Reggaeton

Published by Duke University Press 2009

Reggaeton

Edited by: Raquel Z. Rivera , Wayne Marshall , Deborah Pacini Hernandez , Ronald Radano and Josh Kun
With contributions by: Juan Flores

In the series Refiguring American Music

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822392323

Overview
Contents

About this book

This collection offers the first critical assessment of the music and culture of reggaeton, a popular genre that blends reggae and rap, Spanish-language lyrics, and Latin-Caribbean aesthetics.

Author / Editor information

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.

Reviews

“Reggaeton is a truly important contribution to our understanding of the most pervasive and perhaps most misunderstood Latin musical genre at the turn of the 21st century. The blend of academic and journalistic writings with artistic statements, interviews and visual art offers the reader an extraordinary window into the complex landscape of reggaeton. . . . Raquel Z. Rivera, Wayne Marshall, and Deborah Pacini Hernadez have established the foundation for the rich and productive academic conversation that the genre will still generate.” - Alejandro L. Madrid, Dancecult

“This collection of essays is the first attempt to critically engage with the phenomenon, and wisely hedges its bets with a broad collection of writings—earnest academic appraisals are effectively offset by punchy location reportage from Latin America, Q&As with major protagonists and landmark magazine pieces from the music’s early days. . . . [A] largely informative and sometimes exhilarating survey of a multinational phenomenon.”
- Derek Walmsley, The Wire

“Reggaeton is an excellent collection which itself occasions many surprises. Overall the book is structured in much the same way as its subject (reggaeton), as a series of overlapping, interconnected and often contradictory layers. . . . This book is a tour de force of criticism and analysis which is relevant not only to the study of reggaeton but to the study of popular music in general.” - Cameron White, Transforming Cultures

“The admirable book Reggaeton . . . invites us to carefully ‘read’ this extraordinary musical and social phenomenon of our times. . . . The authors in this volume extensively document the crossing of geographic, racial, ethnic and linguistic borders. . . . As the essays in this book skillfully demonstrate, the ‘reggaeton nation’ constantly moves between numerous countries and cities, between Spanish and English, between Caribbean and African American rhythms.” (Translated from the Spanish) - Jorge Duany, El Nuevo Día

“I cannot overstate how critically important this volume is. It captures the synergies of a musical and cultural movement that few have seriously grappled with, even as the sounds and styles of reggaeton have dominated the air space of so many urban locales.”—Mark Anthony Neal, author of Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic

“It’s about time academia dared to include reggaeton. This might mean that we’re finally understanding that all of us are los de atrás (the ones behind): our country, Puerto Rico, and the whole Caribbean. I hope people support this book so it can be translated into Spanish, and kids in Puerto Rico and Latin America can read it. Because we Caribbean people, even if we don’t want to, even if we don’t like it, even if it hurts, we come from behind . . . and there’s a value to that. There’s a beauty to being los de atrás.”—Residente, frontman of the Grammy and Latin Grammy award-winning duo Calle 13

“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

“This anthology opens a chapter in hip-hop history that brings it all back home, back to our transnational Afro-Spanish-speaking countries and diasporas and ’hoods where young people are going through their hip-hop ecstasies and traumas, but in their own language, and in their own unique and hitherto-unknown style.”—Juan Flores, author of From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity, from the foreword to Reggaeton

“Reggaeton is a truly important contribution to our understanding of the most pervasive and perhaps most misunderstood Latin musical genre at the turn of the 21st century. The blend of academic and journalistic writings with artistic statements, interviews and visual art offers the reader an extraordinary window into the complex landscape of reggaeton. . . . Raquel Z. Rivera, Wayne Marshall, and Deborah Pacini Hernadez have established the foundation for the rich and productive academic conversation that the genre will still generate.”

-- Alejandro L. Madrid Dancecult

“Reggaeton is an excellent collection which itself occasions many surprises. Overall the book is structured in much the same way as its subject (reggaeton), as a series of overlapping, interconnected and often contradictory layers. . . . This book is a tour de force of criticism and analysis which is relevant not only to the study of reggaeton but to the study of popular music in general.”

-- Cameron White Transforming Cultures

“The admirable book Reggaeton . . . invites us to carefully ‘read’ this extraordinary musical and social phenomenon of our times. . . . The authors in this volume extensively document the crossing of geographic, racial, ethnic and linguistic borders. . . . As the essays in this book skillfully demonstrate, the ‘reggaeton nation’ constantly moves between numerous countries and cities, between Spanish and English, between Caribbean and African American rhythms.” (Translated from the Spanish)

-- Jorge Duany El Nuevo Día

“This collection of essays is the first attempt to critically engage with the phenomenon, and wisely hedges its bets with a broad collection of writings—earnest academic appraisals are effectively offset by punchy location reportage from Latin America, Q&As with major protagonists and landmark magazine pieces from the music’s early days. . . . [A] largely informative and sometimes exhilarating survey of a multinational phenomenon.”

-- Derek Walmsley The Wire

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword: What’s All the Noise About? Juan Flores Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction: Reggaeton’s Socio-Sonic Circuitry Wayne Marshall, Raquel Z. Rivera and Deborah Pacini Hernandez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Mapping Reggaeton
From Música Negra to Reggaeton Latino: The Cultural Politics of Nation, Migration, and Commercialization Wayne Marshall Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Part II. The Panamanian Connection
Placing Panama in the Reggaeton Narrative: Editor’s Notes Wayne Marshall Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
Reggae in Panama: Bien Tough Christoph Twickel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
The Panamanian Origins of Reggae en Español: Seeing History through ‘‘Los Ojos Café’’ of Renato Ifeoma C. K. Nwankwo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
Muévelo (Move It!): From Panama to New York and Back Again, the Story of El General Christoph Twickel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
Part III. (Trans)Local Studies and Ethnographies
Policing Morality, Mano Dura Stylee: The Case of Underground Rap and Reggae in Puerto Rico in the Mid-1990s Raquel Z. Rivera Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
Dominicans in the Mix: Reflections on Dominican Identity, Race, and Reggaeton Deborah Pacini Hernandez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
The Politics of Dancing: Reggaetón and Rap in Havana, Cuba Geoff Baker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
You Got Your Reggaetón in my Hip-Hop: Crunkiao and ‘‘Spanish Music’’ in the Miami Urban Scene Jose Davila Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	200
Part IV. Visualizing Reggaeton
Visualizing Reggaeton: Editors’ Notes Wayne Marshall and Raquel Z. Rivera Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Images Miguel Luciano Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	218
Images Carolina Caycedo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Images Kacho López Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	222
Part V. Gendering Reggaeton
(W)rapped in Foil: Glory at Twelve Words a Minute Félix Jiménez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
A Man Lives Here: Reggaeton’s Hypermasculine Resident Alfredo Nieves Moreno Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	252
How to Make Love with Your Clothes On: Dancing Regeton, Gender, and Sexuality in Cuba Jan Fairley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	280
Part VI. Reggaeton’s Poetics, Politics, and Aesthetics
Chamaco’s Corner José Raúl González Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297
Salon Philosophers: Ivy Queen and Surprise Guests Take Reggaetón Aside Alexandra T. Vazquez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	300
From Hip-Hop to Reggaeton: Is There Only a Step? Welmo E. Romero Joseph Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	312
Black Pride Tego Calderón Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	324
Poetry of Filth: The (Post) Reggaetonic Lyrics of Calle Frances Negrón-Muntaner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327
Bibliography: Selected Sources for Reading Reggaeton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	341
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	345
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	349

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 392
Illustrations
- Other: 36 illustrations

eBook

Published: April 24, 2009
ISBN: 9780822392323