Videoclave #4 Reggaetón

Musical influences from Jamaica reached Panama as early as the beginning of the 20th century, since Jamaican workers helped construct the Panama Canal. During the 70s they consisted of reggae and ragga, also called “dancehall reggae”, and thereby Spanish forms of reggae were formed. In the beginning of the 90s the artist El General had a breakthrough with songs like Te ves buena and Tu pum pum, which was the start of a new music style – reggaeton. El General won an MTV Award for best latin video for the one you find here below with the song Muévelo.

In the middle of the 90s the more pure reggaeton was being produced in Puerto Rico under the influence of hip hop, rap and reggae. The genre was called under in the beginning, a short form for “Underground”, and since its texts treated matters such as crime, drugs and sex, the music had to be spread by copying it from cassette to cassette.

The basic beat, boom-ch-boom-chick, in reggaeton is called dembow and comes from a song of the same title (“Dem bow” from “Them bow”), by the Jamaican dancehall artist Shabba Ranks, that was released in 1991. In the video you see the song performed live by Shabba Ranks.

The name reggaeton was not used for the genre until the mid 90s, when it was invented in Puerto Rico to distinguish the music from the Spanish reggae. The music style grew fast in Latin America, but it was not until around 2004 that it became popular also in USA and Europe. Then artists like for example Tego Calderón, Daddy Yankee och Don Omar were played and since then a multitude of artists have evolved. Among the more well-known producers of reggaeton music are Luny Tunes that consists of the Puertoricans Francisco Saldaña (Luny) and Víctor Cabrera (Tunes) that have produced among others Barrio fino, the most famous album of Daddy Yankee. Here you see the video of the song Gasolina by Daddy Yankee.

The reggaeton reached Cuba somewhat later. One of the first Cuban artists in the genre was Candyman from Santiago de Cuba that had a breakthrough in the beginning of the 21st century. Here you see him sing Chinito.

Since then the genre has exploded also in Cuba and with the time the Cubans have developed their own typ of reggaeton, called “cubaton”. With inspiration from the salsa the otherwise quite monotonous music takes on a new form with a softer sound and more traditional instruments. The most famous reggaeton group in Cuba in these days is Gente de Zona who have just released their first album and here you see them perform the song La palestina.

Source: Wikipedia