reggaetonica

On 'Sonic Affinities and Reggaeton Nationalism'

2011-12-14T17:02:00.000-08:00

Marisol LeBrón's essay "'Con un Flow Natural': Sonic Affinities and Reggaeton Nationalism" was just published in the latest issue of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory. I saw her present an earlier version at EMP and she is definitely expanding Reggaeton Studies into exciting and critical directions!

Here's the article's abstract:

Reggaeton's success in the international music scene has incited heated debates about the genre's genealogy. The dominant framework for discussing reggaeton's origin often relies on and reifies nation-based claims to the genre, overlooking how reggaeton resists being fixed to any single locale. In this paper I discuss the emergence of the reggaeton subgenre bhangraton (a mix of bhangra pop and reggaeton) and point to some of the ways that it challenged nationalist claims to reggaeton. Reggaetonera and Hindi-vocalist Deevani [pictured below], in particular, complicates claims about racial, ethnic, and sonic purity that circulate within reggaeton by highlighting how race, gender, and affinity are performed and felt and by calling attention to the genre's multiple circuits outside the nation.

Os circuitos sócio-sônicos do reggaeton

2011-10-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

The introductory chapter to our anthology Reggaeton is now available in Portuguese (as well as Spanish). Titled "Os circuitos sócio-sônicos do reggaeton," it is part of the book Nas bordas e fora do mainstream musical: Novas tendências da música independente no início do século XXI edited by Micael Herschmann and just published in Brazil.

It's fascinating to watch our Reggaeton Intro develop a socio-sonic circuitry of its own!

Perreo & Power: Explicit Sexuality in Reggaeton Dance

2011-10-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to keep working on this paper titled "Perreo & Power: Explicit Sexuality in Reggaeton Dance". But I still haven't. And, given all my other commitments, it doesn't look like I'll get back to it any time soon. So I've decided to make it available as a working paper. Hopefully, it will serve as a resource for other folk's work. I'm extremely interested in the topic, so if you or anyone else is tackling the subject, please leave a comment or email me.

Click here to view or download the PDF.

* Image above is a still from the DVD Gran Perretón by Carolina Caycedo.

Is Reggaeton Dead? / ¿Muere el reguetón?

2011-10-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in a 2009 post, folks have been pronouncing reggaeton dead, since before it was even called reggaeton. Here they go again, in today's Nuevo Día newspaper from Puerto Rico.

I've pasted the text below, since these articles tend to get locked away after a few days. What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

* * *

02 Octubre 2011

¿Muere el reguetón?
Expertos de la industria musical analizan la perdurabilidad, el impacto y la transformación del género

Por Marcos Billy Guzmán / Especial El Nuevo Día

Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Tito “El Bambino”, Wisin y Yandel. Sus nombres son sinónimo de reguetón, un género que nació exponiendo la realidad de la calle con letras explícitas para luego entrar a la radio con lenguaje modificado y de ahí internacionalizarse ante las críticas de quienes dudaban de su potencial para trascender generaciones.

Tras poco más de dos décadas de su aparición, la interrogante de su perdurabilidad sigue en el tintero para algunos expertos de la industria musical. Empero, sus intérpretes lo tienen claro: “Somos los líderes. Este género sigue creciendo y estamos número uno”, repite dondequiera que va el dúo Wisin y Yandel, conocido como “Los Vaqueros”.

Aún así, el género que llegó a encumbrarse desplazando al pop en ventas de discos ya no parece tan omnipresente como cinco o seis años atrás. Para Hermán Dávila, vicepresidente de programación de la radioemisora La X, la contestación es simple: “El reguetón no está en la cima ahora mismo”. ¿Su sustituto? “El pop, con los Camila y Ricky Martin de la vida”.

Xavier Acevedo, director de programación de Toca de To’, coincide en que el cambio viene notándose hace año y medio. “Ahora”, comenta, “está bien marcada la música americana y el reguetón clásico no está entrando a las emisoras... Tiene 4 de 10 en términos de popularidad radial”.

Ese desplazamiento no solo es percibido en la radio. Aunque acentuando la crisis que amenaza con extinguir la industria discográfica, Ian Fraticelli, gerente de compra de la Distribuidora Nacional de Discos, informa que “hubo un momento, como hace 8 a 10 años, en que los reguetoneros vendían más que el pop... Pero ya no”.

Como reflejo de lo que se escucha en la radio, Fraticelli dice que las nuevas producciones de Ricky Martin, Shakira, Chayanne y Marc Anthony figuraron por mucho tiempo como las más vendidas.

Ese golpe que ha recibido el reguetón, según él, responde a que “es el género más afectado por la piratería, sobre todo en los pulgueros”.

Más allá de la piratería, Acevedo cree que este declive se debe a que “el reguetón llegó a estar en la cúspide, obtuvo demasiada exposición y se quemó”.

En esa línea, Herman Dávila compara esto al “gran apagón” del merengue, “que estuvo bien fuerte, todo el mundo se puso a trabajarlo y surgieron muchas bandas”. Por eso “el mercado se saturó, empezaron a surgir discos no tan cuidados y la gente se cansó, porque todo se parecía”.

Nace “otro” género

Por dichos factores, Xavier Acevedo observa que los reguetoneros “tuvieron que cambiar su imagen”, una que Hermán Dávila entiende que utilizaron para “buscar alternativas de crecimiento fusionando otros géneros como la bachata y el hip-hop”. De ahí, coinciden, el género se abrió a una evolución que lo transformó en otra cosa.

Uka Green, directora de medios de Universal Music en Puerto Rico, abunda en ese sentido que “ya los artistas no se encajonan en un género ante un mercado tan globalizado”. A juicio suyo, esta fórmula “ha traído mayor calidad y triunfo” al género urbano.

El éxito que tuvieron Don Omar y el portugués Lucenzo con ‘Danza Kuduro’, que por meses se mantuvo en los primeros lugares del “Latin Chart” de Billboard, sustentaría ese punto.

Otro que admite haberse acogido a esta fórmula es el intérprete Tito “El Bambino”, quien advierte que “los artistas que se queden en el reguetón clásico no alcanzarán lo que logramos los que hemos experimentado con otros ritmos”.

El planteamiento de Tito “ El Bambino” abre paso a una nueva interrogante: ¿desaparecerá esa llamada versión “clásica” entre tantas fusiones?

Aún convoca

A pesar de los señalamientos sobre la caída del llamado reguetón clásico, Hermán Dávila aclara que los intérpretes del género “siguen teniendo muy buen poder de convocatoria”. Advierte que no hay fiesta de Justas Interuniversitarias sin ellos.

En eso hace eco Fernan Colón, productor del Festival Playero Los Tubos de Manatí, quien destaca que 25 mil de los 60 mil espectadores que asistieron hace dos años al evento fueron a ver presentaciones de reguetón.

Si lo anterior contrasta con el panorama visto en la radio y las tiendas de discos, la disyuntiva es más evidente a nivel de “la calle”.

“En la calle todavía se escucha un montón”, expresa el cantante Divino. “Y no sólo en los caseríos. Ese ‘dembow’ suena mucho en discotecas, en los carros, en quinceañeros y fiestas patronales... En Suramérica y Centroamérica ni hay que hacer promoción de radio”.

No hay vuelta atrás

Mientras algunos plantean que el reguetón se sostendrá, otros plantean que su futuro está en evolución.

“No morirá porque sigue en la calle y siempre tendrá sus exponentes”, indica Xavier Acevedo que, sin embargo, aclara que como género “no vuelve a pegarse, pues esa etapa ya pasó y hay otras cosas que se están haciendo. Si vuelven al mismo sonido, suena viejo”.

A juicio de los entendidos, la transformación constante del género es clave para que se mantenga vigente.

“Perdurará si sigue evolucionando musicalmente y mezclándose, porque su futuro es hacer discos de distintas bases de reguetón con otros sonidos”, asegura Tito “El Bambino”.

“Al género urbano le falta muchísimo (por lograr) y seguirá evolucionando sin vuelta atrás”, sostiene Tuti Bou, vicepresidenta de Sony Music en Puerto Rico, quien le anticipa muchos años más de existencia al reguetón, sobre todo por el éxito de “artistas en desarrollo”.

La publicista Uka Green coincide: “siempre hay espacio para nuevas figuras”, pero “esas figuras tienen que llegar con propuestas diferentes”.

Dembow Quisqueyano

2011-01-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

* Una serie de articulos recientes sobre la fiebre del dembow en Quisqueya publicada en el periodico El Caribe por Jose Nova y Rossy Diaz. [Nota adicional, 6-22-11: El primer enlace, desafortunadamente, ya no funciona. Pero uno de los artículos está disponible en el blog de una de las escritoras, Rossy Díaz.]

* And my dear compi & co-editor Wayne Marshall blogs on the subject in his recent post "Dembow Criollo."

Los circuitos socio-sónicos del reggaetón

2010-12-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

¡Por fin! TRANS: Revista Transcultural de Música acaba de publicar el artículo "Los circuitos socio-sónicos del reggaetón" que co-escribí con Wayne Marshall y Deborah Pacini Hernandez. Es la traducción de nuestra introducción a la antología Reggaeton que editamos juntos.

Estamos felices que por fin este artículo está disponible para lectores de habla hispana.

Clips from Rap Sessions

2010-11-11T05:41:00.000-08:00

I found a few clips from our Rap Sessions tour of years past!

How does reggaeton fit into a larger discussion of race and hip hop?

On masculinity and hip-hop:

On discussing sexism and patriarchy in the classroom:

My CD release party: 9-10 NYC

2010-08-20T05:56:00.000-07:00

My CD is not reggaeton or hip-hop, but it's urban in a roots kind of way. Check it.

My Las 7 salves de La Magdalena / 7 Songs of Praise for The Magdalene CD release party will be September 10, 7pm, at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery (2nd Avenue and 10th St.).

There is no cover charge.

We'll have live music by Raquel Z. Rivera & Ojos de Sofia, feat. Bryan Vargas, Catarina Dos Santos, Desmar Guevara, Juan Gutierrez, Obanilu Ire Allende, Manuela Arciniegas...

It will also feature an art exhibit by Tanya Torres. Our joint CD release and art exhibit is titled Song of The Magdalene. It will be a playful and heartfelt celebration of the myth Tanya & I have named "Our Lady of Lexington".

The music is streaming here: www.ojosdesofia.com

Reggaeton Review in Dancecult Journal

2010-07-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

Check the review of Reggaeton (2009), the book I co-edited, in Dancecult: Journal of Eletronic Dance Music. Thanks to Alejandro Madrid for the thorough and glowing review!

Lamentan que reguetón sustituyera a la bomba y la plena en la apertura de los Juegos

2010-07-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

Aquí el texto del artículo publicado ayer en www.meta.pr.

Inter News Service
Martes, 20 Julio 2010

El fundador del grupo Tepeu, Enrique Ríos Cortés, lamentó hoy que se sustituyeran los ritmos de bomba y plena por el reguetón en la apertura de los XXI Juegos Centroamericanos y del Caribe Mayagüez 2010.

“¿Dónde quedaron los hermosos y típicos ritmos de bomba y plena -con sus respectivos instrumentos y vestuarios- que tanto representan al pueblo puertorriqueño?”, cuestionó Ríos Cortés, en declaraciones escritas.

Agregó que “la desacertada decisión de poner al reguetón como música representativa creo que fue un acto de falta de respeto a los verdaderos músicos que mantienen la música autóctona con vida en la Isla”.

El fundador de la agrupación Tepeu expresó su tristeza porque Centroamérica y el Caribe no disfrutaran de nuestros bailes típicos, con impresionantes vestuarios y llamativos vejigantes.

Destacó, además, que no culpa a los exponentes del reguetón, sino a los organizadores del evento.

Por otro lado, el artista hizo una observación al Comité Organizador de Mayagüez 2010 por una aparente confusión en los arreglos musicales.

“No sé quién hizo los arreglos de la música cuando desfilaban los países, pero fue una falta de respeto a varios países. En lugar de tocar algo de la música de su país, tocaban repetidamente dos melodías: una de Perú y una de Argentina, que por cierto, esos países no participan de los XXI Juegos Centroamericanos y del Caribe”, criticó Enrique Ríos Cortés.

San Juditas Reggaetónico

2010-06-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

My co-editor and compi Wayne, just told me about the mini-documentary titled San Juditas... Power!.

I'm fascinated by this connection between religion, social class and pop/urban culture in Mexico City. Some find the connection disturbing: "He visto a muchos jóvenes en las calles cargando su 'santito' y presumiendo que son muy devotos a este... pero en realidad... ¿Lo serán? He platicado con algunos de este grupo, y lo único que me dicen es que el santito es muy milagroso y que los ayuda. Yo soy ateo, pero en verdad me da coraje es que la gente lucre con este tipo de personas de muy poco criterio, que lo único que hacen con su vida es perrear, drogarse con lo mas corriente, insultar a las mujeres, robar y otras cosas que demuestran que no tienen cultura, su mala educación y sus nulos valores sociales."

The blog I Know Huh? takes a more nuanced approach and is quite perceptive in its observations : "The anti-reggaeton sentiment, I think, is more classist than anything. The reggaetoneros are viewed as thugs and neardowells, when in fact, most are just young kids among the desperate and needy whom San Judas is supposed to protect. Albeit with airbrushed and rhinestone caps."

In the last few years I've developed a taste and curiosity for religious visual imagery. So I can't resist ending on this note:

San Judas Tadeo.

San Yandel Tadeo?

My interview on hiphopmacedonia.com

2010-05-02T13:23:00.000-07:00

Check my interview on www.hiphopmacedonia.com in English or Macedonian. I got a kick out of so many things about this interview. Here's a few: 1. The fact that they reached out to me in the first place. 2. The questions they asked and what those questions reveal about the way that African Americans and Latinos are perceived on the other side of the globe. 3. The quote that they picked as the subtitle: "Hip hop is not dead until the last person calling him or herself a hip-hopper is dead" or "Хип Хопот е жив се додека не умре последниот хипхопер".

Reguetón en Ñ

2010-04-06T04:31:00.000-07:00

Pulse aquí para leer el artículo sobre reguetón que publicó el pasado viernes 2 de abril la Revista Ñ del periódico argentino Clarín. El artículo cita nuestra antología Reggaeton y se vale de la familiaridad con la "cumbia villera" que tiene el público argentino para explicar los origenes de clase del reguetón.

Liberation Mythologies: Art, Spirit & Justice

2010-03-22T05:00:00.001-07:00

What follows is the paper I presented on 3-19 at Duke University's symposium Dislocated Performances: Reimagining Latino Hip-Hop in the 21st Century.

Liberation Mythologies:
Art, Spirit and Justice

Abstract: “Liberation Mythologies” is my working term to explore the intersections between Latino hip-hop (and reggaeton) artistic practice, spiritual belief and grassroots activism. Taking my cue from Robin D.G. Kelley, I focus on the “dreams of freedom” at the root of myth-making. And taking another cue from Joseph Campbell and Robert Segal, I look at myths not as stories or beliefs that are (necessarily) untrue but as tropes that poetically attempt to explain or get us closer to the unexplainable, and most importantly, as tropes that give individuals and communities the strength to keep crafting and pursuing their dreams of freedom. I will focus on one example: the integration into hip-hop and reggaeton of Afro-Caribbean roots music and spiritual practices.

The moment I received the invitation to this symposium and read the description, I was happy for many reasons. The most obvious, of course, is the amazing folks that I get to share the mic with. Another of those reasons is that the invitation presented a great opportunity to talk about my most recent work on what I am tentatively calling “liberation mythologies”.

Until recently, my work on hip-hop and reggaeton had been primarily concerned with exploring the porous boundaries between blackness and latinidad, as well as connecting those porous border zones with social justice activism. Those topics are still of great interest to me, but I have become increasingly engaged in looking at the spiritual dimension of political action—and most specifically in looking at the use of spirit-based myth-making as a component of political action. I focus on Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices like espiritismo, santería, voudoun and palo; but keep in mind that with this idea of “liberation mythologies” I’m trying to develop a way to understand any other spiritual or religious practice that is invested in social justice activism.

I will begin by explaining how I started developing my thoughts around “liberation mythologies” as I was writing not about hip-hop or reggaeton but about Caribbean roots music like Puerto Rican bomba, Dominican palos and Haitian-Dominican rara or gagá. Supposedly, I was taking a breather from focusing on heavily commercialized genres like hip-hop and reggaeton. But, ironically, writing about spirituality, myth-making and activism in Caribbean roots music, I wound up having to talk about hip-hop and reggaeton anyway. Why? Because the dominant sounds in the contemporary social justice movement soundtrack tend to be at opposite ends of the traditional/contemporary music spectrum, particularly for the younger generations of activists. So at rallies, fundraisers, workshops and cultural events organized by folks in this social justice network there tends to be a lot of roots music on the one hand, and hip-hop on the other. Another reason why I couldn’t escape writing about hip-hop and reggaeton, even in this newer work focused on roots music, is all the collaborations and fusions happening, as this next example shows.

It’s a collaboration of the reggaeton/hip-hop group Del Patio with roots music group Ilú Ayé. I don’t know that Del Patio is involved in the social justice movement, but Ilú Ayé definitely is. The song has many references to Dominican religious practices such as the palos music that precedes the recognizably reggaeton-ey part of the song, and also it mentions specific loas or deities of the Afro-Dominican santería pantheon.

About a year ago, as I was writing a paper on Puerto Rican bomba and Dominican palos musicians in New York City, I kept noticing at least three powerful characters or references that kept popping up in the music: maroons or cimarrones who escaped slavery, the so-called kongos of Central Africa who have a reputation for rebelliousness in Afro-Caribbean lore, and references to Haiti and Haitians. All of these are tropes that point to a centuries long history of resistance and liberation struggles in the Caribbean. I was writing about bomba and palos, but some of these same tropes show up in hip-hop and reggaeton as well. One example is Sietenueve’s song “Cimarrón”, which is another good example of the incorporation of roots music into hip-hop since it starts with batá drums:

Here is an excerpt and translation of the lyrics:

Me hice libre por la fuerza / sin el miedo del cañon / como un salvaje en el monte siguiendo a mi corazón / por mi raza por mi sangre por la fe de mi tambor / con una marca en la espalda reflejo de mi color / yo me llamo Libertad, mi apellido es Cimarrón / y es que tengo a mis ancestors dándome direcciones, limpiándome los caminos, aguantando los azotes

I became free by force / without fearing the cannon / wild in the woods, following my heart […] my name is Freedom, my last name is Maroon / my ancestors are giving me directions, clearing the roads for me, putting up with the lash of the whip

This is a great example of how the maroon is invoked as a heroic figure from the past that is connected by ancestry to artists of the present.* Something very similar happens with the tropes of the kongos and Haitians. They symbolize struggle and freedom and are the “ancestors” clearing the path for those fighting for justice in the present.

Sietenueve’s “Cimarrón” track is part of the recent Puerto Rican Freedom Album, a 2 CD compilation that aims to raise funds for the Puerto Rican political prisoners presently in US jails. A great number of the tracks on the Freedom Album are either hip-hop or roots music (bomba, guaguancó, palo, batá) and they provide great examples of these symbols or tropes of liberation that I have referred to. There are three songs in that album that just by looking at the titles one can tell that they are heavily invested in the kongo theme: Alma Moyó’s “Antonio Kongo”, Angel Rodríguez’s “Kongo Bendito” and Ilú Ayé’s “Meta pa Siete Rayos – Tiñosa”.

So as I was looking into the presence of these tropes of the maroon, the kongo and Haiti in roots music and also in hip-hop and reggaeton, I kept thinking about how these tropes are intricately connected, and how they share many basic assumptions and impulses. There was a larger picture that I was trying to understand.

Putting a slight spin on “liberation theology,” I started thinking about “liberation mythology” as a potential guiding concept.** Taking my cue from the work on mythologies of Joseph Campbell (1991) and Robert Segal (2004), I look at myths not as stories or beliefs that are (necessarily) untrue but as tropes that poetically attempt to explain or get us closer to the unexplainable. The myth may or may not be true; my aim is not to determine if it is or if it isn’t true, but to explore the “dreams of freedom” at the root of myth-making. I am interested in these myths as strategic tools deployed by musicians & activists to give individuals and communities the strength to keep crafting and pursuing their dreams of freedom. According to the way I’m developing the concept, what makes “liberation myths” different from just plain “myths” is that their purpose is to describe and understand the world but more importantly to change it—change, in turn, is defined in terms of personal and collective liberation from oppression, injustice, sadness and/or fear. In other words, the goal of this myth-making is redemption—individual and collective. This concept of “liberation myths” is quite similar to Robin D.G. Kelley’s (2002) notion of “freedom dreams” and the black radical imagination but one key distinction is that I focus on spirituality and religiosity in the process of freedom dreaming or myth-making so that the “mythology” part in “liberation mythology” serves a similar purpose as “theology” in “liberation theology.”***

Now, if we were to take literally these claims of collective kongo, maroon or Haitian heritage, we would have to take them to task for being distortions of history. Obviously not all of us have kongo, maroon or Haitian heritage. Furthermore, as Kristina Wirtz (2007) has pointed out, the reconstruction of "roots" in Afro-diasporic music is often closer to a "divination of the past"—more a poetic than a historical interpretation.

Lets take as an example the way a young New York-based Dominican bomba drummer, activist and educator argues that the Haitian “roots” of bomba serve as a bridge between Puerto Ricans and Dominicans.

"My spirit called me to bomba, early. I had access to [Dominican] palos and I loved it, but then something happened with bomba where it was a new beginning. I always felt like it was mine and it’s strange cause I’m Dominican. But its like my spirit is like “no, this is a big part of who you are.” So when I started hearing about the Haitian roots [of bomba] I got really excited. I’m like “oh, the point of connection was like three generations ago with my Haitian ancestors and your Haitian ancestors and they’re on both islands!” Lets celebrate that. It’s important to get rooted in those spaces where the cultures overlap, the times overlap, descendancies overlap."

Notice the reference to “ancestors” and “roots”. Notice also the invocation of ancestry as a way to bridge the gap between Dominicans and Puerto Ricans through “our” common Haitian roots—a “myth” with the liberatory political purpose of building a sense of unity among Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Haitians.

Here is where Kelley’s ideas in Freedom Dreams are crucial. Kelley’s recollections of being a “junior Afrocentrist” as an undergraduate, provide much insight into the issues at stake in weaving “liberation mythologies” or, in his words, “freedom dreams” that are invested in looking backward into history to claim something necessary in order to go forward.

"We looked back in search of a better future. We wanted to find a refuge where ‘black people’ exercised power, possessed essential knowledge, educated the West, built monuments, slept under the stars on the banks of the Nile, and never had to worry about the police or poverty or arrogant white people questioning our intelligence. Of course, this meant conveniently ignoring slave labor, class hierarchies, and women’s oppression, and it meant projecting backwards in time a twentieth-century conception of race, but to simply criticize us for myth making or essentialism misses the point of our reading. We dreamed the ancient world as a place of freedom, a picture to imagine what we desired and what was possible." (29)

Kelley’s work shed a lot of light on my own mixed feelings regarding these liberation mythologies. On the one hand, I was (and I am) inspired by their beauty and power. On the other hand, I can’t help but be turned off by the idealization of the past and the essentialized assumptions about who our ancestors are. But through Kelley’s work I have been better able to understand the beauty and potential of liberation mythologies.

I am still wary of their reductiveness and essentialisms, though. But is it possible to celebrate the sacredness and power of these liberation mythologies, without necessarily taking them literally? Can we spread, for example, the myth of the shared Haitian roots of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans without literally believing that we all share Haitian ancestry? I think so.

Ivor Miller's work on "spiritual ethnicity" (2004) explores the poetic/mythical dimension of what is often also an obsessive and literalist "summoning of the past" (Verges 2003). Miller writes:

"Although creolization is often used to describe the creation of something new, implying the loss of ties to an original homeland, in fact African-derived ritual traditions have maintained a centeredness in mythical Africa. That is, in spite of enrichment through cultural contact, many African-derived practices have maintained their conceptual rootedness in African spirituality.[…] African-derived identities in the Americas flourish because of—not in spite of—their origins in mythic history.” (202)

The pull of those beliefs is not just due to the strength of inherited cultural traditions. Oftentimes it is political beliefs and activism that leads people to “reclaim” African-derived spiritual traditions they may not have grown up with or paid much attention to when they were growing up—the case for many of the young musicians I focus on. According to Miller:

"In a context in which African histories and philosophies rarely form part of educational curricula, participating in African-derived religions is a method of maintaining historical counternarratives in which the present generation has direct links to an African past.[…] Since epics of the descendants of Africans have not been included in official histories, many historical narratives are maintained within families and ritual lineages. Conserving cultural inheritance is a form of historical survival.” (Miller 2004, 215)

It is of great importance to acknowledge the spiritual or, to quote Robin D.G. Kelley (2002), the “surreal” elements in these liberation mythologies. Past and present are not altogether separate realms: such a presupposition makes no sense in a context of Afrodiasporic beliefs and practices where the living have just as much impact on our present lives as the dead. The heroes and heroines of the Haitian revolution and the maroons who escaped plantation economies to establish manieles and palenques are not just protagonists of myths. They are believed to be powerful ancestors whose help is indispensable to heal, subvert modern-day injustices and escape modern-day captivity.

So, considering the lofty and powerful impulses holding up these "liberation mythologies", I'm more inclined to explore the "freedom dreams" that feed these mythologies and the liberatory practices inspired by these mythologies rather than stay stuck on arguments regarding literalist vs. poetic interpretations of mythical truth.

* Two more examples of the cimarrón trope: (1) hip-hop/ reggaeton artist La Sista’s song “Anacaona” who rhymes "Aquí está tu cimarrona / versión africana, yo soy tu Anacaona" (2) bomba group Bataklán’s “El cimarrón”: "Ahora sí, trabaja no / A fuerza yo no trabaja / Yo me va de cimarrón." Bataklán has a strong hip-hop/reggaeton connection, most notably through their collaborations with Tego Calderón and the fact that one of Bataklán’s lead singers is reggaeton artist Abrante.

** Though both “liberation theology” and “liberation mythology” are concerned with the connections between spirituality and social justice, the history of “liberation theology” as a concept is so firmly grounded in Christian traditions that (though in theory what I’m talking about is a type of liberation theology) in practice for me to use “liberation theology” would create more confusion.

*** Kelley has one chapter called “Keeping It Surreal” that deals with the surreal or mythological aspects of freedom dreaming, but his book doesn’t just focus on the surreal.

Reimagining Latino Hip-Hop in the 21st Century

2010-03-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'll be speaking at the Dislocated Performances: Reimagining Latino Hip-Hop in the 21st Century symposium at Duke University organized by the Program for Latino/a Studies in the Global South. I'm looking forward to listening and dialoging with my amazing co-presenters!

Dislocated Performances:
Reimagining Latino Hip-Hop in the 21st Century
March 19, 2010
East Campus Union, Upper East Side
Duke University
9:30 am-5:00 pm

Free and open to the public.

How does Hip Hop speak to the day-to-day existence of Latinos in the present age of multiculturalism, globalization, and Obama? How might we read Hip Hop in different ways now, examining how it also dislocates and recalibrates Latinidad? As older and newer generations of U.S. Latinos together redefine the stakes of political action, they elucidate the margins, borders, and crossroads that U.S. Latinos inhabit. These "interstitial spaces" leave room for broader notions of Latino identities, incorporating those “others” who are also always dislocated and "out of place." This one-day workshop will engage the work of activists and prominent scholars in performance and cultural studies, examining the performances of race, gender, sexuality and Latinidad within Hip Hop and the political possibilities of "dislocation."

Featuring:

Rosa Clemente, 2008 Green Party VP Candidate, Hip Hop activist, journalist and radio host (WBAI 99.5 Fm, NYC)
Pancho McFarland, author of Chicano Rap: gender and violence in the postindustrial barrio (2008)
Jose Munoz, author of Disidentifications (1999) and Cruising Utopia: the then and there of queer futurity (2009)
Mark Anthony Neal, co-editor of That’s the joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader (2004) and author of New Black Man (2005)
Raquel Z. Rivera, author of New York Ricans from the Hip hop zone (2003) and co-editor of Reggaeton (2009)
Alexandra T. Vazquez, author of the forthcoming Instrumental Migrations: The Critical Turns of Cuban Music, and co-editor of a forthcoming anthology on La Lupe (Duke University Press).

Program:

9:30 am Continental breakfast

10:15-12:00 pm
Panel I: Over Turn-ing Tables: Sex, Gender,and Trespassing in Latino Hip-Hop
Pancho McFarland: “Quien es Mas Macho? Quien es Mas Mexicano?:Chicano Identities in Rap”
Jose Munoz: “Browness, Aesthetics and Contagion”
Alexandra T. Vazquez: “We Don’t Live for Latino Studies, (Latino Studies) It Lives For Us”

12:00-1:15 pm Music and Lunch

1:15-3:00 pm
Panel II: Los suenos de los fantasmas que marchan: The Liberation Dreams of an Un-seen Army
Rosa Clemente: “when a black puerto rican woman ran for vice president and nobody knew her name"
Mark Anthony Neal: “History of Hip-Hop Before Hip-Hop”
Raquel Z. Rivera: “Liberation Mythologies: Art, Spirit and Justice”

3:00 pm-5:00 pm Music and Reception featuring DJ Miraculous

Location: Duke University, East Campus Union, Upper East Side. (See map: http://maps.oit.duke.edu/building/136. Building is labeled in Red as “Marketplace.”)

Parking reserved on East Campus quad for conference attendees. Turn onto Campus Drive from Main Street and follow traffic to move straight forward, past the bus stop, to the long, oval grassy area in between buildings. Look for signs and a parking attendant.

Presented by the Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South, Duke University

Reggaeton & Its "Radical Feminist Queer Sex Positive Potential"

2010-03-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

How did I miss this provocative post from 9/09 at the Post Pomo Nuyorican Homo blog?!

Marisol LeBrón offers a short and insightful take on La Performera's video "Tortillera". The back and forth comments at the end between Marisol and "n" are equally insightful.

Here's La Performera's video, but make sure you check Marisol's blog post on it.

New Muslim Cool: NYU Screening/Discussion

2010-02-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

Yet another angle on Puerto Rican / Latino experiences in hip hop! I was only able to catch part of the documentary when it aired on PBS, so I'm definitely looking forward to more at this event.

New Muslim Cool: Screening/Panel Discussion
Friday, February 5th, 4:00 pm- 7:00 pm, The King Juan Carlos Center Screening Room, 53 Washington Square South

New Muslim Cool follows the story of Hamza Perez, a Puerto-Rican American young Muslim hip-hop artist confronting the realities of the post-9/11 world. Followed by a panel discussion with the filmmaker, Hamza Pérez, Zaheer Ali (Columbia U), and artist Popmaster Fabel. Moderated by Imam Khalid Latif (NYU Islamic Center). This event is sponsored by: Center for Media, Culture and History, Center for Religion and Media, The Center for Multicultural Education and Programs, The Center for Spiritual Life, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Kevorkian Center, NYU’s Islamic Center, Department of Social & Cultural Analysis/Program in Latino Studies.

Reggaeton's 'Hurban Renewal'

2010-01-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

Here's yet another example of why I'm a fan of ethnomusicologist/blogger/DJ (plus my dear compi and co-editor) Wayne Marshall. Check his most recent blog post titled "Hurban Renewal" where he again focuses on reggaeton: it's qué fue, qué es and qué será.

El reggaetón ya está en la academia pero [...]

2009-12-29T04:39:00.000-08:00

Me complazco en compartir un artículo reciente sobre nuestro libro Reggaeton. Lo escribió Eduardo Corrales para www.iblnews.com. Corrales es de los pocos periodistas que se ha tomado la molestia de leer el libro y escuchar mis planteamientos con detenimiento. ¡Gracias Eduardo!

Raquel Z. Rivera: El reggaetón ya está en la academia pero todavia demanda una mayor exploración
26/12/2009 - 17:42
EDUARDO CORRALES, IBLNEWS

Para leer el artículo completo, haga click aquí.

Nación reggaetón (Nueva Sociedad no. 223)

2009-11-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

La revista Nueva Sociedad de Argentina (no. 223) acaba de publicar el ensayo "Nación reggaetón" que co-escribí con Frances Negrón-Muntaner. ¡Aprovechen, que el artículo se puede descargar GRATIS! Es una versión traducida y actualizada del artículo "Reggaeton Nation" que publicamos en la revista de NACLA.

Aquí un resumen del artículo:

Nacido en los barrios pobres de Puerto Rico, el reggaetón fue combatido en sus inicios, acusado de corruptor y de promover el perreo, un baile considerado soez. Pero con el tiempo se ha ido expandiendo y sofisticando hasta convertirse en un éxito mundial y en el principal producto de exportación musical de Puerto Rico. El género pone en evidencia la centralidad de las diásporas africanas en la cultura local y sugiere que lo local está compuesto de culturas globalizadas.

Marisol LeBrón on Reggaeton's Future

2009-11-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

Check Marisol LeBrón's insightful take on "Reggaeton's Futurity."

Ivy Queen vs. Victoria Sanabria

2009-11-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

Finally! A Trovatón episode that I've actually enjoyed and hasn't made me squirm. I usually suffer an acute case of "pena ajena" (feeling ashamed for somebody else) because the trovadores tend to leave the reggaetoneros in the dust. But, I have to admit, sometimes it's been the trovadores that make their own selves look bad. Plus those disrespectful low blows from either side also kill any potential joy for me.

But this episode had plenty of respect flowing from both sides. Victoria held her own when she rapped. And Ivy Queen sang jíbaro style and did pretty good, though not holding herself tightly to the complicated constraints of the décima. I wonder if the loose interpretation was on purpose or if its just that improvising in true décima style was beyond Ivy's means. Whatever the case may be, much respect to both these women.

November 12, 2009: Princeton University, NJ

2009-11-01T06:32:00.001-08:00

Roundtable at Princeton University, NJ, featuring scholars and artists Raquel Z. Rivera, Wayne Marshall, Marisol LeBron, Miguel Luciano, Ines "Deevani" Rooney and DJ El Niño.

Afro-Dominicana: Music from the Other Dominican Republic

2009-10-09T09:38:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I blogged about "Regaeton Roundup" on the AfroPop Worldwide radio show. Well, AfroPop just came out with a groundbreaking new program titled Afro-Dominicana: Music from the Other Dominican Republic.

While Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian traditions get a lot of shine on the world stage, and Afro-Puerto Rican traditions have been getting a bit more shine recently, the celebration of Afro-Dominican music and culture has been notably lagging behind.

A few years back reggaeton/hip-hop group Del Patio did a collaboration with Ilú Ayé titled "Lo palo." Ilú Ayé, as usual, did a great job. And I was happy to see an urban music group like Del Patio link themselves to Dominican roots music through their collaboration with Ilú Ayé. I won't say much about the many reasons why I think that production left a lot to be desired. Judge for yourself. I'll just say I'm not feeling the use of Afro-Dominican music as a splash of color on otherwise drab and cliché urban music formulas.

What I'm hoping is that shows like AfroPop's Afro-Dominicana: Music from the Other Dominican Republic and the Quijombo Festival this week in the Bronx and the Afro-Dominican drumming/dance classes organized by The Legacy Circle in Harlem will motivate and challenge urban music artists to do excellent and inspired productions that draw from the roots.

Here's a plug for an artist that does an amazing job at fusing urban and roots music: Rita Indiana. Ok, so Rita might not be primarily a hip-hop or reggaeton artist but she definitely draws from that type of urban music. She's one of the artists featured on AfroPop's Afro-Dominicana show. Here's one of her songs, "Encendía," from her earlier work as part of the duo Miti Miti.

And a more recent song, as frontwoman of Rita Indiana y Los Misterios, titled "El Blu del Pin Pon."

Not that Rita holds all the answers. But she definitely has a great one.

P.S.
Found two more, for good measure: dembow and palos inflected to boot!

I can't say enough about the lyrics. How can that childhood tale of sharing in "Da pa lo do" be so tender, heartwrenching and hilarious at once?

When Hip-Hop and Reggaeton Collide

2009-09-29T06:14:00.001-07:00

Check out Allison Desir's piece "When Hip-Hop and Reggaeton Collide" in The Mantle: A Forum for Progressive Critique. The article pays close attention to issues of race and ethnicity, and features interviews with music industry executives. Plenty of fascinating stuff here!

Parodiando la cultura urbana latina

2009-09-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

Tato Torres just posted this on my FaceBook page:

And this is the conversation that followed:

Raquel Z. Rivera
Annoying, smug and misinformed... yes. And at the same time I had to laugh out loud a few times. It also had a few witty moments. I can't help thinking how we ("Latinos" in the US, urban music artists and fans...) leave ourselves open to this kind of caricature for falling into cliches... por cabezones.

Tato Torres Sáez
It is exactly the point he is making, he very clearly and cleverly states in the beggining: "por suerte hay hermanos latinoamericanos viviendo en NY... y gracias entonces a nuestros hermanos anglosajones en los EEUU que toman de ellos la cultura latina, la embasan y la difunden poco a poco hoy en nuestros barrios, podemos ver lo latino presente..."

yet you gotta love the "perreo simulator" LOL

"mi verdadero nombre es Mariano Grumberg Hollester Junguersen Smith, pero soy Latino" ¡JA!

Raquel Z. Rivera
Wow... I somehow missed the "la envasan y la difunden poco a poco hoy en nuestros barrios" criticism. Now I like this even more. I initially thought it was a simplistic caricature. But now I see it's more. And, yes, the perreo simulator was one of my favorite parts. And also the "papá cómprame las zapatillas blancas" bit.

Tato Torres Sáez
exactly!.. the guy is geniusly making a joke about the commercially distributed "packaged" generic concept of "Latinos," which is obviously formed on a stereotypical "Nuyorican" image.

Reggaeton as MTV-grade Pop

2009-08-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

Wisín and Yandel's "Abusadora" is nominated for an MTV Video Music Award in the best pop video category. The other nominees are: Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Cobra Starship and Britney Spears. Hhmmm...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think a reggaeton or Latino urban music act has been nominated to the SAME category (in one of these big deal awards) as pop megastars like Britney and the others. Right? In that case, while no reggaeton song has ever matched the ubiquity of "Gasolina," this nomination seems like yet another type of milestone for reggaeton.

I know... I know... "Abusadora" is dembow-less, so is it still reggaeton?

But while we try to figure that one out, Entertainment Weekly's Simon Vozick-Levinson celebrates the nomination as a "welcome (if unexpected) step toward breaking down genre barriers," adding, "as far as I’m concerned, labels like 'pop' and 'reggaeton' confuse more than they enlighten, anyway."

So as he celebrates the breaking-down of barriers, Vozick-Levinson is still calling it reggaeton.

Marisol has the following to add: "Of course depending on how people view this nomination, this might only lend credence to the claim that reggaeton is dead."

How can "she" be dead?

2009-08-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

Hey Raquel,

Hope all is well. A friend sent me the new Joell Ortiz song on Hip Hop dying and I thought about you. Creo que lo que dice aplica al Reggeaton tambien...no se si algun reggaetonero ha escrito sobre "la muerte anunciada" del reggeaton. Dejame saber si sabes de alguna cancion.

Paz,
Rox
(Roxanna García González)

Wow... thanks so much for this link.

"How can she be dead when she's a spirit?" BEAUTIFUL!

I haven't seen the equivalent of these types of songs in reggaeton. Just statements by artists.

Again, thank you!
RZ
(Raquel Z. Rivera)

Reggaeton Roundup on AfroPop Worldwide

2009-07-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

AfroPop Worldwide just made available a streaming version of their recent program on reggaeton history titled Reggaeton Roundup. It will stay online only for a couple of months, so check it out before they take it off.

The show is a great trip down memory lane and I'm pleased to say it does not focus on the same old, same old!

The show opens up with one of my favorite urban music tracks ever "Ni fú ni fá" by Tego Calderón (which should have won that Grammy); goes through classic Jamaican dancehall tracks like "Bam Bam"; weaves together early 90s reggae en español, rap en español, merenrap and underground tracks by El General, Vico C, Lisa M, Three Gangstas, Gringo and Baby Rasta, Daddy Yankee and Ivy Queen; goes on great sidetracks like discussing Brazilian baile funk and its connections to Miami bass; and features dembow-less songs like La Sista's "Yemayá" and Calle 13's "La Jirafa" that still retain reggaeton's swaying hip-grinding effect; among many other welcome and unexpected musical highlights.

Omar García's interview, interspersed throughout the show, provides a great narrative thread by an artist who became an underground star at 14 years old (O.G.M. of underground fame) and is today an eclectic and insightful rapper/singersongwriter who draws from hip-hop, trip-hop, trova and rock, among other sources. The show also has Residente Calle 13 making some provocative statements (surprise, surprise).

Also, check field producer Marlon Bishop's narrative on reggaeton and his anecdotes from his trip to Puerto Rico while working on the show. It has great quotes from Dulce Coco, Tatá and Welmo that do not appear on the show.

Also, for folks in Puerto Rico (or not), the program will be airing on Radio Universidad WRTU on the program "Rumba Africana", on Sat Aug. 8 and Tues Aug. 11. If you're not in Puerto Rico, you can still listen to the show via internet.

Is it still reggaeton?

2009-07-26T15:54:00.001-07:00

According to mun2's 18 and over countdown host Guadalupe, "reggaeton" has taken over their show. (At least the episode I was watching yesterday, Saturday July 25th.)

Don Omar, Franco El Gorila, RKM & Ken-Y, Tito El Bambino, Alexis & Fido and Wisín & Yandel were the artists on the countdown that Guadalupe mentioned to prove his point. Interesting: none of those artists' songs on the countdown feature the dembow rhythm that originally gave the genre its name. But Guadalupe still called the genre they make "reggaeton." And as further proof that "reggaeton" just keeps getting bigger, he mentioned how the Merriam-Webster dictionary just added an entry for "reggaeton."

So, if people insist on calling it reggaeton, is it still reggaeton?

July 17: Estilo Hip-Hop and Reggaeton at B&N

2009-07-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

JULY 17, 7:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE
LINCOLN TRIANGLE (66 STREET AND BROADWAY)
NEW YORK, NY

Estilo Hip-Hop and Reggaeton double feature:
screening, book presentation and dialogue

I have the honor of presenting the book I just co-edited titled Reggaeton (Duke University Press, 2009) alongside the documentary Estilo Hip-Hop on Friday, July 17, 2009 at 7 PM. The event is part of a series organized by the Latino Artists Round Table at the Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Triangle (66 Street and Broadway).

Estilo Hip-Hop is a powerful documentary that chronicles the lives of three hip-hop enthusiasts from Chile, Cuba and Brazil, focusing on the ways that art and youth politics connect. It first aired nationally on Global Voices on PBS WORLD, Sunday June 28, 2009. For upcoming showtimes, check www.estilohiphop.net. Here's the trailer:

ESTILO HIP HOP Trailer from 1SOULDESIGNS on Vimeo.

Reggaeton is the anthology I co-edited with Wayne Marshall and Deborah Pacini Hernandez that explores reggaeton’s local roots and its transnational dissemination. The book also discusses the genre’s aesthetics, particularly in relation to those of hip-hop and reggae; and explores the debates about race, nation, gender, and sexuality generated by the music and its associated cultural practices.

From hip-hop to reggaeton, this July 17th event will be devoted to Latin American and Latino youth culture, popular music, politics and education.

I am extremely happy that my co-presenters that night will be the Estilo Hip-Hop directors, Loira Limbal and Vee Bravo, fellow beat junkies who love music just as much as they love the dreams of freedom that music can inspire.

Plus I just found out that the visual artist responsible for Reggaeton's platinum plátano cover, Miguel Luciano, will be joining us as well!

"Reggaeton" in Merriam-Webster Dictionary

2009-07-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

I found out this weekend from a FaceBook note by Nuyorican poet and educator Mariposa that "reggaeton" was added to the 2009 updated version of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. To read Mariposa's note click on her FaceBook link or read below.

In turn, she found out the news through a FaceBook post by Lance Rios of Being Latino. Check the comments to his post. They're a great example of how the conversation around reggaeton tends to stay at the love the music / hate the music level. That's what I like so much about Mariposa's take on it: she goes beyond the love it / hate it dichotomy.

The first thing that struck me about the news is that "reggaeton" made it into this English-language dictionary before it made it into the Diccionario de La Real Academia Española. Neither "reggaetón" nor "reguetón" has made it into the RAE dictionary yet. Hhhmmmm... So if the Solo Para Reggaeton folks are pissed at Merriam-Webster for (among other things) taking so long to include "reggaeton" in their dictionary, I can only imagine what they'll say about the Real Academia Española.

Here's the Merriam-Webster dictionary entry:

reg·gae·ton
Pronunciation:
\ˌre-gā-ˈtōn, ˌrā-\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
American Spanish reggaetón, from reggae reggae + -ton (as in Spanish maratón marathon)
Date:
2002

: popular music of Puerto Rican origin that combines rap with Caribbean rhythms

And here's Mariposa's post:

Toast of Recognition to Reggaeton
by Mariposa

The word REGGAETON was recently added to the American Merriam-Webster Dictionary which is highly significant. It is no easy feat to create a word that makes the dictionary. It has to be a word that deeply permeates American culture in usage, meaning and context, often times through literature and music. Language is created and re-invented every day. And language shapes and creates our reality. Language is the essence of our experience. It’s derived from it and it creates it; from language springs everything.

Whether you like the music form or not, take this as an opportunity to pay attention. Pay attention to exactly how powerful we are. There are many other words that can be found in Webster’s Dictionary that are evidence of our presence and power. Yes, the word Spanglish can be found in Webster’s, as well as Latino, Latina, Chicano, Chicana and Tejano. Nuyorican was added to Webster’s about 4 years ago. The addition of the words, Chicana/o and Nuyorican can be attributed in part to the influence of the Chicano/Tejano, and Nuyorican poetry movements, specifically the work of Pedro Pietri, Miguel Piñero, Jesus Papoleto Melendez, Jose Montoya, Alurista, Raul Salinas, Cherrie L. Moraga, Sandra María Esteves, Aurora Levins Morales, Magdalena Gomez and countless others.

Other words that have made it to Webster’s that reflect our contribution to music, dance and our influence in shaping the American cultural landscape are: Salsa, Merengue and Rumba. For all you Bachata lovers…Sorry! The word has not yet made it to Websters Dictionary. Neither has Cumbia, Bomba or Plena.

Like it or not Reggaeton is here to stay. We are more than a decade deep in the Reggaeton timeline. People thought Reggaethon was just a fad that would fizzle out but it went global a long time ago. Like Hip Hop, Reggaeton is popular as far away as Japan. It shows the power of our presence as Latinos in the United States; the power to influence not only American Pop Culture but Global Pop Culture and the ability to create new industries. We have the power to make phenomenal things happen. The question is what we do with that power.

If you are a fan of Reggaeton, you have reason to celebrate the music genre making it to Webster’s Dictionary. If you're not a fan, keep in mind that celebrating does not necessarily mean condoning the materialism, sexism, misogyny and negative content found in many (but not all) Reggaeton songs and videos. There are artists who defy the negative stereotypes like Calle 13, whose political and lyrical genius cannot be easily dismissed and demonstrate the potential of Reggaeton to create social change as well as entertain.

Making it to Webster's is an accomplishment that is quite phenomenal. It only took Reggaeton about a decade to make Webster's unlike many of the words mentioned . This is definitely something to give props to, respect, be proud of and yes, celebrate! Reggaeton is a reflection of who we are as Latinos -- multifaceted and something that cannot be generalized, simplified or put in a box. I encourage people to check out the new book Reggaeton by Raquel Z. Rivera, Wayne Marshall and Deborah Pacini Hernandez.

I also encourage people to go to http://www.merriam-webster.com/ and look up what Webster has to say on the meanings and etymology of the words mentioned and the years the words came into play in the United States. It’s fascinating. Maybe you’ll find words that I didn’t that also speak to our collective power. No matter what you think about Reggaeton or it making it to Webster’s Dictionary, BEING LATINO IS BEING POWERFUL. WORD!

Sofia's Gatas / Las gatas de Sofía

2009-07-08T08:05:00.000-07:00

I'm a fan of Sofía Maldonado's artwork, particularly of her series of "nenas." I'm fascinated by how loud, eerie and beautiful Sofia's nenas are. She recently kicked it up a notch with the "gatas" she painted in Santurce, PR... and that were painted over soon after. As she writes in a July 7, 2009 blog post: "There's no trace left of these girls probably because they were 'so explicit'."

Sofia describes her work as "a blend of fashion trends, the Latina female aesthetic and various street culture elements, such as skateboarding, graffiti, public art, reggaeton and punk music."

Sofía's sexually explicit work has me thinking about gender, sex, power and urban music(s), including reggaeton. More on this, soon.

Reggaeton as "Further proof Mexicans hate black people"

2009-07-03T05:43:00.000-07:00

When you read Byron Crawford's blog post about our Reggaeton book (a post he titled "Further proof Mexicans hate black people"), please keep in mind he is a prankster who loves to dig his finger in people's wounds.

Reggaeton on Racialicious.com

2009-07-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Our Reggaeton book has sparked a conversation on race, reggaeton and hip-hop over at Racialicious.com.

Vivito & perreando in Cuba: English version

2009-07-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

And as we ponder the “reggaeton crash,” today on Reuters: “Reggaeton fever shakes up Cuba’s culture.” Here's the photo that accompanied the article:

Vivito & perreando en Cuba: versión en español

2009-07-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

Mientras pensamos sobre esto de la "caída" o "la muerte" del reguetón, ayer publicó Reuters "La fiebre del reguetón sacude a la Isla", refiriéndose a Cuba. Aquí la foto que acompaña el artículo:

Ya que el artículo me cita, a continuación la conversación electrónica completa que tuve con el periodista que escribió el artículo de Reuters, Esteban Israel:

Esteban Israel: es normal que el establishment rechace al reggaeton? que es lo que tanto molesta a las autoridades cubanas, en tu opinión?

Raquel Z. Rivera: No es de sorprender que el "establishment" rechace el reggaeton. Esas mismas preocupaciones en cuanto al "deterioro de los valores tradicionales" la han tenido (y la tienen) las autoridades, los educadores, los padres etc. en Puerto Rico, República Dominicana y otros países latinoamericanos en cuanto al reggaetón. En Jamaica, el dancehall reggae recientemente y ya por muchos años ha sido objeto de una agria controversia en cuanto a lo mismo. Menciono al reggaetón y al dancehall reggae primero porque son parte de la cultura popular contemporánea, no son muy antiguos y son muy parecidos entre sí. Pero géneros anteriores como la rumba, la salsa, la bomba, la danza, el jazz, la samba... todos fueron muy criticados en su momento y las autoridades usaron muchos de los mismos argumentos. Mira el excelente artículo de Brenda Hopkins Miranda que da una idea de todos esos debates anteriores.

Las autoridades cubanas están molestas por las mismas razones que las autoridades en otros países: el reggaetón (y el dancehall reggae) tiende a ser hiper-sexual (en sus letras y baile) y a glorificar el consumismo y la moda. Claro en un país socialista como Cuba, el asunto del consumismo es aun más problemático para las autoridades. El "establishment" en esos países también ha criticado mucho el sexismo del reggaetón. Eso es bastante irónico considerando lo sexistas que son nuestras sociedades en general. El "establishment" es sexista. Los "valores tradicionales" son sexistas. Pero se critica al reggaetón somo si el reggaetón fuese una excepción. El reggaetón suele ser más vulgar y desfachatado, pero eso no lo hace más sexista.

Dicho sea de paso, esas mismas críticas son las que le hace el establishment en Estados Unidos al hip-hop. Estos géneros (reggaetón, dancehall reggae y reggaetón) comparten muchas características en común ya que son todos parte de la facción "urbana" dentro de la música pop.

Estoy de acuerdo con lo que te dijo el funcionario de que declararle la guerra al reggaetón sería un error. Si el ejemplo de Puerto Rico sirve de algo, es para ilustrar que los dos grandes intentos de censurar o regular el reggaetón (1995 y 2002) lo que han generado es más popularidad para el género. Si quieres leer más sobre el caso de Puerto Rico en 2002, ve aquí.

Creo que el movimiento auto-denominado "hip-hop education movement" en Estados Unidos debería ser emulado por todas estas personas que están preocupadas por el monopolio que tiene el reggaetón sobre la juventud. Dentro de este movimiento hay artistas y educadores que son fanáticos y expertos del hip-hop (rap y otras artes) y se dedican a profundizar el conocimiento que tienen los jóvenes sobre el hip-hop, y también utilizan el hip-hop como punto de entrada para interesar a los jóvenes en otros géneros musicales y en otras cosas como la historia, la literatura y el activismo social. Parte importante de este movimiento de educación hip-hop son los educadores y padres y activistas a quienes quizás no les gusta el hip-hop o no saben mucho de él, pero igual saben que se tienen que educar sobre el hip-hop si es que quieren comunicarse mejor con sus estudiantes. Emulando ese movimiento de educación hip-hop, las generaciones o personas no-reggaetónicas o anti-reggaetónicas podrían utilizar el reggaetón como un vehículo de comunicación con la juventud reggaetónica. Si queremos dialogar con la juventud, hay que demostrar respeto hacia ellos. Se puede y se debe criticar lo criticable del reggaetón, pero desde una perspectiva informada.

Me gusta la perspectiva del artículo "¿Te gusta o no te gusta el reggaetón?" que fue publicado el pasado abril en Claridad. Como dice Benjamín Muñiz, el autor del artículo, ¿porqué limitar la discusión sobre el reggaetón a si nos gusta o no nos gusta el reggaetón? Hay muchísimas otras cosas que decir sobre el reggaetón. Ese género además representa una oportunidad de diálogo inter-generacional.

Esteban Israel: ademas quisiera que me cuentes que tan rico/peculiar es el reggaeton cubano en el contexto regional.

Para mi, el reggaetón cubano tiene de rico lo mismo que el reggaetón en otros lugares tiene de rico: es una música que combina la llamada "música urbana" con tradiciones caribeñas mucho más antiguas... y lo más que ha atraído a sus fanáticos es que se presta para la fiesta y el baile sexualmente explícito.

El reguetón ha muerto... de nuevo

2009-06-30T08:49:00.000-07:00

Mi querido co-editor Wayne escribió en Tweeter el 19 de junio su opinión sobre la alegada muerte del reguetón:

En espanich: "el reguetón no ha muerto. ¿que cómo lo se (aparte de ese dembow que todavía suena)? lo que ha muerto no provoca debates tan acalorados."

Aquí varias opiniones recientes sobre el mismo asunto:

La entrevista de Willie Colón con el Nuevo Día, titulada "El reguetón se va a pique".

La respuesta de Tego Calderón (y otros) a Willie Colón, también en El Nuevo Día, titulada "Willie alborota el avispero".

Los posts de Gavin titulados "Can we Talk About the Reggaeton Crash?" y "Updates from Chicago's Puerto Rican Pride Festival."

Los posts de Marisol LeBron titulados "Reggaeton's White Hope and the 'Reggaeton Crash'" y "Romantiqueo Is Going Under."

El post de Wayne titulado "Can We Talk About 'Can We Talk About the Reggaeton Crash?'”

Y los comentarios a mi post "The Relevance of Reggaeton."

Me parece que están en lo cierto los observadores, como Wayne, que dicen que eso de que el reguetón ha muerto es una declaración prematura.

Pero vamos a considerar esta posibilidad por un momento... QUIZAS ahora sí es verdad que el reguetón está a punto de morir. (Claro, no olvidemos que mucha gente ha estado diciendo que está muerto desde hace más de una década... desde antes que se conociera por el nombre de reguetón.)

Lo primero que me viene a la mente al considerar la posibilidad de que el reguetón esté a punto de morir es la rareza de declarar como "muerto" a un género musical. ¿Es que la danza está muerta? ¿Es que la bomba está muerta? ¿El "Latin" freestyle? ¿La ópera?

Lo otro que me pone a pensar es... ¿porqué hay gente tan feliz ante la posibilidad de que el reguetón muera? ¿Es que es tanto mejor el que ahora estamos escuchando la misma fórmula verbal pero sobre un "beat" distinto? ¿Es que la música es mejor ahora que Flex está cantando canciones románticas sobre beats que no son dembow? ¿Es que la música es mejor ahora que Wisín & Yandel y Don Omar están usando música electro-pop en vez de dembow? ¿Es que la música es mejor ahora que algunos de los mismos artistas que se hicieron famosos como "reguetoneros" usan beats distintos y dicen que la música que hacen es "música urbana" en vez de reguetón?

Reggaeton Is Dead... Again

2009-06-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

My dear co-editor Wayne Marshall tweeted earlier this month:

Here are plenty more recent thoughts on the issue:

Willie Colón's interview in El Nuevo Día.

Tego Calderón's (and others') reply to Willie Colón, also in El Nuevo Día.

Gavin's post "Can we Talk About the Reggaeton Crash?" and "Updates from Chicago's Puerto Rican Pride Festival."

Marisol's posts "Reggaeton's White Hope and the 'Reggaeton Crash'" and "Romantiqueo Is Going Under."

Wayne's post "Can We Talk About 'Can We Talk About the Reggaeton Crash?'”

And the comments to my post "The Relevance of Reggaeton."

O.k., so I side with the folks that say that pronouncing reggaeton dead at this point would be premature.

But lets consider this for a second... MAYBE now reggaeton is REALLY about to be "dead" soon—though lets keep in mind folks have been saying it's dead for over a decade... since before it took on the name reggaeton.

In considering the above, I'm struck by the bizarreness of pronouncing a genre dead. Is danza dead? Is bomba dead? Is "Latin" freestyle dead? Is opera dead?

Another thing that gets me thinking is... why are some folks so happy about the prospect of reggaeton's death? Is the same lyrical formula over a different beat any better? Is the music any better just because Flex is crooning over non-dembow beats? Is the music better because Wisín & Yandel and Don Omar are using electro-pop beats? Is the music any better because some of the same artists that made their name as "reggaetoneros" are using different beats and calling it "urban music" instead of reggaeton?

Reseña de mi capítulo en Reggaeton

2009-06-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

El criminólogo Gary Gutiérrez escribió esta reseña sobre mi capítulo en el libro Reggaeton. Mi capítulo es un recorrido por aquellos años a mediados de la década de 1990 cuando el rap y el reggae "underground" se convirtieron en chivo expiatorio dentro de la llamada política de Mano Dura Contra el Crimen de la administración del entonces gobernador Pedro Roselló.

April 30, 2009

Reacción al escrito Policing Morality, Mano Dura Stylee:
The case of Underground Rap and reggae In Puerto Rico in the mid-1990s

Por Gary Gutiérrez

Si se le preguntara a cualquier persona en el mundo de las comunicaciones; ¿cuál es la clave del éxito de una producción?, es posible que entre las respuestas se encuentre el término anglo “timing”. Aún cuando no tiene traducción directa, el concepto implica estar en el momento adecuado en el lugar indicado.

Un buen “timing” parece ser el caso de la publicación del escrito Policing Morality, Mano Dura Stylee: The case of Underground Rap and reggae In Puerto Rico in the mid-1990s, de la Dra. Raquel Z. Rivera.

El trabajo de Rivera, se desarrolló en 1998 y resurge ahora, 10 años más tarde, cuando el gobierno colonial de la Isla anuncia que se propone regresar a las mismas técnicas punitivas y represivas que en la década de los 90s fallaron como respuesta al crimen y que en cierta medida se recogen en este artículo.

Precisamente esas políticas y los excesos represivos que pueden alcanzar las mismas, son la base de este excelente escrito, que documenta y analiza el proceso mediante el cual se intentó criminalizar la expresión artística y la estética de un sector de la juventud puertorriqueña.

Al leer el escrito, de inmediato viene a la mente los trabajos de un grupo de sociólogos que se hacen llamar criminólogos culturales y que desde la década de los 90s estudian el crimen como producto y productor de cultura. Esta visión criminológica es una tendencia que agrupa una amalgama de teorías sociológicas, entre las que se destacan el interaccionismo simbólico, el postmodernismo, y a la que se le unen los anarquistas, los neo marxistas, las feministas y demás críticos de la dominación legal y la injusticia social.

Según uno de sus fundadores, el Dr. Jeff Ferrel, la criminología Cultural no busca sintetizar estas teorías o métodos, sino que más bien pretende una conversación crítica entre estas visiones en búsqueda de la exploración de la cultura y la criminalidad. Estos criminólogos prestan atención a la variedad de culturas, aceptadas o criminalizadas, así como a la gama de significados y al control de las mismas por parte del Estado.

Se enfoca además en las construcciones mediáticas, tanto de las acciones desviadas como de los controles sociales para las mismas. De igual forma observa los símbolos de la sociedad urbana contemporánea y los patrones de inequidad y control social así como los miedos creados en torno a estos. En resumen, la criminología cultural parte de la premisa que la sociedad no criminaliza los comportamientos por las acciones mismas, lo que realmente se criminaliza es el “significado simbólico” de esas acciones.

Ante la cercanía entre las visiones de estos criminólogos y la forma en que la Dra. Rivera aborda el tema de la persecución y censura del Rap underground, parece lógico que usemos la misma como punto de partida para comentar el escrito.

El trabajo es una excelente documentación del proceso de creación y difusión de lo que el británico Stan Cohen llamó el “pánico moral”. La descripción del proceso de construcción de los músicos underground como desviados y el intento de reconstruir los mismos como criminales, es magistralmente desarrollado y constituye, a mi juicio, un trabajo que todo estudiante de criminología debe leer. El proceso que Rivera recoge en su escrito recuerda la forma en que en la década del 1930, otros empresarios morales construyeron la imagen “endemoniada” de los fumadores de marihuana. En aquella época, se la adjudico al cannabis las mismas propiedades de fomentar la violencia y la lujuria que según nos documenta Rivera, se le adjudicó en el 1990 al Rap y al Reggaetón. El resultado de aquel proceso de 1930 es la funesta criminalización de la planta y el costo económico millonario y de sangre, que todavía produce la misma.

Partiendo de lo completo del escrito, que incluye los conflictos en torno a la libertad de expresión, la violencia entre los jóvenes, la construcción del marginado como criminal, lo que más me interesó como criminólogo cultural, es la explicación sobre la persecución de esta forma de expresión. Rivera demuestra que la misma no se trataba de la prohibición del lenguaje, llamado vulgar, grosero, hostil o fuerte, ni mucho menos se trataba del acecho del contenido sexual de las letras de estas canciones.

Su construcción como acto desviado, no explica la Dra., se produjo cuando esta producción artística de los sectores sociales y racialmente marginados, comenzó a desbordándose a las capas más altas de la sociedad. Es decir ese discurso contestario de joven pobre, marginado, negro de caserío, que reconstruye y define poco a poco una nueva visón estética, es comprado poco a poco por los blanquitos, que ahora llamamos guainabitos.

De esta forma Rivera nos recuerda que el rap underground solo fue percibido como un problema, hasta que no salió de los sectores marginados y comenzó a popularizarse entre los sectores jóvenes de clases más privilegiadas.

Interesantemente, un proceso similar se dio con las sustancias psicoactivadoras durante la década del 1960, cuando los jóvenes que regresaban del conflicto en indochina, sacaron a la llamadas drogas de los guetos urbanos y la popularizaron en los sectores de clase media americana. Como el rap underground, para el “establishment”, las drogas se vieron con un problema, cuando las mismas se popularizaron entre los jóvenes de sectores pudientes y no mientras eran costumbres de los negros en el gueto.

Este proceso antes descrito es al que los criminólogos culturales nos referimos cuando decimos que una acción se criminaliza solo cuando el significado de la misma se ve como peligrosa al sistema.

Es decir, que no es la acción sino su sino su carga simbólica lo que se prohíbe. Mientras el underground o las drogas, se quedaban en la marginación del caserío o le gueto, al sistema no le preocupaba. A contrario, se podría decir que estas acción afirmaban la visión de que las razas marginadas son más débiles y más propensa a los vicios.

Pero, tan pronto el pegajoso ritmo o la droga pasa al llamado “main stream”, se convierten en símbolos de la influencia de esa cultura marginal sobre la cultura dominante. Esto, por supuesto, siempre es visto con recelo por parte de los últimos.

Por otra parte, sobre cómo la cultura dominada o marginada responde a la represión y persecución, la criminología cultural explica que ante esta situiación, los jóvenes de esos sectores marginados terminan adoptando esa misma estética, incluso la exageran, como forma de contestar simbólicamente al sistema. Ferrell en su libro Criminologia Cultural dice, “los estilos de las subculturas son para efecto de las autoridades, tanto una causa como efecto de la criminalidad; mientras que para los grupos marginados estos son símbolos de resistencia e invitación a que los controlen”.

En fin que el proceso descrito en este ensayo por la Dra. Raquel Z. Rivera, demuestra lo complejo que puede ser el choque estético y cultural entre los diversos grupos sociales. De igual forma deja claro lo burdo, simplista e irracional que puede ser la respuesta represiva del Estado ante estos conflictos. Sobre todo cuando el proceso está exacerbado por empresarios morales que levantan portaestandartes de intolerancia ante cualquier diversidad.

Por suerte en el caso descrito por la Dra. Rivera, los tribunales pusieron coto a la ridiculez de la persecución. Sin embargo no siempre se ha corrido la misma suerte. Por ejemplo, la construcción del uso de sustancias psicoactivadoras como un problema policiaco y no médico es producto de un proceso casi idéntico al descrito por la Dra Rivera, con la diferencia de que en el caso de las drogas, los tribunales “compraron” la definición y a casi un siglo del asunto, seguimos pagando el precio en sangre derramada en las calles.

Dra. Rivera, termino dándole las gracias por el recordatorio que su escrito nos trae, el mismo no podía llegar en mejor momento….

Why Marisol Studies Reggaeton

2009-06-22T13:26:00.000-07:00

Check Marisol LeBrón's post "Why I Study Reggaeton." I can't wait to read more from her. By the way, her blog, Post Pomo Nuyorican Homo, was named one of the 100 best LGBT blogs by the Lesbian and Gay Foundation.

This is the graphic that accompanies her post:

In inglich: "This blog supports reggaeton."

The Relevance of Reggaeton - NPR show

2009-05-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I was on WNYC (NPR) radio show Soundcheck discussing our book Reggaeton.

The comments folks have left on the WNYC webpage have left me wondering. Where we being flat out uncritical? It's such a tricky balance to achieve: to be critical but not to engage in simplistic bashing.

Mi entrevista en NY1 Noticias

2009-05-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

Cliquea aquí para ver mi entrevista en NY1 Noticias que salió al aire hoy.

Click here to watch my interview on NY1 Noticias that aired today.

Un Diálogo... ¡hasta abajo!

2009-05-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

"Un Diálogo... ¡hasta abajo!" is the title of my interview that appeared in the digital version of the University of Puerto Rico's newspaper Diálogo.

Cómo leer el reggaeton

2009-05-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

Lo que sigue es el artículo que escribió el antropólogo Jorge Duany sobre nuestro libro Reggaeton en El Nuevo Día de hoy.

13-MAYO-2009
El Nuevo Día
Jorge Duany

COMO LEER EL "REGGAETON"

Quién hubiera imaginado que aquel ritmo censurado y perseguido, entonces llamado “underground”, “dembow”, “melaza” y “reggae (o rap) en español”, se convertiría en la principal exportación musical de la Isla durante la primera década del siglo XXI. A principios de la década de 1990, la música circulaba clandestinamente, mediante grabaciones caseras que se reproducían en clubes nocturnos y “fiestas de marquesina” en arrabales y caseríos.

En febrero de 1995, el Escuadrón de Control del Vicio de la Policía realizó una redada en varias tiendas de discos de San Juan que vendían música “underground”, porque ésta supuestamente incitaba al sexo, a la violencia y al uso de drogas ilegales. En mayo de 2002, el Senado de Puerto Rico celebró unas vistas públicas, presididas por Velda González, en torno al “perreo”, el baile asociado al “underground”. Allí se denunció el contenido “indecente” y “pornográfico” de las letras de las canciones, las imágenes de los vídeos y el escándalo de bailar frotándose la parte trasera con otros cuerpos. Irónicamente, esa campaña de pánicos morales aumentó la popularidad de las prácticas musicales conocidas actualmente como “reggaetón”.

El admirable libro “Reggaeton”, editado por Raquel Z. Rivera, Wayne Marshall y Deborah Pacini Hernández (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), nos convoca a “leer” cuidadosamente este extraordinario fenómeno musical y social de nuestros tiempos. Como plantea Juan Flores en su prólogo, se trata quizás de la primera música verdaderamente transnacional o diaspórica. El “reggaetón” no puede trazarse a un solo punto de origen, como Jamaica, Panamá, Puerto Rico o Nueva York, como tampoco puede identificarse exclusivamente con un público latinoamericano, antillano o latino. Más bien, este género híbrido es un producto de la incesante circulación de personas, mercancías, prácticas e identidades entre el Caribe y Norteamérica.

Los autores reunidos en este volumen documentan extensamente el cruce de fronteras geográficas, raciales, étnicas y lingüísticas, catalogado como “crossover” en la industria musical. Entre las múltiples influencias del “reggaetón”, se destacan el “reggae” jamaiquino, especialmente el “dancehall”; el “reggae” en español, particularmente el panameño; el “hip hop” y el “rap” afroamericano, pero también “niuyorican”, y varios estilos del Caribe hispánico, como la bomba, la plena, la salsa, el merengue, la bachata y la cumbia.

El “reggaetón” puede leerse como parte integrante de los intensos flujos musicales a través de múltiples circuitos migratorios entre varios países caribeños y sus diásporas. Esta mezcla de ritmos, instrumentos, compositores, cantantes e intérpretes de diversos orígenes nacionales, raciales y étnicos es un rasgo distintivo de la música afroantillana, desde la rumba y el mambo hasta la salsa y el “reggae”. Desde una perspectiva histórica, el “reggaetón” es la más reciente expresión de la criollización musical de la región. Como otros géneros populares, el “reggaetón” fusiona elementos caribeños, afroamericanos y latinos, tanto en términos lingüísticos como musicales. De ahí que apele a un público amplio y diverso, más allá de fronteras insulares.

Leer el “reggaetón” requiere ensanchar el imaginario convencional de las identidades nacionales, ancladas en un solo territorio, una lengua vernácula y una cultura compartida. Como demuestran hábilmente los ensayos recopilados en este libro, la “nación del reggaetón” se mueve constantemente entre numerosos países y ciudades, entre el español y el inglés, entre ritmos antillanos y afroamericanos. Además, sus cultivadores y fanáticos representan a una población multirracial, aunque predominan negros y mulatos. Su transición de los márgenes al centro de la industria musical global en menos de una década coincide con su apropiación por parte de un creciente número de jóvenes latinoamericanos, latinos y caribeños. En el fondo, se trata de una música nómada, que desborda los límites del nacionalismo cultural, las clasificaciones raciales y étnicas, las normas establecidas del buen gusto y las preguntas —para citar aquel famoso son cubano— sobre de dónde son los cantantes.

Reggaeton roots & rarities in DJ/Rupture's radio show

2009-05-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

(DJ/Rupture at the studio. Photo by Wayne Marshall.)

Click here to listen to last night's WFMU 91.1 Mudd Up! radio show with DJ/Rupture. My dear co-editor Wayne Marshall and myself were the guests.

The Mudd Up! show usually focuses on: "New bass and beats plus live guests (musicians, DJs, poets) and an ear for the global south. Cumbia. Dubstep. Gangsta synthetics. Sound-art. Maghrebi. International exclusives." For our show, the focus was... "From Panamanians to Playeros to post-DemBoleros, [we]’ll be spinning rarities alongside discussion of the genre’s complex roots and current possibilities."

NYC Reggaeton book event and afterparty: May 7th!

2009-05-06T09:04:00.000-07:00

My co-editors (Wayne Marshall and Deborah Pacini Hernandez) and I are thankful for all the Reggaeton book-related events of the past month: University of Texas, Austin; EMP's Pop Music Conference in Seattle; University of Wisconsin, Madison; the book release event in Puerto Rico.

Now the time has come to celebrate in New York City!

NYC book release: MAY 7th, 6:30 pm

The New York City book release is being hosted by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies on Thursday May 7th, 6:30 p.m., Hunter College, Faculty Dining Room, West Building, 8th Floor, New York, New York. For more information contact Centro events coordinator Ivelisse Rosario Natal: ivelisse.rosario-natal@hunter.cuny.edu.

NYC book release afterparty: May 7th, 10 p.m.

The book event AFTERPARTY is being hosted by the good folks at QUE BAJO?!
FREE (No Cover)
Ft Geko Jones & Uproot Andy
Special Guest DJ Wayne and Wax (aka book co-editor Wayne Marshall)
Start Time: Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 10:00pm
End Time: Friday, May 8, 2009 at 4:00am
Location: APT
Street: 419 W. 13 St.
City/Town: New York, NY

Putting the "tra" in transnational

2009-05-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

The title of the Remezcla review of our Reggaeton book is: "Reading Reggaeton: A new anthology puts the 'tra' in transnational."

I love the witticism!

Among other things, the Remezcla book review says: "Overall, Reggaeton is a well-(g)rounded and engrossing approach to a subject matter that is both mainstream and marginalized at the same time. Most definitely an essential read for anyone interested in modern Caribbean popular culture."

And I agree: Tego Calderón's article and Miguel Luciano's images are among the highlights of our book.

Mini-chronicle: Reggaeton book event in PR

2009-05-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Last week was intense. I'm so grateful to Benjamín Muñiz and professors Aileen Estrada and Lilia Planell for their amazing efforts at organizing and publicizing our Reggaeton book event held last Thursday, April 29th at El Patio de las Artes in Universidad del Sagrado Corazón.

The place was packed! And I can't be more pleased with the amazing lineup of book discussants.

From left to right: master of ceremonies Benjamín Muñiz (at the podium), University of Puerto Rico anthropologist Jorge Duany, Director of the Popular Music Program at the Universidad Interamericana Miguel Cubano, videographer and anthropologist Melisa Riviere, dancer and independent scholar Awilda Sterling, Universidad Interamericana professor of Criminal Justice Gary Gutiérrez, and Sagrado Corazón professor and radio producer/host Elmer González.

I was also honored by the presence of VIP guests like renowned pianist Brenda Hopkins Miranda, ex-senator Velda González (yup, the same senator who spearheaded the 2002 perreo-focused public hearings), sociologist and one of my dearest mentors Angel Quintero Rivera, literary critic Carmen Dolores Hernández, journalist and media producer Luis Fernando "Peri" Coss, scholar and performer Larry La Fountain, hip-hop artists Welmo Romero Joseph and Velcro (Andrés Ramos), among many, many more.

Among the event's highlights: the audience's enthusiastic response to Elmer González's remarks on our book's reggae/reggaeton in Panama section, Brenda Hopkins' incisive statements on recent legislation regarding Puerto Rican "autochthonous music," and the heated exchange between ex-senator Velda González and book discussant Awilda Sterling regarding the virtues of the perreo dance style.

I had a blast: partly because the event was wonderful, partly because it was also my birthday and my family and dearest friends surprised me with a cake. Great way to start a new year!

(Photos by Anabellie Rivera.)

Artículos sobre Reggaeton en Claridad

2009-04-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

El semanario Claridad de Puerto Rico acaba de publicar un suplemento especial con motivo del lanzamiento del libro que co-edité junto a Wayne Marshall y Deborah Pacini Hernandez titulado Reggaeton.

Aquí la introducción al suplemento, escrito por Alida Millán Ferrer, editora de la sección cultural de Claridad: "Conversando sobre el reggaetón."

Benjamín Muñiz, curador del suplemento, escribió "¿Te gusta o no te gusta el reggaetón?

Esta servidora escribió "Introducción a las selecciones del libro Reggaeton".

Las selecciones del libro son:

"Los circuitos socio-sónicos del reggaetón", de Wayne Marshall, Raquel Z. Rivera y Deborah Pacini Hernandez.

"Reggae en Panamá", de Christoph Twickel.

"Del hip hop al reggaetón: ¿un paso es?", de Welmo E. Romero Joseph.

"Poesía de porquería: la lírica post-reggaetónica de Calle 13", de Frances Negrón-Muntaner.

"Un hombre vive aquí: el hipermasculino Residente del reggaetón", de Alfredo Nieves Moreno.

"La Glory y la faz", de Félix Jiménez.

El artículo de las páginas centrales es "La ruta de lo popular y el reggaetón", de Brenda Hopkins Miranda.

Y para cerrar: "Reggaetón, un reto", de Ezequiel Rodríguez Andino.

¡Que disfruten la lectura!

Reggaeton book events: PR and NYC

2009-04-04T16:19:00.000-07:00

¡¡¡Por fin!!!

You can order our book through Duke University Press or amazon or your local bookstore or... (the options are many). Check the amazing blurbs on the book's back cover by none other than Residente Calle 13, Jeff Chang, Juan Flores and Mark Anthony Neal.

APRIL 29th, PUERTO RICO
The Puerto Rico book release is being hosted by Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Maestría en Medios y Cultura Contemporánea on Wednesday April 29th, 6 p.m. at Patio de las Artes, Edificio Barat, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, San Juan, Puerto Rico. For more info contact (787) 661-6908 or aestrada@sagrado.edu.

MAY 7th, NEW YORK CITY
The New York City book release is being hosted by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies on Thursday May 7th, 6:30 p.m., Hunter College, Faculty Dining Room, West Building, 8th Floor, New York, New York. For more information contact Centro events coordinator Ivelisse Rosario Natal: ivelisse.rosario-natal@hunter.cuny.edu.

2 papers on women & reggaeton

2009-03-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

(Girl 1 by Sofia Maldonado, 2006. 120 cm x 270 cm.)

#1. I just read the paper "Análisis de la imagen de la mujer en el discurso del reggaeton" by María José Gallucci (2007). The analysis is extremely narrow and simplistic, a great example of the serious amount of work to be done on the topic. As stated in the (full of grammatical errors) English abstract provided: "Considering exclusively the criticism about the sexual orientation and woman belittlement expressed in the reggaeton lyrics, this investigation [...] aims to describe how man present women's image in reggaeton lyrics." Gallucci draws the following conclusion from a discourse analysis of 10 of the most successful songs by Daddy Yankee and Don Omar: "Through this investigation, one can conclude that, even when in many cases the lyrics do have a heavy load of sexual content; it is also true that, in other lyrics, the singer (re)presents woman from his feelings, and in situations that are not unusual to our everyday life." Flojo.

#2. I found more useful "El reggaetón y sus audiencias femeninas: una mirada al universo cultural de las adolescentes de hoy" by Wilma Guzmán Flores (2007), presented at the national conference of the National Association of African American Studies & Affiliates. It's based on very limited ethnographic work with teenage women in Puerto Rico, fails to draw linkages between reggaeton and other (past and present) musical/cultural expressions and often takes at face value what the informants are saying. But her ethnographic efforts still tell a fascinating story that, of course, is as much about the informants as it is about the researcher.

I appreciate the author's earnest questions regarding how much "control" women actually have when they're dancing (her informants explain it is women who have the power/control in perreo matters). Guzmán Flores, in this case, is unwilling to accept her informants' opinions uncritically and is puzzled by the codes of what's acceptable and what's not for her informants. She asks (but leaves unanswered): Why would these young women object to being touched by their dancing partner's hands and not by their crotch? Great question to follow up on. It reminds me of Nina La Bandolera's thought-provoking blog post detailing her version of perreo @ the club rules of conduct.

Momma's Hip-Hop Kitchen - FREE concert

2009-03-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

Come dance with us @ MOMMA'S Hip Hop Kitchen.

I'll be there singing in a ventetú of bomba drummers and dancers, paying homage to our ancestresses.

FREE, FREE , FREE, FREE
Tickets will be given at the door for seating purposes only.
First come, first served!

Now some info from organizers Dayanara and Lah Tere:

We are looking for organizations to endorse or sponsor the event. If you are interested, have any questions and/or need more tickets. Please call Dayanara 917-232-5419 -fuerzagoddess@aol.com or Lah Tere 312-489-0505 - lahtere@yahoo.com.

We are asking everyone to please help us raise money to support local organizations. Be abundant and contribute something towards your ticket. DONATIONS will get you RSVP Seats, & Raffle tickets.

Please let me know how many tickets you need so I can RSVP your group, we can also arrange a time when I can give you the tickets as well.

To make a donation please go to http://www.casaatabexache.org/index.php?name=joinCasa scroll down to paypal and make sure that you put for mommas hip hop kitchen. Let me know when you do this so I can rsvp you.

Womyn In Hip Hop Respond to Violence Against Womyn in

HIP HOP... `HER-story is OUR Story!

If you have turned to the news over the past two weeks, we are sure you can tell us something about Rihanna and Chris Brown. While this was a sad and unfortunate incident in their lives, it is an incident that happens everyday, every few minutes, and every single second in our communities. Unfortunately, we have heard this story too many times before by womyn that include Faith Evans, Mary J, Blige, Whitney Houston, Left Eye, Jaslene Gonzalez, Jennifer Hudson (a family affair), not including the other voices of womyn that the industry has silenced. Like those stories, this buzz shall pass and womyns lives will continue to be taken at the hands of men, never getting sufficient media attention to create significant change. What won't pass is the continuous abuse that is happening to womyn in our communities that no one is talking about.

The attention that Rihanna and Chris have received has impacted music listeners across the world, especially youth and young womyn who may find themselves in similar situations. The message they are receiving right now include but are not limited to: (this is even after seeing the picture)

1. Its Rihanna's fault (through the speculation of different stories), she deserves it or she asked for it.

2. Its wasn't his fault--the industry is stressful, he saw it growing up, they are both young and very one makes mistakes.

3. His career is more important than her life. In the past abusive entertainers have gained rewards for their behavior i.e. increasing record sales, endorsements and overall publicity. (Biggie, Pun, Bobby, and the list goes on...)

Yet, no one is talking about the impact that this is having on Rihanna's mind, body and spirit. This has only become a "domestic" violence issue because of the visible bruises on her face. But how about the ones that we don’t see, the physical, verbal, emotional, psychological, economic and sexual abuse that took place or may have been taking place prior to this incident. The hidden marks of relationship & dating violence!

The messages above continues to drive home that womyn are always blamed for the abuse they go through, that its okay for young men to behave and use violence as a solution because there is no consequence and there is no space for womyn to defend and fight for themselves. What are the messages that we are sending our young womyn and men and what are the next steps for a disease that is taking the lives of communities of color all over the world?

Somewhere in America a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner, every 15 seconds. (UN Study On The Status of Women, Year 2000)

In NYC Police responded to 234,988 domestic violence incidents in 2008; this averages to over 600 incidents per day. In addition, NYPD’s Domestic Violence Unit conducted 72,463 home visits in 2008, a 93% increase since 2002.
16,861 teen calls were received by the City’s Domestic Violence Hotline in 2007; and 9,462 were received in 2006.
* Statistics provided by Safe Horizon

With these statistics, why does it take a celebrity to go through violence in order for it to become a public issue that gets media attention? What about your neighbors story, your moms, your sisters, your daughter, your own story? When will that get the media coverage it needs?

Due to the lack of support , womyn have had to create their own form of media using the elements of hip hop as a tool for voicing our stories. On Saturday, March 7th, 2009, in honor of International Women's Month, 900 women, youth and families representing over 30 non profit organizations, schools and local artists collectives will be using hip hop to take back their lives at the 2nd Annual Mommas Hip Hop Kitchen. In response to the ongoing and increasing violence in our community we will be putting on the Womyn's Hip Hop Concert of the year.

This year Mommas Hip Hop Kitchen is bringing you a powerful concert in collaboration with CASA Atabex Ache, Trabajadoras por la Paz, Vamos a la Pena del Bronx and the Rebel Diaz Arts Collective. These groups rooted in the South Bronx work year round in ending violence against womyn. The South Bronx is the birthplace of Hip Hop, and the poorest congressional district in the nation where negative statistics on womyn are staggering. Together we are putting on a program that will support families dealing with domestic violence, immigration, LGBTQ issues, foster care, homelessness, prison, police brutality, and more by providing a day to be in celebration for their lives. This concert will create dynamic interactive exchange and safe space for all young and adult womyn of color & their families to express themselves through the art of Hop Hop. This event will bring a beautiful array of artistic sistahs together to share their medium with young women of color across the city.

Wayne on Dembow & Marisol on Daggering

2009-03-03T09:47:00.000-08:00

For thoughts on Dem Bow and a mix called "Dem Bow Dem" by my co-editor Wayne Marshall, click here.

For Marisol LeBron on the recent Daggering controversy in Jamaica and it's parallels to reggaeton's perreo debates, click here.

2-21: P.R. Freedom Project

2009-02-19T14:13:00.000-08:00

Hip-Hop vs. Reggaetón

2009-01-25T06:22:00.000-08:00

Says Vico C. in The Chosen Few documentary:

Says Wayne who posted the excerpt on youtube:
"Vico C demonstrates the difference between hip-hop and reggaeton via beatbox :: this is an excerpt from the _Chosen Few_ documentary, which I highly recommend :: I claim fair use for these 14 seconds -- it serves as an example in an article about reggaeton (in _Reggaeton_ [Duke University Press, 2009]) and is included on a page of musical examples here: http://wayneandwax.com/?page_id=139"

Says I:
Check out Wayne's musical examples page. It gives some audio input into the comments generated by my previous blogpost. And, actually, so does his now classic 05 blog post "we use so many snares" included in the 2006 version of Da Capo Best Music Writing series.

Sunez on reggaeton

2009-01-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

Sunez, Editor in Chief of Lavoe Revolt and whose writings I've followed since the early 90s, takes on reggaeton in a September 2008 blogpost that I only recently saw. It's titled "THE REAL MUSIC: Time to Disassociate and Associate PART 1".

Here are some of it's most incendiary highlights:

"Thus, Reggaeton, is a label of wretched waste a particular ethnicity can now call their own. And only their own."

"It is not merely enough to say it is a degradation of the morality and ethics of a people. This would be using the Stanley Crouch-like veils of pompous morality to blame a music for the realities of an impoverished people. Yet, it is clear that Reggaeton is a sellout subgenre and its artists don’t reflect their reality realistically and/or seek to express themselves originally and cleverly."

"Ultimately, Reggaeton lyrically only has one aspect: the desires of a colonized youth who mildly taste the defecated splendor of Americana in their colony and are visually awash with the spicy lure of its grander stardom pitches toward them daily."

"Essentially, if these lyrics rep the Boricua hoods in Borinquen, niggas is weak hoping for wicked."

"[...]the game is to be sold and never to be bold. A colonized slave people think up garbage all by themselves. That’s the point."

"Clearly put, [Tego Calderon] is an average MC (If he grew up in Brooklyn, he’d have no chance) who deliberately makes some sellout tracks to hustle his catalogue."

As I wrote in the Comments section of the blog: I agree with much in Sunez's article, disagree with some of it and I'm inspired by all of it.

The only one thing that truly scandalized me was his description of Tego as average. Tego?! Average?!

I won't argue with Sunez's statement that Tego "deliberately makes some sellout tracks to hustle his catalogue." (Granted, I'm not one to use the word "sellout" but I know what Sunez means.) But Tego's wordplay, his subtleties, the echoes of Ismael Rivera in his wordchoice and flow, his (granted, contradictory) politics... Nothing but average? Nah. Average might be Daddy Yankee, Don Omar and Ivy Queen.

As always, much respect and cariño to Sunez.

Our Reggaeton book will be out early 09

2008-11-30T09:24:00.000-08:00

The co-edited book I've been working on with Wayne Marshall and Deborah Pacini Hernandez is scheduled for release next Spring! Check page 1 of Duke University Press' Spring catalogue or click on the image below to make it larger:

Latinos & the N-Word

2008-10-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

Click here to check Raquel Cepeda's article in this week's Village Voice titled "The N-Word is Flourishing Among Generation Hip-Hop Latinos." It brings up great points about race and class. For example: "The palpable racial tension that's been rearing its head this historic presidential election, the subject of race and who is truly considered black or white in this black-and-white race, is something Latinos need to pay attention to. For many of us, especially those of Caribbean descent who make up a sizable chunk of New York Latinos, race should matter, and so should that one particular word."

Then she has some amazing quotes, such as this gem from Immortal Technique: "The European Spaniards have left a legacy of self-hatred and racism among the Latino population; without acknowledging that, we will not evolve past our own inequity," says Immortal Technique, an Afro-Peruvian hip-hop artist who also uses the n-word. "Racism in America, as horrible and ugly as it may be, still isn't as bad as what it is in Latin America, and the sad part is that we are being racist against ourselves."

Immortal Technique

I'm extremely pleased by the always necessary reminder that the so-called Latin American racial democracy is just a myth. I also appreciate Cepeda's use of the term "Afro-Latino" to mean not just a child of African American and Latino parents... but a child of Latino parents who are also part of the African diaspora.

And, I can't lie, I was caught off guard (and got very happy) by the shoutout to my book: "With few exceptions within our community—Raquel Rivera's 2003 book New York Ricans From the Hip Hop Zone devoted prime real estate to the discussion of Latino identity in hip-hop—this is a conversation we've failed to have, whatever our personal feelings."

So what do you think? Do you agree that "the profusion of the word into the New York City Latino vocabulary is reaching an almost caricaturist quality"? Is the way Latinos are using the word today different from the way they used it years back? Why use the word at all? Why not use it?

The Reggaeton Vote

2008-10-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

Click here to check out a great article by Marisol LeBrón posted on the North American Congress on Latin America's website. It's titled "The Reggaetón Factor in the U.S. Elections".

Article on Reggaeton & Urban Aesthetics/Policy

2008-10-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

Folks doing research on reggaeton will have noticed there are few academic articles on the subject. But, thanks to Zaire Dinzey-Flores, we have one more article to add to the slowly growing list.

It's titled “De la Disco al Caserío: Urban Spatial Aesthetics and Policy to the Beat of Reggaetón” and it appears in the latest issue of the Centro Journal XX (2): 34-69, 2008.

Dinzey-Flores writes the following abstract for her article:

"Conversing with urban sociological theories, and relying on a content analysis of the songs’ lyrics, this essay exposes the 'urban spatial aesthetics' of reggaetón. The paper examines the particular views of the city that reggaetón makes public and the policy manifestations of these representations. I exhibit the reggaetoneros’ lyrical construct of an urban socio-spatial community actualized between the disco, the barrio, the caseríos and the street. I show that the lyrical profile of reggaetón underscores poverty, violence, masculinity, and race as vital constructs of an authentically urban experience. The environmental elements and themes display an aesthetic that recognizes the city as dualistically liberating and constraining; an aesthetic identified here in the 'blin-blin' sensibilities. I conclude suggesting that reggaetoneros have made public the plight of the urban poor in Puerto Rico and unearthed their potentials, becoming socio-political ambassadors who calibrate the urban policy frames in Puerto Rico."

The Centro Journal is available in libraries or through the Centro website.

Talento de Barrio

2008-10-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to see Daddy Yankee's Talento de Barrio—the movie that he stars in and for which he served as executive producer. It was a huge hit in Puerto Rico and opened in New York and Los Angeles last Friday. (According to EFE news agency, the film generated $1.4 million and was seen by 280,000 people in Puerto Rico during it's first month.)

I expected to hate it. But I didn't.

O.k., so I found the music uninspiring. The script mostly sucked (specially the dique romantic parts). The acting was often weak (though Daddy Yankee was much better than I thought he would be).

But still, I actually enjoyed the movie. Unlike Illegal Tender and Feel the Noise, where almost everything felt extremely artificial and over the top, there was something about the images in Talento de Barrio (cliched as they often were) and speech patterns (stunted by the weak script as they were) that actually FELT like Puerto Rico. Those shots of the "Valle Verde" housing project in the middle of green mountains, the tender conversations between the main character Edgar Dinero and his hardworking mom, maybe even the simple fact that the movie was all delivered in Puerto Rican Spanish (minus a few affectations, like Soribel's misplaced, ultra-corrected "s")... Little details like that conspired so that I wouldn't hate the movie.

Granted, I won't argue with the reviewers that trashed it.

The Village Voice's Tim Grierson, for example, said:

"When conservative watchdogs snarl about the ugliness of gangsta rap, Talento de Barrio might be what they picture in their head—a vile, stupid, violent-crime drama that would be laughable if its content wasn't so toxic. Drug boss Edgar Dinero (reggaeton star Daddy Yankee, who mostly glowers) prowls the gritty streets of Puerto Rico and dreams of becoming a rapper. Directed limply by José Iván Santiago, Talento de Barrio lustfully idolizes its shallow, gun-toting bad boy, as can be witnessed by the disinterested lip service given to crime's downside and a particularly risible moment when Edgar carts out the old "the whole world's corrupt" justification during a brief monologue. Reggaeton's success was due to its Latin-influenced reinvention of commercial hip-hop's sonic palette, but Yankee's vanity project resorts to every rap-music-video cliché to tell the umpteenth story of a young tough who has to choose between burgeoning stardom and the "reality" of the 'hood. Talento de Barrio sells Yankee's fans a fantasy of hot babes, cool cars, and an endless supply of fresh threads—just so long as you don't get killed first, of course. Which would be a total drag, because then who's gonna buy his records?"

Meanwhile, the New York Times' Neil Genzlinger said:

"Some rappers have shown themselves to be adept actors as well, and now Daddy Yankee, a big star in the related musical genre of reggaetón, takes his big-screen shot in “Talento de Barrio.” Unfortunately, any acting skills he might have — and it looks as if he might well have some — are powerless against the thudding cliché of a script he is saddled with. [...] He has a loving mother, he is protective of his sister, and he has aspirations that go beyond gangsterism: to be a reggaetón star, of course. But his criminal life has a gravitational pull that keeps sucking him back in. The violence-laden story, such as it is, is ineptly stitched together; it’s unclear who is shooting at whom and why; and the dialogue seldom advances beyond “Yo, dog” and “Whassup?” The soundtrack is the only draw here."

I agree with the reviewers. The movie is not a good one. But I have to admit it gave me a little taste of images and sounds that I've been hungry for. Meager (and inept) as that little taste was... I ate it up.

"Ninguno" (NoOne) for Office

2008-10-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

"Ninguno, el candidato de los hip-hoppers... Vota por NINGUNO!!!!" So reads the caption that Puerto Rico-based hip-hop artist Sietenueve posted on the image above via his myspace page. (Click here for a larger image.)

Now in Englich, the caption reads: "NoOne, the hip-hopper's candidate... Vote for NoOne!!!"

See, this is my kind of political campaign. If I'm going to be bombarded by all this electoral madness... I'm so glad these folks in Puerto Rico are making a critical intervention AND providing some comedy relief by proposing that concerned citizens go vote for "Ninguno" as their write-in candidate..

Sietenueve, along with Jerry Ferrao y los pleneros de Ninguno and other artists, are joining the Comité de Amigos de Ninguno (Friends of NoOne Commitee) today at 5pm in this witty campaign for "Ninguno". (At the Centro de Convenciones parking lot in San Juan, right next to the place where the 4 candidates for governor will be debating tonight... moderation courtesy of none other than Daddy Yankee.)

The "Ninguno for Governor" campaign is the brainchild of the political theater group Papel Machete. For more on the campaign click here.

I'm sold on Ninguno! Everyone makes promises... Ninguno delivers.

Black On Both Sides - October 11

2008-10-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

"Are you Black or Latino?" Ha! I love this event's answer: Black AND Latino. Black on Both Sides.

Black on Both Sides brings together a cross-generational line-up that includes hip hop pioneers and emerging artists for critical conversation and performance. Panelists will include DJ Laylo, Ariel Fernandez, Black Artemis, Carlos REC McBride, Frank Lopez, Rokafella and more.

Free and open to the public. Due to limited space, we ask that you pre-register by sending an email to: afrolatinoforum@gmail.com

This event is organized by the afrolatin@ forum in collaboration with the Hip Hop Theater Festival, the Hip Hop Association, and New York University's Center for Multicultural Education and Programs and in association with the Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute. It is co-sponsored by Africana Studies and Latino Studies at NYU, the Schomburg Center and the Columbia University Latino Heritage Month Committee.

Gender, Blogging and Pedagogy

2008-09-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, September 18th, I did a lecture at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania titled From Hip-Hop to Reggaeton: Gender, Blogging and Pedagogy. The students were sharp, very engaged and gave me a lot of food for thought on a topic that has been obsessing me as of late. Here is the article published by Swarthmore's Daily Gazette.

Hip Hop to Reggaeton
By Alexandria Placido
1:23 am - 09/19/08

Raquel Rivera, Ph.D, Research Fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, delivered a lecture on Thursday, September 18th entitled From Hip Hop to Reggaeton: Gender, Blogging, and Pedagogy.

The talk, which was part of the Latino Heritage Month events, focused upon Dr. Rivera’s struggle with the representations of gender in the hip hop and reggaeton communities, as well as her use of blogging as an “outlet” to tackle these difficult issues, “It’s so difficult to talk about gender and sexuality in the classroom, that’s why I started to blog,” she explained.

Born in Puerto Rico, and a resident of New York City since 1994, Rivera is the author of New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone, which was published in 2003, and is currently co-editing the anthology, Reading Reggaeton: Historical, Aesthetic and Critical Perspectives. She is also an accomplished freelance writer, with essays appearing in Vibe, Urban Latino, The San Juan Star, El Nuevo Dia, and One World, to name a few. A former founding member of Yerbabuena, a Boricua roots music group, Rivera currently works with the bomba group Alma Moyo, as well as being a founding member of Yaya, a women’s collective dedicate to Dominican salves and Puerto Rican bomba.

While teaching a class on hip hop and reggaeton in 2006, Dr. Rivera realized that many students felt that they could not express their real opinions about gender relations as related to these musical styles, and instead they obligingly parroted politically correct phrases that denounced the objectification of women.

The Swarthmore students assembled for the discussion agreed, citing a “level of disengagement” on campus. It is this exact problem that troubles Rivera, that “we keep talking past each other” when discussing the portrayal of women in popular music videos and media. “The problem is not explicit sex,” she explained, “it’s sexism,” and asked the assembled students for their opinions. A topic of particular interest is the mixed feelings many female students feel as they are torn between liking a song’s beat, but not the message.

Rivera agreed and called for “a diversity in the images we consume” that can portray the many nuances of femininity. She pointed out that sexism is a “systematic problem,” and encouraged students to devote themselves to combating these issues.

The assembled crowd enjoyed Rivera’s engaging speaking style, which was informal and encouraged discussion and questions. Using an array of media examples, including music videos, documentaries, and her own blog entries, Rivera engaged her audience; Cecilia Marquez (’11) says, “I thought she was a really powerful speaker. She talked about a lot of things relevant to this community.”

Fat Joe Calls Daddy Yankee a Sellout for Endorsing McCain

2008-08-29T06:05:00.000-07:00

MTV reported yesterday that Fat Joe said via a phone interview from Denver, where he was attending the Democratic National Convention:

"I opened the newspaper and got sick to my stomach[...]. I felt like I wanted to vomit when I seen that. The reason why I called [Daddy Yankee] a sellout is because I feel he did that for a [publicity] look, rather than the issues that are affecting his people that look up to him. How could you want John McCain in office when George Bush and the Republicans already have half a million people losing their homes in foreclosure? We're fighting an unjust war. It's the Latinos and black kids up in the frontlines, fighting that war. ... We over here trying to take the troops out of Iraq and bring peace. This guy immediately wants war. If not with Iraq or Afghanistan, he'll start a new one with Iran. I feel real disgusted that Daddy Yankee would do that. Either he did that for a look, or he's just not educated on politics."

"Like I said, with me, my whole philosophy on blacks and Latinos is: We're all one[...] We're in the same ghettos, same inner cities, and we're suffering from the same problems. Every problem the blacks have, the Latinos have. There's two systems of health care: the one for the rich that's really good, then there's the one for the inner city, where they leave ladies in the emergency room unattended for 24 hours until they drop dead. ... People don't even check on her hours after she's dead. This is normal stuff. This is what's happening in the U.S."

"Why should my man Daddy Yankee be endorsing McCain? This is the only urban guy in the universe to endorse John McCain. You got people who look up to [Yankee] — young teenagers that look up to him and might make the wrong choice. John McCain is the wrong thing to do. I don't think the Republicans care much about minorities. I can't believe [Yankee] went and endorsed this guy."

I have to say: I don't think I ever heard Fat Joe make so much sense.

Oh, and on rumors that Daddy Yankee tried endorsing Obama first, but was turned down by the Obama campaign, check: El Nuevo Día, Fox News, politico.com and Blabbeando.

And one more thing about the ironies of these debates: Puerto Ricans residing in Puerto Rico may be U.S. citizens but they can't vote in presidential elections. For a classist but witty take on this by fake news outlet El Ñame (kinda like The Onion, but starchy), check the post: "Daddy Yankee Endosa a McCain; Cacos Ya Saben Por Quién NO Podrán Ir a Votar". Now in Inglich: "Daddy Yankee Endorses McCain; Thugs Now Know Who They WON'T Be Able to Vote For."

Not all Latinos Support Abuelo Yankee

2008-08-27T06:57:00.000-07:00

O.k., so Daddy Yankee announced this week that he supports Abuelo Yankee John McCain. (Witticism courtesy of poet/scholar Urayoán Noel.") (Further commentary on the endorsement by Marisol LeBron, Blabbeando and El Nuevo Día.)

Somehow, with all that back and forth of commentary on yesterday's blog post, I forgot one important detail. With all this discussion about Daddy Yankee and reggaeton's conservative potential and Latinos having anti-black tendencies... I forgot reggaetoneros/raperos Don Omar and Julio Voltio (among plenty of other Latino artists) endorsed Obama.

So we do have to be critical of the knee-jerk anti-blackness of many self-identified Latinos. But we also have to keep in mind those Latinos that have decided to support the Obama campaign. Lets take this video as an example: Alejandro Sanz, Paulina Rubio, John Leguizamo, Jessica Alba, Kate del Castillo, Cucu Diamantes (Yerba Buena), Pedro Martinez (Yerba Buena), Andres Levin (Yerba Buena), George Lopez, Luis Guzman, Don Omar, Voltio, Lila Downs, Lin Manuel Miranda, Frankie Needles, Huey Dunbar, Nydia Caro, Ivonne Caro Caro, Brazilian Girls, Carlos Marín and family, Carola Gonzalez, Viva Nativa, Jose Alberti...

Please lets not make Daddy Yankee more of a posterboy than he already is!

On a related note, I found Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's good critical take on a New York Times story on Obama and the Latino vote. "There are many things to admire about the New York Times. A complex and nuanced understanding of the vast diversity of Latino America is not among those things.[...] The sloppy, inaccurate story goes on for 32 agonizing paragraphs, using the terms 'black' and 'Latino' as though they were mutually exclusive – which they are not. Historians estimate that 95 percent of the African slave trade to the Americas took place in Latin America. [...] The story also erroneously portrays Latinos as a race unto themselves - an error egregious enough to be stated in our own census bureau's definition of Hispanic as a person 'of any race'. Including 'black'." And she writes plenty of other good stuff.

And one more thing, my little brother asked (after reading yesterday's blog) what I thought, in a nutshell, about all these political/electoral debates: "de ke se trata eso? ke piensas de eso?" So let me just say...

bueno, ya tu sabes: yo soy del Partido Contra los Cabrones. así que los políticos no son mi gente favorita. pero entre Obama y McCain, Obama es mejor por mucho. Bueno, quizás no por tanto, pero es que McCain es un verdadero espanto. McCain representa los intereses más anti-ecológicos, pro-guerra, pro-grandes negocios, pro-ricos, conservadores.

(well, you know: I'm from the Party Against the Cabrones [I don't have a good translation for that, sorry]. Politicians are not my favorite people.... but between Obama and McCain, Obama is better by far. Well, maybe not that far, but McCain is truly truly a nightmare. McCain represents the most anti-ecological, pro-war, pro-big business, pro-richfolks, conservative interests.)

Daddy Yankee Endorses John McCain

2008-08-26T05:11:00.000-07:00

Well this all gives me a new perspective on that silly slogan in Puerto Rico calling for the youth vote: "Vota o quédate callao" (Vote or Shut Up).

Now that Daddy Yankee has decided to endorse McCain, all that rings through my mind is the second half: Quédate callao.

Check "Election Time WTF" and "Daddy Yankee Go Home" for a bit of scathing commentary. I'm looking forward to reading more. Let me know if you have or find any.

Straight Outta Puerto Rico: Reggaeton's Rough Road to Glory

2008-08-06T13:41:00.001-07:00

Two years ago I was interviewed for a documentary about the rise of reggaeton in Puerto Rico. Well, it has finally been released.

Straight Outta Puerto Rico: Reggaeton’s Rough Road to Glory premiered on MUN2 last Thursday, July 31, 2008. It aired again Saturday, August 2. And, as of yesterday August 5th, the documentary is officially on sale.

Straight Outta Puerto Rico Trailer
Uploaded by MonacoMusicFilmFestival

The documentary may not be “the definitive story of reggaetón” (as the www.holamun2.com website claims), but it certainly seems to be the first large-scale, bona-fide documentary on the music genre. (And if you know of good documentaries on reggaeton that have not had mass media exposure, PLEASE let me know. I would love to spread the word.)

Sure, The Chosen Few: El Documental filled the void for quite a few years. But, lets be honest, as fascinating as much of the artists’ commentary was in that 2005 production, the effort was more of a hybrid documentary/infomercial than usual.

I really appreciate Straight Outta Puerto Rico’s emphasis on the social context out of which reggaeton came about in the 1990s in Puerto Rico. (Surprise, surprise—I’m a sociologist.) Of course, the interest this emphasis generates and the motives behind it are not just sociological/historical. This chosen focus also has a lot to do with the market appeal of a story featuring the drugs/money/violence bochinche factor.

The way that MUN2 promoted the documentary in www.holamun2.com was telling: “Drugs, Money, Reggaetón” was part of the title. And the preview clip that they chose to feature “explores why many early reggaetón artists' careers were funded by drug dealers.”

Now, on to other stuff I liked about the documentary. Due credit is given to Jamaican and Panamanian reggae. But then the story concentrates on Puerto Rico, no apologies made. Good. I’m usually hyper-sensitive to folks that claim that reggaeton is ONLY Puerto Rican. I’m just as hyper-sensitive to folks that claim that reggaeton IS NOT Puerto Rican. It’s a tired, heated, stale debate that I hope dies a quick and spectacular death. But this documentary does not go to either extreme. What a relief!

I may be no expert in camera work, but I found quite a few shots looking cheapy and/or sloppy. And the news footage featuring dead bodies and bloody survivors struck me as overdone.

I asked filmmaker Frances Negrón-Muntaner (and my co-author for a NACLA journal article we titled “Reggaeton Nation”) for her impressions of the documentary in a nutshell. She writes: “Straight Outta Puerto Rico glosses over all of the hot button issues that come with reggaeton: poverty, racism, and misogyny. But like reggaeton itself, the film beats to the idea that there's more to music that meets the ear, and that finding out where music comes from is a vital way to make sense of ourselves and the world.”

Straight Outta Puerto Rico actually coincides with many of the points Frances and I made in the NACLA journal article. But it is so extremely powerful to see the stories and analysis right from the artists' mouths. And even better is to see the old music footage featuring Vico C, Ranking Stone, Chezina and many more artists. This documentary definitely includes some amazing historical gems!

Confessions

2008-05-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

I (finally!) managed to make time to read Karrine Steffans Confessions of a Video Vixen (2005). I know... I'm way behind on the times, since she already put out the sequel—The Vixen Diaries (2007).

Do I recommend it? Well... yes, if you're interested in a first-person narrative (carefully crafted for pop appeal) of gender power dynamics in the music industry or if you're interested in how pain and self-hatred inform the decisions of this particular "video vixen." It's no literary jewel. But I'm glad I read it. It has given me a lot of food for thought.

And it also made me wish that a man in the hip-hop industry would have the guts to tell a similar tale (but from a male perspective)—a story that focuses on how much of the swaggering, partying, womanizing and posturing is, deep down, informed by a pain and self-hatred so similar to Karrine Steffans... so similar to the pain and self-hatred most of us battle.

Reggaeton in Utah

2008-05-06T08:53:00.001-07:00

Click here for a 5/5/08 article (where I'm quoted) about reggaeton in Salt Lake City, Utah, prompted by Ivy Queen's upcoming show this Friday at the E Center.

The article is neither extensive nor groundbreaking (actually, it's a bit confusing/misleading on the terminological/historical tip... then again, it is a tricky history to convey). But it's still fascinating and indicative of where the media and market are at with respect to reggaeton, starting with the title of the piece, which doesn't actually mention the name of the genre but instead reads "Hip-hop-influenced genre is on the rise and DJ hopes Utah takes notice."

Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex & Power in Music Video - a review

2008-03-31T15:29:00.001-07:00

Here's a fragment of a review I just wrote of Sut Jhally's documentary Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex & Power in Music Video (2007). I'm sure a lot of folks will find this documentary insightful and useful... so I won't wait until the review is out in print to give you the scoop.

By the way, Sut Jhally is the Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation, the institution responsible for producing this documentary and many others—including Byron Hurt's groundbreaking piece on hip-hop and masculinity titled Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes.

Here's the trailer:

Here's my review:

Dreamworlds 3 is focused on analyzing how music videos both inform and are informed by our culture’s dominant attitudes regarding femininity, masculinity, sexuality and race. One of this documentary’s strongest points is its close attention to music video’s “storytelling techniques,” not only in terms of its lyrics and images, but also in terms of filmic techniques (camera angles and movement, for example) and the stories that these tecniques tell. Other strengths include its discussion of how the “pornographic imagination” and the porn industry inform music videos, as well as its portrayal of music videos as a constructed “fantasy” and “dreamworld” that is not the “real world” but is still in constant dialogue with it.

Another of Dreamworld 3’s crucial contributions to making more productive the often sterile dialogue surrounding gender and popular culture, is its framing of the question of sexism, not by asking if an image is “good or bad,” but through an analysis of whose stories are being told and how. According to the documentary, the problem is not that there is too much sex in music videos, but that there is no diversity in the stories being told since they are monopolized by the “heterosexual male imagination.” Furthermore, the documentary makes it very clear that female objectification itself is not the problem; the problem is that females are only being portrayed as objects. Once again, the key issue for Jhally is the lack of diversity in how gender is represented.

Though the aims and strategies of hyper-sexualizing women in music videos are thoroughly covered, one is left wondering how (and if) sexualization and objectification works in terms of images of men. The question of how women viewers receive and respond to all this imagery is also left somewhat unclear. Surely, it is the male heterosexist pornographic imagination constructing the dreamworlds of music videos “to draw in male viewers.” But what about women? What are the details of their attraction, repulsion and/or indifference to hyper-sexualized images (of women, of men)? How are their responses different from those of (most) men? But frankly, faulting the documentary for failing to hone in on these questions seems like nitpicking, given all that it does do.

Reggaeton: Allegedly Puerto Rican

2008-02-28T15:14:00.000-08:00

The article "Ritmo boricua que mueve al mundo entero" (Boricua Rhythm that Moves the Whole World) published yesterday February 27 in the newspaper Primera Hora in Puerto Rico seems to assume that the sun rises and sets right above the island.

(This is the photo that accompanies the article, bearing the caption: "Don Omar is one of the most popular reggaeton artists in and outside of Puerto Rico.")

According to the article, reggaeton is a "provocative rhythm that was born in the minds and hands of a group of Boricua youngsters a bit over two decades ago." It also states that "initially, reggaeton became one of the most favored genres thanks to pioneers like Vico C, who distinguishes himself through his clean lyrics and social critiques."

There seems to be a huge confusion here. First, Vico initially did rap/hip-hop, not reggaeton. Second, Vico made his initial fame on the street thanks to the dirtiest, wittiest lyrics. Third, the "rhythm" that has characterized reggaeton arrived in Puerto Rico via Panama's reggae in Spanish and Jamaica's dancehall reggae.

It's true that in Puerto Rico it was given a new name, new life, unique characteristics and that from there it jumped to international stardom. But to attribute reggaeton's "birth" to Puerto Rican youth without taking into account the wider Caribbean context perpetuates the isolation and "insularism" of Puerto Ricans. That's not cool. Puerto Rico is wonderful, a "chulería," but it's not the world's bellybutton!

As I told one of my readers in the Spanish version of this post, the problem is not saying that reggaeton is Boricua. The problem is saying that it is ONLY Boricua. Or that its origins are SOLELY Boricua.

Reggaeton is Boricua. But we have to share the credit for its creation and birth.

I like to think of cultural practices in their multiple dimensions. And I also like it when we can share the credit (or the blame) with all of those that deserve it. I find it useful, empowering, inspiring.

Reguetón: ritmo dizque boricua

2008-02-27T08:43:00.000-08:00

El artículo "Ritmo boricua que mueve al mundo entero" que fue publicado hoy 27 de febrero en el periódico Primera Hora de Puerto Rico como que peca de asumir que el sol sale y se pone justo encima de la isla.

(Esta es la foto que acompaña el artículo con el calce: "Don Omar es uno de los exponentes de reguetón más populares dentro y fuera de Puerto Rico.")

Según el artículo, el reguetón es un "ritmo provocador que nació de las mentes y manos de un grupo de jóvenes boricuas hace poco más de dos décadas." Además afirma que "inicialmente, el reguetón logró colocarse entre los favoritos gracias al trabajo de pioneros como Vico C, quien se destaca por sus letras limpias y denuncia social."

Aquí hay como que hay una gran confusión. Primero, que lo que hacía Vico inicialmente era rap/hip-hop y no reguetón. Segundo, que Vico primero se popularizó en la calle a mitad de los 80 con las letras más sucias (e ingeniosas) que ha parido madre. Tercero, que el "ritmo" que caracteriza el reguetón llegó a Puerto Rico via el "reggae en español" de Panamá y el "dancehall reggae" de Jamaica.

Cierto es que en Puerto Rico se le dió nuevo nombre, nueva vida, características particulares y de ahí saltó a la fama mundial. Pero eso de atribuirle el "nacimiento" del reguetón a jóvenes boricuas sin tomar en cuenta el contexto caribeño más amplio perpetúa el aislamiento y el insularismo boricua. Eso como que no brega. Puerto Rico será una chulería, pero ¡no es el ombligo del mundo!

Y vuelven las Nikes macheteras

2008-02-01T12:18:00.000-08:00

Con motivo de la primera vez que se exhibe en Puerto Rico la obra Filiberto Ojeda Uptowns / Machetero Air Force Ones del artista Miguel Luciano, decidí someterle al periódico Claridad un artículo sobre las tenis. No sólo lo publicaron inmediatamente, sino que usaron las imágenes de la obra para la portada de la revista cultural En Rojo y también para la portada del periódico.

Haz click aquí para leer el artículo de Claridad.

Como el sitio web de Claridad no tiene la opción para que los lectores dejen comentarios, ofrezco este blog como alternativa, si alguien se inspira.

Vote or shut up?

2008-01-30T13:52:00.000-08:00

(This is the English version of the blog I posted yesterday in Spanish.)

If the 2004 P. Diddy-driven “Vote or Die” campaign can be criticized for a sloppy slogan and design, the just-launched campaign for the youth vote in Puerto Rico, “Vota o quédate calla’o,” is equally (if not more) sloppy.

A bit over two weeks ago, this TV commercial aired in Puerto Rico, featuring Daddy Yankee, baseball player Carlos Delgado, singer Janina, volleyball player Karina Ocasio, basketball player José Juan Barea and Rocky “The Kid.”

Here is a hasty transcription/translation of what the commercial says:

There are more than 700,000 Puerto Ricans between the ages of 18 and 35. In 1980, elections were decided by 3,000 votes. In 2004, by 3,500 votes in 8,000 poll sites. Less than one vote per poll site made the difference. One vote per poll site! That means that your vote is worth a lot. So much so that, with it, our country's history is written. You have until January 19 to register. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Or stay silent.

I didn’t know about the commercial until I read an excellent article by Rafah Acevedo in this week’s Claridad titled “Voto cuando las gallinas meen...”. The title is a play on the popular saying about children being allowed to speak only when hens pee… in other words, never. In the article, Acevedo says that, though the campaign claims to be stimulating youth to use their right to voice their opinions through the vote, in the end, the campaign actually silences young people.

I love the peeing chicken illustration and the author’s critical perspectives. Click here to read the entire article.

I’ll give the campaign the benefit of the doubt and assume that there are good intentions behind it. Of course it sounds great, that whole business about getting young folks motivated to be involved in their country’s affairs, to exercise their right to vote. But what happens when the candidates are a bunch of liars, thieves and clowns? What happens when our only option is to choose among candidates that are (to quote my currently favorite Tego song) “ni fú ni fá”? What are we asking young people to do? To be thankful for the opportunity to choose among two or three weak candidates since that is their only chance to intervene in their country’s affairs?

But that’s not true! Voting is not the only (or, often times, even the best) way to voice our concerns or participate in positive social change.

That phrase they picked as the campaign’s slogan is horrible, but an excellent example of how the campaign is misleading: “Vota o quédate calla'o.” Do they mean that not voting is like not speaking, something like “Vote or be silent”? Or do they actually mean “Vote or shut up”? (As if, if you don’t vote, you have no right to an opinion about what goes down.)

Since this campaign seems to take its cues from its “Vote or Die” U.S.-based predecessor, here are some critical approaches to the older campaign: Radio commentary by Davey D and a video featuring artists M-1, David Banner, Juvenile and others:

I confess that, if things keep going the way they are here in the States, this year (for the second time in my life) I’ll grit my teeth and vote for the president for the same reason I voted in 2004: I don’t like Democrats, but I fear Republicans.

But that is simply my (somewhat tragic) decision based on strategy to vote for the lesser of two evils.

I won’t hold it against anybody if they don’t vote, as long as they do it because they care and not because they don’t. And, most importantly, I hope that if they don’t vote, they make sure they DON’T SHUT UP.

¿Vota o quédate callao?

2008-01-29T12:11:00.000-08:00

Hace varias semanas, se estrenó este anuncio en Puerto Rico, featuring Daddy Yankee, el pelotero Carlos Delgado, la cantante Janina, la volibolista Karina Ocasio, el baloncelista José Juan Barea y el locutor Rocky “The Kid.”

No me había enterado del dichoso anuncio hasta que vi un ingenioso artículo de Rafah Acevedo en Claridad titulado “Voto cuando las gallinas meen...”.

Me reí muchísimo con la ilustración y me pareció un acercamiento crítico muy bueno. Haga click aquí para leer el artículo completo.

Concuerdo con Acevedo que esta es una campaña publicitaria que urge a los jóvenes a poner en práctica “esa libertad flaquita que les han regalado.”

Voy a darle el beneficio de la duda a la campaña y decir que quizás hasta cierto punto es bien intencionada. ¡Claro que suena muy bonito eso de animar a los jovenes a preocuparse por los asuntos de su país, a ejercer su derecho al voto! ¿Pero y qué pasa cuando los candidatos son casi igualmente paqueteros, raqueteros, velagüiras? ¿Qué pasa cuando ninguno de los candidatos vale la pena? ¿Qué pasa cuando la única opción es escoger entre candidatos que (para citar mi actualmente favorita canción de Tego) “ni fú ni fá”? ¿Entonces qué les estamos pidiendo a los jóvenes que hagan? ¿Que se conformen con uno de dos o tres candidatos flojos porque hasta ahí llega su derecho de intervenir en los asuntos del país?

Nacarile del oriente. Ni fú ni fá.

Esa frasesita que escogieron como el tema de campaña me parece bastante terrorífica, por cierto: “Vota o quédate calla'o.” ¿Querrán decir que no votar es como quedarse callao? ¿O será que si no votas, entonces no tienes derecho de opinar sobre lo que pasa? ¡Uy! Cual de las dos opciones más engañosa.

¿Votar por uno de los candidatos que perpetuará el miserable estatus quo? ¿O será mejor organizarnos como grupo de presión más allá de las urnas electorales para realizar cambios fundamentales en la manera en que se dirige el país? No es que estas opciones sean mutuamente exclusivas, pero si me dan a escoger una de las dos, voto por la segunda. Acevedo también:

“Sería más práctico que 700 mil jóvenes actuaran democráticamente para defenestrar la clase política puertorriqueña y convertirse en un extraordinario grupo de presión. Así, en vez de votar cada cuatro años para que las cosas permanezcan igual, organizarse para evitar que la religión fundamentalista y el político taimado decidan hasta la legitimidad del modo en el que uno decide unirse a otra persona o el modo en el que uno se coloca en la cama en el ejercicio de la gozosa desnudez, 700,000 jóvenes en la calle evitarían que el contubernio entre desarrollistas y gobierno permita que les den permiso a los cementeros de cerrar playas, fincas, islas, con el propósito de hacer privado lo que es público. Impedirían la argumentación carifresca de que el expendio de permisos ilegales incentiva la economía.”

Esta campaña publicitaria pro-voto de la juventud me recuerda a la quizás también bien intencionada pero plagada de inconsistencias campaña que liderara P. Diddy en 2004 con aquello de “VOTE OR DIE.” Para un acercamiento crítico a esta campaña, oiga un comentario radial del periodista y DJ Davey D y/o vea el siguiente video con comentarios de los raperos M-1, David Banner, Juvenile y otros:

Confieso que, si las cosas acá en Estados Unidos siguen como van, este año (por segunda vez en mi vida) ejerceré a regañadientes mi derecho al voto presidencial por la misma razón que voté en 2004: aunque no me gustan los demócratas, los republicanos dan más miedo.

Pero eso es simplemente una decisión estratégica (y francamente trágica) de votar por el menos peor de dos males.

Al que no vote no lo culpo. Pero, eso sí: SI NO VOTAS NO TE QUEDES CALLAO.

¿Qué es esa ridiculez de “Vota o quédate callao”?

Panel: Caribbean Popular Culture Through Music

2008-01-16T13:21:00.000-08:00

Click here to access the podcast of the panel discussion "Exploring Caribbean Popular Culture through Music" held last November 17, 2007 at the Brooklyn Museum and moderated by curator Tumelo Mosaka. I was one of the panelists, along with artist Miguel Luciano and Prof. Sujatha Fernandes. We discussed the cultural impact of different popular Caribbean musical styles, including soca, salsa, calypso, reggae, reggaetón, hip-hop, mambo, and merengue.

The art exhibit that inspired the panel, Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art, will be up at the Brooklyn Museum until January 27.

The Titi Chronicles: Santa, The Holy Child and the Three Kings

2007-12-23T13:24:00.001-08:00

Christmas Day, Republic of Hialeah (land of excellent food and horrible politics) --- According to my lil' nieces, today is Santa Claus' Day ("el dia de Santa Clo").

Every parent is entitled to cultivate in their kids the holiday myths of their choice, so this Titi (auntie, in Boricua Spanish) is careful not to step on any parental toes. I'm no fan of religious dogma, but just letting Santa steal the limelight completely away from Baby Jesus just doesn't sit right with me.

I decided that asking (not telling) the girls about Baby Jesus would not violate my Code of Titi Ethics. So I asked them if they knew what else people celebrated on December 25th. But I only got back little cute shoulders shrugging. I pressed on and asked if they knew that people also celebrated the birth of "el niñito Jesus" that day.

Their reply?: "De quien?" (Who?)

I thought maybe they didn't hear me. So I repeated: "Del niñito Jesus."

Their wide-eyed reply: "Y que niñito es ese?" (What little boy is that?)

It took me a few seconds to get my bearings straight and decide if I should continue with the interview that I didn't want turning into an indoctrination session.

So I showed them the plastic "nacimiento" (nativity scene) that Mami has been putting under the tree ever since I can remember.

"Do you know what this is?" I asked.

"No," said the eldest, shaking her head.

"That's a cow, that's a donkey, that's a baby..." the youngest said, pointing to each of the little figures.

O.k., enough meddling, Titi, I thought. Hopefully, at some point in the midst of today's present-opening frenzy, I'll get to ask their parents (my cousins that I adore and that have become "my Cuban brother and sister") about what they've told (or not told) the girls. And, if my cousins give me the green light, maybe some other day I'll tell the girls about that other myth that I find so inspiring.

I have no idea how to spin it, though. How to instill both critical thought and a love of myth in a four year-old and a six year-old?

I know it is possible, since my Dad infused Christmas with his nationalist views, managing to convince me early on that Santa was o.k. but the Three Kings were even better, because Santa was a gringo tradition while the Three Kings were "ours."

In fact, maybe next Three Kings Day, January 6th, is the day to start with my nieces. Maybe like the little girl their Titi used to be, they'll get a kick out of cutting grass and putting it in a shoebox under the bed as food for the 3 Wise Men's camels. But, frankly, Titi's hesitant. The last thing I want is for the beautiful story of the Three Kings visiting Baby Jesus turning into another excuse for accumulating an even bigger mountain of toys.

Maybe Titi's Three Kings will bring them cash on the condition that it go straight into their college fund.

These thoughts are inspired by Titi's Little Angels and the Christmas bundles of joy of Titi Sandy, Titi Michelle Alamo and the proud titis and tios of the Torres Saez clan.

Mochila and Go

2007-12-04T17:06:00.001-08:00

Dear compis, friends and fams:

I'm unplugging from the matrix for a few weeks, so my apologies for
not being able to post, check comments, or reply for a while. I've gone with my mochila and my brother a "buscar en el río el camino hacia el mar".

paz,
RZ

The Treacherous Crossroads of Race and Ethnicity

2007-12-03T12:48:00.000-08:00

November 28 I did a lecture at University of Connecticut Storrs titled "From Hip Hop to Reggaeton" and subtitled "The Treacherous Crossroads of Race and Ethnicity," sponsored by the Puerto Rican and Latino Studies Institute and the Puerto Rican and Latin American Cultural Center. I'm pleased that The Daily Campus published an article about it and, even more, that the writer highlighted my concerns regarding the traps of the racial and ethnic categories we use. Click here to read the article. I'm still trying to fine-tune the best strategies to debunk the myths surrounding race and ethnicity, so suggestions are especially appreciated.

Reggaeton Nation

2007-11-29T13:22:00.000-08:00

What follows is an excerpt of the article I co-wrote with Frances Negrón-Muntaner and published in the most recent issue of the journal NACLA Report on the Americas. To read the full article click here.

Reggaeton Nation

by Frances Negrón-Muntaner and Raquel Z. Rivera

It was a stunning sight, circa 2003. Onstage at San Juan’s recently renovated Hiram Bithorn Stadium, five-time senator Velda González—former actress, grandmother of 11, and beloved public figure—was doing the unthinkable. Flanked by reggaeton stars Hector and Tito (aka 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.

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. 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 of criminal acts.” 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. “To perrear or not to perrear,” Vega wrote with characteristic flair. “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.”

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 of Puerto Rico. 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. 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 middle class that responded to the new sound with its own brand of hostility. “Many people tried to stop us,” recalled Daddy Yankee, reggaeton’s biggest star. “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.”

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-down version of hip-hop and reggae, the death sentence of salsa, and a music foreign to Puerto Rico. 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.”

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

But slowly throughout 2003, a campaign year, the body politic began to swing the other way. It became common to see politicians besides Senator González on the campaign trail stiffly dancing reggaeton to show off their hipness and appeal to younger voters. 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 reggaeton belongs to you,” writer Juan Antonio Ramos declared the war against reggaeton officially over.

“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. “Reggaeton’s success has been such that it no longer has any enemies. . . . It would not be an exaggeration to say that condemning reggaeton has become a sacrilege. It's almost equivalent to being a bad Puerto Rican.”

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? How did reggaeton become the dominant sound of the “national” soundtrack? 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?

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

(To read the full article, click here.)

Nación reggaetón

2007-11-29T13:20:00.000-08:00

(Esta fue mi columna de ayer miércoles 28 de noviembre publicada en El Diario / La Prensa)

Nación reggaetón

San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2002: Velda González, entonces miembro del Senado, protagonizaba una campaña en los medios de comunicación y la legislatura para controlar la visibilidad del baile conocido como “perreo” y la música que lo acompañaba. En ese entonces, González fustigó al reggaetón por sus letras y videos violentos y sexualmente explícitos, y también por promover un baile que, según ella y muchos otros, constituía un factor que incitaba a la criminalidad.

2003, San Juan, Puerto Rico: Un reportero de Telemundo de Puerto Rico le informaba con cara de asombro a su teleaudiencia que estaban a punto de ver en vivo “nada más ni nada menos” que a Velda González bailando reggaetón en un tarima donde cantaban Los Bambinos. Las imágenes eran comidilla para los medios noticiosos ya que entonces aún no era común ni ver a una persona mayor, y menos todavía a un oficial del gobierno, bailando este género ante las cámaras. Pero todo cambió durante ese año de campañas políticas, cuando no sólo González sino muchísimos otros políticos se lanzaron a bailar reggaetón con entusiasmo, tiesas caderas, y la esperanza de cautivar las miradas y los votos de los más jóvenes.

2007, San Juan, Puerto Rico: El reconocido escritor puertorriqueño, Juan Antonio Ramos, declara (y no precisamente complacido) que de un género perseguido, el reggaetón se ha convertido en “el” género puertorriqueño de nuestros tiempos: “No sería exagerado decir que hablar mal del reguetón es casi un sacrilegio. Es casi ser un mal puertorriqueño.”

¿Cómo es posible que tanto haya cambiado en Puerto Rico en tan poco tiempo? ¿Y qué nos dicen estos cambios sobre la sociedad puertorriqueña de principios de Siglo XXI? ¿Cómo logró este fenómeno musical ser lo suficientemente exitoso para que sus antiguos enemigos sean ahora algunos de sus más prominentes lambeojos?

En un artículo titulado “Reggaeton Nation,” publicado en el más reciente número de la revista NACLA Report on the Americas, Frances Negrón-Muntaner y esta servidora intentamos esclarecer el asunto. Para aquellos interesados en ver el texto completo, haga click aquí.

La isla infinita y la cultura popular

2007-11-26T08:02:00.000-08:00

(Este artículo fue publicado como mi columna del miércoles 21 de noviembre de 2007 en El Diario / La Prensa)

Usando el concepto de la isla infinita para pensar y re-pensar las similitudes, diferencias y posibilidades de las islas del Caribe, el Museo de Brooklyn tiene en exhibición hasta fines de enero una muestra de arte contemporáneo titulada Infinite Island. La exhibición incluye a artistas de diversos países, entre éstos, República Dominicana, Puerto Rico y Cuba.

El sábado 17 de noviembre tuve el placer de participar en una charla pública en el Museo junto a la profesora Sujatha Fernandes de Queens College y el artista puertorriqueño Miguel Luciano cuyo trabajo es parte de Infinite Island. Nos ubicaron a un extremo de la galería, justo al lado de la sección dedicada a la cultura popular, ya que esa tarde teníamos como encomienda hablar sobre las conexiones entre la música y la cultura popular en el Caribe. La conversación que se dio entre panelistas y público tocó importantes temas como: la relación de las islas hispanohablantes con el resto del Caribe, el rol de la industria musical en el desarrollo de la cultura popular, las identidades nacionales, la producción musical de las mujeres, y la cultura juvenil, entre muchos otros temas.

Las obras localizadas en esa sección de cultura popular se prestan para discutir variados temas, particularmente con niños y jóvenes. La serie Pure Plantainum de Miguel Luciano, por ejemplo, toca el tema del consumerismo y la estética blin-blinera del hip-hop y el reggaetón a través del símbolo cultural e histórico que es el plátano. Jorge Pineda explora la inocencia infantil y su opuesto en su serie de dibujos titulado Niñas locas. Por su parte, Quisqueya Henríquez contrapone estereotipos culturales y realidad en su serie Paraíso de la verdura.

Imagenes de la serie Paraíso de la verdura de Quisqueya Henríquez:

Imagen de la serie Pure Plantainum de Miguel Luciano:

Mientras recorría la galería, me fijé en una pareja que junto a sus niñas dibujaba plátanos frente a los plátanos platinados de Miguel Luciano. Mentalmente felicité a estos padres por proveerle a sus niñas esa tremenda oportunidad creativa y educativa. Miré a mi alrededor y vi escenas parecidas que se repetían a través de la galería. Y me alegré mucho.

Youth, sex and sexism

2007-11-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

Many parents, educators, legislators and academics—among many others—worry over the influence that popular music has on youth sexual activity.

A New York Times article earlier this month addressed the issue by citing the most recent academic research undertaken by public health experts. Though only hip-hop is referenced, the issues that it touches on apply just as much to reggaeton.

Dr. Miguel A. Muñoz-Laboy, assistant professor in the department of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University, spent three years conducting research in the hip-hop club scene, observing youth in dance action and interviewing dozens of them. The study, published this month in the journal Culture, Health and Sexuality, concluded that the main factors that have bearing on youth sexual activity are peer pressure and drug and alcohol use, not the sexual explicitness of lyrics and dancemoves.

The journal Pediatrics had already published last year research findings suggesting that hip-hop’s sexually explicit lyrics are not the main factor influencing young people’s decisions to be sexually active. The key, according to the study, are “degrading lyrics,” not sexually explicit lyrics. (The researchers defined “degrading lyrics” as “those that portrayed women as sexual objects, men as insatiable and sex as inconsequential.”)

I'm particularly interested in thinking through that distinction between “sexual explicitness” and “sexism.”

I celebrate the efforts of researchers who are trying to address these issues by taking into account their complexity. I appreciate their attempt not to go to the extreme of censoring or mindlessly celebrating. I think it’s worth our while to go case-by-case, song-by-song, artist-by-artist, thinking through these issues and taking the opportunity to talk to the young people in our lives about them.

Hip-hop and reggaeton provide a great communication opportunity between adults and young folks. I worry that so many adults make the same error as our parents by simply sentencing: “it’s all the same crap.” Case closed.

If we keep doing that, we keep closing off the path toward dialogue and possibilities for change.

What you’ve read above was my column in El Diario / La Prensa last Wednesday. In response, a reader wrote in the paper’s web version: “Hahahaha!, of course that music is crap. And case closed! Just because you made all your limited ‘career’ as a sociologist based on that trash called reggaeton you think us parents have to analyze one by one all the aspects of that music? Be honest, reggaeton and hip-hop only produce delinquents and people who are resentful. Trash-music for young folks that later will be trash-adults.”

My answer: I’m not saying everybody has to like the music. I’m just saying that, for the sake of connecting with young folks, it’s worth learning and talking about it—and making at least an effort to understand and respect their musical taste. Not all artists are the same. Not all fans are the same.

Juventud, sexo y sexismo

2007-11-16T13:46:00.001-08:00

Haga click aquí para acceder a mi columna del pasado miércoles 14 de noviembre de 2007 en El Diario / La Prensa titulada "Juventud, sexo y sexismo."

La 'música urbana' y el Grammy Latino

2007-11-09T06:54:00.000-08:00

Tarde, pero seguro: Haga click aquí para el link de mi columna del miércoles pasado en El Diario / La Prensa.

Hoy ya es viernes y confirmado está que en el Grammy Latino de nuevo no les fue bien a los reggaetoneros "tradicionales."

Reggaeton in the Time of Zune

2007-11-01T09:10:00.001-07:00

(Click aquí for the Spanish version in El Diario / La Prensa.)

Wisin and Yandel—the self-proclaimed “Duo of History”—for real made history in 2006 when they became the first artists to get four of their songs into Billboard’s top ten in the Hot Latin Songs chart.

This month they again made history, according to Machete Music President, Gustavo Lopez, as the first reggaeton artists to simultaneously be at the top of three Billboard charts less than a month after a song’s release—in this case, “Sexy Movimiento.” Last week, this first single from their newest album was #1 in the Rhythm Airplay chart, #2 in the Tropical charts and #3 in the Latin Pop charts.

Wisin and Yandel also made history this week when Microsoft made them the first artists to collaborate with the corporation in the design and marketing of a Zune digital media player.

The customized Wisin and Yandel Zune is pre-loaded with their new album and exclusive music, videos and photos. This limited edition Zune is yet another corporate effort to captivate the Latino music market and, particularly, the youth sector that represents a huge portion of digital and mobile music sales. It’s of great significance that among so many musical genres in the English and Spanish markets and so many artists to choose from, Microsoft opted to market the Zune via Latinos via reggaeton via Wisin and Yandel. (Hhhhhmmm... And yet some folks still insist that reggaeton, as a commercial product, is dead.)

I imagine Wisin and Yandel are happier than a dog with two tails since their new album is dropping next week, when they will also find out if they won that Latin Grammy they’re nominated for.

Oh, and last week their new music video for “Sexy Movimiento” premiered—a Jessy Terrero production I’ll sum up as plenty more of the visual, musical and lyrical formulas reggaeton has accustomed us to. In other words: fancy house meets bling meets fancy cars meets helicopter and adrenaline-inducing scenes and fantasies of power and bikinied women—one of them with a Zune in hand. It’s probably thanks to those same formulas that reggaeton still resists its prematurely announced death.

Congratulations?

Latinos vs. Blacks, Fruit vs. Oranges

2007-10-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

(Click aquí para la versión en español en El Diario / La Prensa de hoy.)

Latinos are to blacks, as fruit are to oranges. Let me explain.

The deceptively simple but compelling analogy is the product of the agile intellect of novelist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, named by Time magazine as one of the “25 most influential Hispanics in America.”

(Above: Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez)

A week ago, the author wrote to EURweb.com regarding her frustration with the harsh criticism showered upon film producer Debra Martin Chase for working on a project with Valdes-Rodriguez.

(Above: Deborah Martin Chase)

A bit of background: EURweb.com is a website dedicated to “black entertainment”. Martin Chase is an award-winning African American producer who has worked on popular movies such as The Princess Diaries and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The collaboration between Chase and Valdes-Rodriguez is focused on the film adaptation of Valdes-Rodriguez’s best-selling novel The Dirty Girls Social Club.

Valdes-Rodriguez was dismayed at all the criticism directed toward Chase from African Americans who “seem to think she ought to stick to telling only those stories they believe are ‘theirs’." The novelist explains why she is so disturbed by the arguments being made against Chase: “The hostility against Latinos among some blacks who assume Latinos have nothing in common with them is startling, but not altogether surprising, given the way the U.S. media neglects to mention our shared African roots, with nonsensical headlines like ‘Hispanics Outnumber Blacks,’ which is as absurd as ‘Fruit Outnumbers Oranges’.”

I love the ingenious and succinct way in which Valdes-Rodriguez reminds readers that most African descendants in the Americas do not live in the United States and that a huge number of Latinos are black or have African ancestry. The strict separation that many imagine exists between both groups is pure myth, lack of information and even self-denial. (Emphasis on self-denial. A lot of African American misinformation about Latinos stems from Latinos ourselves who refuse to engage honestly with our blackness.)

I’m so glad we have a high-profile writer like Valdes-Rodriguez shedding some light on the subject and giving more of a mainstream voice to what for years have been saying other writers, musicians, educators and activists. Props on the clarity and the wit. And thanks to Black Artemis for forwarding the link.

From the Roots Up: Thoughts on Boricua Music and Reggaeton

2007-10-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

(Clickea aquí para la versión en español en El Diario / La Prensa.)

Reggaeton is a mix of rap, reggae and parranda, among other things. Something to that effect said one of the characters in the J-Lo co-produced movie Feel the Noise (starring Omarion) that opened last week.

I sat there, stunned: “Parranda? Huh? What the hell do they mean?”

“Parranda” is not a musical genre. People in Puerto Rico sometimes talk about “parranda music” to refer to the aguinaldos and plenas that folks associate with Boricua-style Christmas. But reggaeton draws next to nothing from aguinaldos and plenas: just a little hook here and there.

The truth is, thanks to Tego, Abrante and La Sista, reggaeton draws a lot more from bomba than from those other genres of Boricua roots music like plena and aguinaldo. In fact, reggaeton has more bachata, merengue, salsa and cumbia, than bomba, plena or aguinaldo.

So why does the movie identify “parranda” as one of the main musical sources of reggaeton?

I think it’s a bit of misinformation mixed with another bit of good intentions.

It’s very common that Boricuas stuff our proud mouths talking about “real” Puerto Rican music like bomba, plena and música jíbara (seises, aguinaldos, etc.) but we have no idea what those genres actually sound like, or even what they’re called. We often talk about “bombayplena,” like its all one genre (which makes as much sense as always talking about “salsaybachata” like they’re always the same thing).

This lack of knowledge about our roots music is not specific to Boricuas. Dominicans do the same. Plenty of other folks do the same.

But we don’t have to.

I propose we educate ourselves a bit. If we’re going to be waving the flag of national pride and (in the case of Puerto Ricans) arguing that reggaeton is a Boricua genre... the least we can do is treat Boricua roots music with enthusiasm and respect NOT just pay it lip service.

Just last Monday, I was at the press event for the concert and workshop series led by world-renowned Puerto Rican musician, composer and arranger William Cepeda.

The project, titled Puerto Rican Music Roots & Beyond, is dedicated to celebrating Puerto Rican roots music and its contemporary re-interpretations. The first concert focuses on jíbaro music and will take place at the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture in The Bronx on October 25, 2007. For more information visit www.puertoricanmusic.org.

If anyone wants to get a taste before October 25th, I suggest you check out Tato Torres & Yerbabuena, one of the best-known and delicious-to-dance-to Boricua roots music bands in New York—made up of plenty of talented, funky, beautiful young folks, to boot.

Tato will be one of the singers of Cepeda’s Afro-Rican Jazz band that will headline the Hostos concert on October 25th, along with guests from Puerto Rico Grupo Mapeyé and Victoria Sanabria. I’m hoping we all give this musical project the support it deserves.

Oh, and, if anyone has access to the writers and producers of Feel the Noise, please tell them to check it out too.

Hip-hop vs. Reggaeton: Feel the Noise

2007-10-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

(For Spanish: Haga click aquí para acceder a la versión en español de este post en mi columna de hoy de El Diario / La Prensa)

Hip-hop is not reggaetón. And the other way around.

That seems to be one of the main points of the J-Lo co-produced movie Feel the Noise that opened last Friday, starring Omarion.

The story: a Harlem rapper gets in trouble with a local thug and his mom sends him to live in Puerto Rico with the father he never met before; there he falls in love with a cute dancer and with reggaeton.

The critics have not been enthused with the film, but moviegoers seem to have reacted a bit better, judging by the fact that it made it to #8 in the list of box office hits this weekend.

According to the New York Times, the plot is weak (I agree), but one of its pluses is that it promotes “minority kinship.” The New York Daily News says something similar: “[...]it rejects the lazy standard of onscreen enmity between black and Latin characters, instead promoting a sharing of cultures and styles. While this could be a cynical attempt to draw two segments of the audience, everyone involved genuinely seems to believe in the movie's message. Of course, none of that would matter without the music, which is packed in from end to end. Some viewers will go for Omarion; others for Voltio. Either way, they'll wind up staying for both.”

So how does this theme of “minority kinship” get manifested in the story?

Rob, the protagonist, was raised in Harlem by his African American mother, completely disconnected from his Puerto Rican father, from Spanish and from Puerto Rico. Javi, his stepbrother, is the child of Puerto Ricans, raised in Puerto Rico and has never visited New York. While Rob loves hip-hop, Javi feels the same for reggaeton (which Javi describes as a mix of rap, reggae and “parranda”. huh? parranda?)

The song that Rob and Javi do together is the symbol of the kinship between hip-hop and reggaeton, and between African Americans and Puerto Ricans.

Looking beyond the story and into the actors chosen, casting Omarion as the “half-Boricua” Rob and Malik Yoba as the bichote in Javi’s neighborhood reinforces the “minority kinship” idea, making the lovely (and necessary) point that African Americans and Puerto Ricans are often much closer (in terms of looks, in this case) than we admit.

On a few occasions, the characters explain that reggaeton is partially derived from hip-hop, but stress that they are different music genres.

The above is exactly the same thing that Latino hip-hop artists who don’t do reggaeton have been saying for years.

But rather than carving out a space for Latino hip-hop artists, this movie just perpetuates the notion that hip-hop is not a Latino space.

I appreciate that the movie highlights the kinship between African Americans and Puerto Ricans. Excellent point. But I’m not feeling the invisibility of the over three-decade history of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos doing hip-hop and not just reggaeton.

Los 6 de Jena

2007-10-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

Haga click aquí para mi columna de hoy, 3 de octubre de 2007, en El Diario / La Prensa dedicada al caso de los jovencitos de Louisiana conocidos como "Los 6 de Jena" (The Jena 6).

Este es un caso que el Southern Poverty Law Center describe como "un caso que ejemplifica claramente cómo los acusados negros en este país son tratados de manera mucho más severa que los acusados blancos."

Sweat the Fat / Suda el jamón

2007-10-02T14:52:00.001-07:00

I saw this video without knowing what it was at first and got a big kick out of it. The kick was not quite as big once I realized it was part of a Nike campaign.

Click here for a short article in Spanish about it.

Fight consumerism with consumerism. Horay?!

At least Nike's proposal involves excercise, endorphins and (hopefully) fresh air.

Here's a taste of the lyrics...

"Lo que prometieron,
fue por mejores de liposucciones
y también otros peores
De tanto jamones, con bisturís, cicatrices, moretones y dolores
Yo no me quiero emplasticar
No quiero el culo de otra, quiero el mío tal cual
[...]
un cuchillo, lejos de mi ombligo
ahora que yo te lo digo
ya verás que no puedes conmigo
Suda el jamón
Suda el jamón que así te pones bombón."

What they promised
was liposuctions
for so many hams
with scalpels, scars, black & blues and pain
I don't want to get all plastic
I don't want someone else's ass
I want the one I have
[...]
a knife, get it away from my bellybutton
now that I'm telling you
you'll see you can't get over on me
Sweat the fat
Sweat the fat

Till the Break of Dawn: Hip-Hop Theater Takes Us from Brooklyn to Havana

2007-09-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

It’s not often that we get to listen to the voices of the artists, activists and young professionals that represent the idealism, thirst for social justice and contradictions of the hip-hop generations. TV, radio, magazines and newspapers are usually saturated by hip-hop’s most predictable and cliché products. That is why I enthusiastically recommend folks go see the play Till the Break of Dawn, written and directed by two time Obie award winner Danny Hoch.

The action takes place over the course of Summer 2001 and focuses on a group of young New Yorkers that travel to Cuba to participate in Havana’s hip-hop festival. Most of them are Latinos, the organizer Gibran (Jaymes Jorsling) is African American and the man in charge of financing the trip is Adam (Matthew-Lee Erlbach), the Jewish owner of a small record label that promotes politically engaged rappers. Their diverse ethnicities, races, educational backgrounds and political stances provide great opportunities for the playwright to explore some of the complexity of young urban voices.

(Image by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)

The rest of the traveling crew includes foul-mouthed and ill-tempered Big Miff (Dominic Colón) and schoolteachers Rebeca (Maribel Lizardo) and Robert (Johnny Sánchez), a couple that is constantly at each other’s throats and fighting over matters ranging from the most trivial to the profoundly philosophical. Then there’s Nancy (pattydukes) a Dominican art curator and her boyfriend Hector (Flaco Navaja), a Boricua web designer who is equally passionate about revolutionary ideals and smoking weed.

Once in Cuba, the group meets characters that challenge their political naivete and fiery arrogance, schooling them about the constantly shifting terrain between idealism and reality. Among the characters they meet in Cuba are Dana (Gwendolen Hardwick), an ex-Black Panther and U.S. political exile who lives in Cuba, and Felito (Luis Vega) a young Cuban who is perpetually quoting U.S.-made commercials and rap lyrics.

This play is charged as much with humor as with political and social commentary. It provides enjoyment and insights for spectators coming from any angle. But I will put on my educator’s hat now and stress that the play is, in particular, a must-see for young hip-hop fans, their parents and teachers. It provides a rare opportunity at entertainment as well as tons of food for thought, written in a language and style that will appeal to young folks because it will strike them as their own.

The play opened September 13 and will run until October 21 at the Abrons Arts Center (212-352-3101) in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. 466 Grand Street (corner of Pitt Street).

Teatro Hip-Hop: Till the Break of Dawn

2007-09-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

Haga click aquí para mi columna de El Diario / La Prensa de hoy, miércoles 26 de septiembre.

Who said ‘bitch’?

2007-09-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

According to Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, if a white man calls a black woman a “bitch” it’s worse than if a black man insulted the same woman using the same word.

A brief recount of some of the coach’s court statements last Monday:

Thomas said he never called ex-Knicks vice president of marketing Anucha Browne Sanders a “bitch”.

He also said it is not right for any man to call a woman a bitch. But, for him, “bitch” directed at Sanders by a white man like former Knicks executive Frank Murphy would be much worse than the same insult from the mouth of a black man like basketball star Stephon Marbury.

On Tuesday, the New York Daily News criticized Thomas’ “double standard”.

Initially, as I read the article, it seemed to me that Thomas was being a coward by trying to deflect the accusations against himself and Marbury and, to top it off, using the loaded language of racial community and solidarity. I had just been reading Mark Anthony Neal’s excellent book New Black Man the day before and Thomas seemed to be making the classic “race trumps gender” argument that Neal criticizes.

But when I started reading the comments to the Daily News article posted on the Internet, I was puzzled that quite a few readers were accusing Thomas of having said that a black man has the right to insult a black woman, but not a white man. Something similar was erroneously reported on CNN and the New York Post.

That was NOT what Thomas said!

What exactly did the coach say? I found a partial transcription in Newsday and, though his statements are still highly questionable, they are not as scandalous as many are making them seem. Thomas did not pull the race factor out of a hat, but brought it up when he was asked about Murphy insulting Sanders. He brought it up to emphasize that he would not have tolerated such insults from Marbury OR Murphy… but especially from Murphy. Sure, that may be Thomas' manipulative tactic of eliciting sympathy toward himself for being a respectable black man who cares in particular about “his” people.

But if we’re going to criticize Thomas, let it be for what he said, not for what we misunderstood he said.

It seems to me that many media outlets and readers are much too eager to have examples to say: “See... black people are obsessed with race! Black people are even more racist than white people!”

Huh? Race IS still a big factor in this country… and definitely not because black people are imagining it. Is it really that shocking that, in a racist society, a black man would admit to having a more emotional response to insults directed against one of “his”—particularly when “his” is the group at the bottom of the racial hierarchy?

I’m not defending Thomas’ statements. More than anything, his words seem like the perfect example of what Mark Anthony Neal describes as African American men failing to own up to their privilege as males.

All I’m saying is lets stick to what he actually said.

Also, lets keep in mind these ridiculous scandals about who called who a “bitch” next time someone wants to attack rappers and reggaetoneros, as if they were the ones who came up with these dogly insults against women.

¿Quién dijo 'perra'?

2007-09-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

Haga click aquí para mi columna de hoy, 19 de septiembre de 2007, en El Diario / La Prensa. La columna se titula "¿Quién dijo 'perra'?" y consiste de mis reflexiones sobre las declaraciones del lunes del entrenador de los Knicks, Isiah Thomas, en el caso en corte donde la ex-ejecutiva de la NBA, Anucha Browne Sanders, lo ha demandado por acoso sexual.

Reggaetón en 'Nuestra América'

2007-09-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

Haga click aquí para mi columna de El Diario / La Prensa del 12 de septiembre de 2007, titulada "Reggaetón en 'Nuestra América'".

Illegal Tender: Hispanixploitation?

2007-09-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

(Haga click aquí para la versión en español, publicada en El Diario / La Prensa.)

In a short film review, the New York Times says Illegal Tender (released August 24) is the typical urban action movie, but with a new twist the paper dubs “Hispanixploitation.” The term is, of course, indebted to the “blaxploitation” films that first became popular in the 1970s and that have specialized in sensationalizing the African American “underworld.”

According to the Times, the same traffic in stereotypes (but with a Latino twist) is now available through this movie written and directed by Franc. Reyes, produced by John Singleton, and starring Wanda de Jesús, Manny Pérez and Tego Calderón. Now “Latinoness” is the lucrative seasoning for the crime and sex fantasies that have historically fueled much of the film industry.

Not that the formula is new. Scarface (1983) is definitely the most prominent example, but there are many others. What makes Illegal Tender different is that it was made with ample resource$, written and directed by a Puerto Rican, with Latino characters and actors, and uses as a commercial hook the growing global success of Latino urban music and culture. Neither is it common that in this movie the action goes way beyond ghetto borders and its protagonists move just as easily in university circles and in moneyed Connecticut suburbs. (A welcome change, according to me.)

Illegal Tender did not debut as a box office hit and it has not received great acclaim among critics. Rottentomatoes.com says the acting is weak and the plot is ridiculous; the Times describes the dialogues as “telenovela style.” (I have to agree on all counts.) So it remains to be seen if other directors, producers and film studios will follow this approach that at the same time shatters and perpetuates stereotypes. I’ll be happy if next time someone comes up with an equally Hispanixploitative film it at least has good plot, acting and dialogue.

And Tego? Tego did a good job. I say bring him back on.

Reggaeton and censorship, Dominican Republic

2007-08-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

(Si prefieres leer en español, ve a mi columna de hoy, 29 de agosto, en El Diario / La Prensa titulada "La censura en calzoncillos" haciendo click aquí.)

There's a saying in Spanish about hypocritical folks preaching morality in their underwear. Well, here we have them at it once again.

For the last week, Spanish-language headlines have been reporting on the newest attempts to censor reggaeton in the Dominican Republic. (See El País, El Diario, Hoy.)

My reaction has been: O.k. here we go with the same sterile debate. Again.

The dissemination of reggaeton songs that "promote the consumption and traffic of drugs" has been described as "criminal actions" by none other than the president of the National Department of Drug Control (Dirección Nacional de Control de Drogas), Rafael Radhamés Ramírez Ferreira, and the Attorney General, Radhamés Jiménez Peña. Both have made it clear that their intent is NOT to prohibit reggaeton as a whole, but just certain songs.

And how do they propose to "control," "regulate," or identify these certain songs? The officials have said they still don't have the answer and are studying the facts to then determine how to proceed. Meanwhile, they ask radio stations and even artists to collaborate with them by not promoting music that is "harmful" to young people.

Newspaper El País reported that Jiménez Peña described the “rhythm of Puerto Rican origin” as “‘propaganda’ turned music that threatens the buenas costumbres and morality of Dominicans.”

What a flashback! That was exactly what was heard so many times in Puerto Rico around 1995. Back then, the genre known as "underground" was accused of being a foreign genre, based on U.S. rap and Jamaican reggae, that was corrupting the Island's youth and musical traditions.

A decade later, underground's baby boy, now known as reggaeton, is described by many as native to Puerto Rico and is accused of corrupting Dominicans.

It's always someone else's fault. Right? Adults blame youth. Dominicans blame Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans blame the U.S. and Jamaican ghettoes where rap and reggae where born.

Folks: If young people live gangster realities and/or purchase gangster fantasies... we are all at fault—particularly those hypocritical, corrupt, gangsterish governments that love to preach morality (and censorship) in their underwear.