Friday, September 15, 2006

From Hip Hop to Reggaeton - Syllabus

I have received a lot of requests for the syllabus of the class I am currently teaching at Columbia University. I am posting it here for easy access.

Any suggestions for further readings or other resources are greatly appreciated.

RZ


Latino Studies W3920 section 001
Topics in the Latino Experience

From Hip Hop to Reggaeton:
New Directions in Latino Youth Cultures


Fall 2006

Professor Raquel Z. Rivera
rzr2102@columbia.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This seminar will examine two of the newest trends in Latino youth cultures: hip-hop and reggaeton. This course will attempt to complicate the largely a-historical treatment of hip hop and reggaeton in mass-mediated portrayals by engaging in a cultural studies critique of youth cultural formations. Given the dearth of scholarly analysis of these topics, students will: research and critically examine the literature that is available, both academic and popular; identify necessary areas of study; and embark on a semester-long research project designed to expand the body of knowledge available on the subject. Students will develop individual research projects, while working closely with one another, sharing ideas and resources, and critically analyzing each others’ work.

TOPICS

Sept. 5
Introduction


Sept. 12
Media Coverage of Reggaeton

Read recent magazine and newspaper articles posted in Assignments.

Deborah Pacini-Hernandez, “The Name Game: Locating Latinos, Latins and Latin Americans in the US Popular Music Landscape, forthcoming in Juan Flores and Renato Rosaldo (eds.), Latino Studies Reader, Blackwell Publishing, pp. 1-26.

Juan Flores, "Pan-Latino/Trans-Latino: Puerto Ricans in the 'New Nueva York'" in From Bomba to Hip Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, pp. 140-165.


Sept. 19
Proto-Reggaeton: Puerto Rican “Underground” and Panamanian “Reggae en Español”

Mayra Santos, “Puerto Rican Underground,” Centro, vol. 8, no. 1 & 2, 1996, pp. 219-231.

Raquel Z. Rivera, “Policing Morality, Mano Dura Stylee: The Case of Underground Rap and Reggae in Puerto Rico,” forthcoming in Raquel Z. Rivera, Deborah Pacini-Hernandez and Wayne Marshall (eds.), Reading Reggaeton

Joseph Pereira, “Translation or Transformation: Gender in Hispanic Reggae,” Social and Economic Studies, 47: 1, March, 1998, 79-88.

Dancehall Reggaespañol liner notes, 1991.


Sept. 26
Class and Race: Parallels Between Salsa and Reggaeton

Keith Negus, “Introduction” and “Identities” in Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction, Hanover: University Press of New England, 1996, pp. 1-6, 99-135.

Jorge L. Giovannetti, “Popular Music and Culture in Puerto Rico: Jamaican and Rap Music as Cross-Cultural Symbols,” in Frances R. Aparicio and Cándida F. Jáquez, Musical Migrations: Transnationalism and Cultural Hybridity in the Americas, New York: Palgrave, 2003, pp. 81-98.

Frances Aparicio, “Situating Salsa,” Chapter 4 in Listening to Salsa: Gender, Latin Popular Music and Puerto Rican Cultures, Hanover: Press of New England, 1998, pp. 142–153.

Zaire Dinzey-Flores, “From the Disco to the Projects: Urban Spatial Aesthetics and Policy to the Beat of Reggaeton,” forthcoming in Raquel Z. Rivera, Deborah Pacini-Hernandez and Wayne Marshall (eds.), Reading Reggaeton

Raquel Z. Rivera, “Will the Real Blanquitos Please Stand Up?: Class, Race and Reggaeton, www.reggaetonica.blogspot.com


October 3
Reggaeton, Hip Hop and Popular Music Theory

Keith Negus, “Audiences” and “Geographies” in Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction, Hanover: University Press of New England, 1996, pp. 7-35, pp. 164-189.

Ejima Baker, “A Preliminary Step in Exploring Reggaetón,” in Ellie M. Hisama and Evan Rapport, Critical Minded: New Approaches to Hip Hop Studies, Brooklyn: Institute for Studies in American Music, 2005, pp. 107-123.

Ejima Baker, “Remixing and Reshaping Latin@s on Black Entertainment Television,” forthcoming in Raquel Z. Rivera, Deborah Pacini-Hernandez and Wayne Marshall (eds.), Reading Reggaeton


October 10
Race, Nation, Ethnicity

Norman E. Whitten, Jr. and Arlene Torres, “Blackness in the Americas,” NACLA, vol. XXV, number 4, February 1992, pp. 16-22.

John Burdick, “The Myth of Racial Democracy,” NACLA, vol. XXV, number 4, February 1992, pp. 40-44.

Ramón Grosfoguel and Chloé Georas. “The Racialization of Latino Caribbean Migrants,” Centro, 1996, pp. 97-118.

Raquel Z. Rivera, “Between Blackness and Latinidad in the Hip Hop Zone,” forthcoming in Juan Flores and Renato Rosaldo (ed), Latino Studies Reader, Blackwell Publishers, pp. 1-20.

Deborah Pacini-Hernandez, “Are Dominicans in the Mix?: Reflections on Dominicans and Reggaeton,” forthcoming in Raquel Z. Rivera, Deborah Pacini-Hernandez and Wayne Marshall (eds.), Reading Reggaeton


October 17
Rap and Reggaeton in Cuba

Geoffrey Baker, “¡Hip hop, revolución! Nationalizing Rap in Cuba,” Ethnomusicology 49 (3), 2005, pp. 368-402.

Geoffrey Baker, “The Politics of Dancing: Reggaeton and Rap in Havana,” forthcoming in Raquel Z. Rivera, Deborah Pacini-Hernandez and Wayne Marshall (eds.), Reading Reggaeton

Alberto Faya Montano, 2005, “Some Notes on Reggaeton,” www.afrocubaweb.com/rastas.htm

Margaux Joffe, "As Free as the Words of a Poem: Las Krudas and the Cuban Hip-Hop Movement,” 2006, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/joffe130206.html


October 24
Rap and Reggaeton in Miami

Jose Dávila, “Reggaeton and the Miami Urban Scene,” forthcoming in Raquel Z. Rivera, Deborah Pacini-Hernandez and Wayne Marshall (eds.), Reading Reggaeton

George Yudice, "Miami: Images of a Latinopolis.” NACLA Report on the Americas 39.3 (Nov-Dec 2005): 35(6). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale.


October 31
U.S. Latinos in Hip Hop

Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. ix-96.

Raegan Kelly, 2004, Hip Hop Chicano: A Separate but Parallel Story, in That’s the Joint!: The Hip Hop Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, pp. 95-103.


November 14
U.S. Latinos in Hip Hop (cont.)

Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 97-195.


November 21
Gendering Reggaeton

Felix Jiménez, “Wrapped in Foil: Glory at 12 Words a Minute,” forthcoming in Raquel Z. Rivera, Deborah Pacini-Hernandez and Wayne Marshall (eds.), Reading Reggaeton

Alfredo Nieves, “A Man Lives Here: Reggaeton’s Hypermasculine Resident,” forthcoming in Raquel Z. Rivera, Deborah Pacini-Hernandez and Wayne Marshall (eds.), Reading Reggaeton

Jillian Baez, “’En mi imperio’: Competing Discourses of Agency in Ivy Queen’s Reggaeton,” forthcoming in Centro Journal


November 28
Gendering Hip Hop

Imani Perry, Chapter 5 in Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop, Durham: Duke University Press, 2004, pp. 117-154, 155-190.

Mark Anthony Neal, “I’ll be Nina Simone Defecating on Your Microphone,” in That’s the Joint!: The Hip Hop Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 247-250.

Cheryl L. Keyes, “Empowering Self, Making Choices, Creating Spaces: Black Female Identity via Rap Music Performance,” in That’s the Joint!: The Hip Hop Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 265-276.

Joan Morgan, “Hip Hop Feminist,” in Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal (ed.), That’s the Joint!: The Hip Hop Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 277-281.

Gwendolyn D. Pough, “Seeds and Legacies: Tapping the Potential in Hip Hop,” in That’s the Joint!: The Hip Hop Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 283-289.


December 5
Gendering Dancehall

Carolyn Cooper, 2004, Chapters 2-3 in Sound Clash : Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 73-123.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Half-Puerto Rican?!

What and who is half-Puerto Rican?

The question has a pretty clear answer in the U.S., but not in Puerto Rico and many other parts of Latin America. While in the U.S. it is common for people to be half this, a quarter this and a quarter that, the same is not true in other places.

I grew up the child of a Puerto Rican father and a Cuban mother in Puerto Rico. It never occurred to anyone to tell me that I was half Cuban. I was Puerto Rican, just like my Puerto Rican-born neighbors whose parents were Haitian immigrants, and like my friend Vilina whose mom was Dominican, and just like Trina the bully with Virgin Island parentage who tortured me all through evangelical grade school. We were all Puerto Rican. It was our parents who were something else.

The only Puerto Rican-born kids who I ever heard referred to as something else were the extremely wealthy Cuban friends of a friend who went to an elite private school.

It was once I moved to New York at twenty-two that, to my surprise, someone described me as half-Cuban. Half-Cuban? I thought that was real funny. How could I possibly be half-Cuban when I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and knew nothing about Cuba? Whatever, I thought. If that is how heritage was measured in the U.S., then o.k..

But then I thought: my Cuban Mom is the child of my Cuban-born Grandmother whose both parents were Puerto Rican immigrants to Cuba in the early 1900s. Ha! That means, according to U.S.-standards, my Grandmother is Puerto Rican and my Mother half-Cuban. So technically, that makes me only one-quarter Cuban, according to U.S. standards, of course.

Those U.S. standards (though influencing the way ethnicity is increasingly perceived in Puerto Rico) are still different from ethnicity standards in the island.

I have been thinking about these differences a lot lately, since my friend and mentor Deborah Pacini-Hernandez has been writing about Dominicans in reggaeton. She is faced by a curious challenge: how to properly explore the Dominican dimension of Puerto Rican reggaeton and/or hip hop? How to address the Dominican ancestry of the many artists born and/or raised in Puerto Rico without imposing U.S. identity standards on the analysis?

How should we think of the following artists?



Lisa M., a pioneering rap artist born and raised in PR, about to drop a new album. One of her parents is Dominican, the other is Puerto Rican.



Nicky Jam, a reggaeton artist born in the Dominican Republic to a Dominican parent and a Puerto Rican one, who moved as a child to Puerto Rico.



Sietenueve, a hip hop artist born and raised in Puerto Rico.

Both Sietenueve's parents are Dominican. His song Jibaro Jop (with E.A. Flow) from his album El progreso blew my mind, not only because the track is excellent lyrically and musically, but also because of how he identifies on the national/ethnic tip. In it, Sietenueve highlights his commitment to Puerto Rican national liberation by boasting he is a cibaeño aguzao (a sharp-witted man from El Cibao, Dominican Republic). He is proudly celebrating that he is Puerto Rican and Dominican. Not any less of one, because he is also the other. 100 percent jibaro real. 100 percent c ibaeño aguzao. If we were to define him solely by his parents' ethnicity, where would that leave his Puerto Ricanness?

There are many more examples, but this is my last one: Welmo, a hip hop artist born and raised in Puerto Rico. One of his parents is Haitian and the other Dominican.



If we applied the half-this and half-that U.S. standards, Welmo would be half Dominican and half Haitian. Again, where would that leave his Puerto Ricanness?