Is reggaeton dying? Sound Taste, a blog by New York journalist Carolina Gonzalez, has this smart discussion about the debate on the "death" of reggaeton. It's that driving boompa! boompa! boompa! beat that is the soundtrack of the streets from Gotham to L.A., and that lots of people, many Latin-oriented thinkers included, love to hate:
While reggaetón is not my favorite genre -- I basically stick to Tego Calderón, Ivy Queen and Calle 13 (who cross genres) -- it's definitely a phenomenon, deeply rooted in 80s Spanish-language hip hop, dancehall and "la guagua aérea," back-and-forth movement between Borinquen and the mainland. And even if it drops off the mainstream's radar, it will go on.
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Over Memorial Day weekend, had a discussion with my friend Mare about this. She made the excellent observation that reggaetón is, at heart (at least so far), dance music, and that dance music is always accused of being repetitive, uncreative. She's right. This happened to disco, to house. Heck, I know folks who say that about merengue, because to their ears, the rhythm sounds always the same. And the fact that these genres come out of and are patronized by, primarily brown and black people, gives these dismissive pronouncements a racist tinge.
It should be old news. Every generation or so a hybrid urban sound emerges in America and leaves a stamp on the culture, drawing a necessary backlash from those made uncomfortable by the new and confrontational. As Sound Taste notes, it's hard not to feel like reggaeton gets such a bad wrap because it's basically music for young inner-city immigrants. And particularly in L.A., for young Central Americans.
Could that change? VivirLatino points out a website that has an original and catchy reggaeton jam praising Barack Obama. ¿Como se dice? ¿Como se llama? Obama! Obama! the tune goes. We did the marchas, y ahorra vamos a votar! Yup, the power of the beat is irrefutable. Witness the clever Spanglishized wordplay of Calle 13, and never again say that reggaeton cannot be witty, subversive, elastic, and fun:
Sorta makes you just want to go somewhere and make figure-8's with your hips, right? * Pictured above, Daddy Yankee.