcend prejudices and become the voice of various generations and social classes...

...It’s almost equivalent to being a bad Puerto Rican...

...did reggaeton become the dominant sound of the “national” soundtrack...

...The system bothers me like an enema/So I give the middle finger to the system/And I spit phlegm on the system...