Reggaetonica Vault - 1994

It's almost the end of the year and I'm in a retrospective mood. So I've decided to create a Reggaetonica Vault. Below is the first article I ever wrote. It was originally a letter to the editor that was eventually published as an opinion piece in Claridad in March 1994. I was twenty-one and upset about the treatment rap and reggae were getting on the Puerto Rican press. 

 

That first article led to the creation of the Garabatas al Cruce youth supplement of Claridad. (For an intro to Las Garbatas check my post "Why Reggaetonica?") Here is the Garabatas premier issue (June 1994), dedicated to (surprise surprise) the rap and reggae scene in PR. The first article was a Garabatas collective effort titled "Pagan raperos por pecadores." It explored the criminalization of young men who fit the "rapero" profile. 

 

The second article of our premier Garabatas issue was titled "Rapeando en puertorriqueño" and was co-written by Carmen Oquendo Villar and myself. Click here for Part I. Click here for Part II. Click here for Part III. Click here for Part IV. Missing is the third article of the supplement, dedicated to the growing Christian rap scene and titled "Raperos para Cristo." I still have to scan that one.

La Sista: “Mucha yegua pa poco chongo”

La Sista’s debut CD is in stores! It's titled Majestad Negroide and just came out 2 weeks ago on Machete Music.

The Loiza native’s rhymes are well-crafted and laced with sharp wit, rage, pain, insight and smugness. She’s got a nice singing voice too. There’s a surprisingly good dose of bomba in it, a bit of salsa, pop-ballad, hip hop and reggae roots, and much much reggaeton.

I feel like when Tego’s album came out! Relieved. Elated. Proud.

Her wordplays are top-notch. La Sista is better than “chulería en pote,” she boasts. Big, strong and with no pretensions of refinement, she’s the “jodienda en cacharro.” Way ahead of simple-minded folks who will attack her with the obvious, she lays it out: she’s not the light-skinned, rail-thin model type. And?

Que tu esperabas, ¿la Tañón?
Con un bustier, cantándote esta canción
¿Porqué será para to hay un prototipo?
Qué tu pretende, ¿que La Sista se haga una lipo?
Tipo si te ‘ua dar de lo que soy
No pare ma, yo no vine a modelar

Bling? Money? Stinks like tallow, she says.

Mere, yo ando sin chaucha y sin ningún blinblineo
Y con unos africanos encaramaos en el cuello
El congo llama la sangre negra que llevo
El dinero no me llama porque apesta a sebo

The album starts with “Tu no puedes ver,” a fiery seis corrido (one of many bomba sub-genres) featuring the Ayala family and La Sista’s boasting. Next is “Rulé candela,” a nice reggaetoney take on the traditional bomba of the same title.

Dale rulé candela
Pa ver si el gas pela o no pela

Then “Anacaona,” an homage to Quisqueya’s Taíno leader. Thankfully, there is none of the playing up the Native element while playing down the African. La Sista likens herself to Anacaona, but says straight out she’s the African version.

Aquí está tu cimarrona[…]
Versión africana, yo soy tu Anacaona

Next up is a love song to reggaeton titled “Mi reggaeton.”

Tu eres mi desahogo, contigo canto y lloro
Contigo bailo y río, por ti me desvivo
Tu eres mi consuelo, por ti yo me desvelo

Then comes “Calabo & Bamboo.” The title is derived from a Luis Palés Matos poem but thankfully takes it where Palés certainly didn’t.

Recoge tus casquibaches
No frego más un caldero
No te hago más comía
Ve en caje de tu tía
No te tengo más la ropa al día
Avanza y lárgate déjame la percha vacía
Qué tú te crees, ¿que están a dos por vellón?
Si cuando tu iba yo venía por el callejón

So many things about so many of the other songs strike me. But if I keep waiting to have time to write all that down, you might not get the chance to get this album for Christmas or Reyes. And I think the sooner the better, since we all should give La Sista the support she deserves. Spread the word.

I can’t help but end citing the hip hop-heavy “This Is My Game,” by far my favorite.

Yo vengo del congo
Yo soy mucha yegua pa poco chongo

She is!

Why “Reggaetonica”?

I’ve been asked about this blog’s title.

It’s not so much that I am reggaetonic—although I do like that play on words—but that reggaeton is the “tonic” of our times.

“Tonic” as in “nota tónica” (tonic note):
1. Primera de la escala del tono en que está compuesto un trozo
2. The first note in a scale and the harmony built on this note

“Tonic” as in “sílaba tónica” (tonic syllable):
1. Que recibe el tono o acento
2. The syllable that has the main stress in a word

“Tonic” also as in:
1. Something that lifts the spirits or makes somebody feel better generally
2. A medicine that purports to make patients feel stronger, more energetic, and generally healthier

Gendering the word female in “reggaetonica” instead of using the implicitly masculine “reggaetonic” is also my homage to a group of young writers in the early 1990s in Puerto Rico that named ourselves Garabatas al Cruce in order to rant from the pages of Claridad newspaper. Even though we were a mixed group, we chose to gender our name female: Las Garabatas rather than Los Garabatos. We figured: Why not?

Gallego, a.k.a. Jose Raul Gonzalez—who later rose to fame as reggaeton’s Resident Poet—was part of it. So was Harry Hernandez, Carmen Oquendo Villar, Damaris Estrada and Rossana Vidal.

Much of Las Garabatas' initial motivation was our feeling that rap, reggae, graffiti and other art forms cultivated by our generation were being dismissed and shortchanged. Our name was indebted to a University of Puerto Rico professor who, during a lecture, called graffiti “garabatos en la pared” (scribbles on the wall). Our name was also an homage to proto-reggaeton artist Falo’s anthem “Pa’l Cruce.”

Reggaetonica, in turn, is indebted to Las Garabatas. Vuelvo a tirarme a pié.

SEEKING writings on Panama’s reggae/reggaeton scene

My co-editors and myself (for the anthology Reading Reggaeton) have had a very hard time identifying folks writing on Panama’s reggae/reggaeton scene.

We are interested in both academic and journalistic writings. We welcome recent articles, but we are particularly seeking articles written in the 1990s (and even earlier).

Any suggestions? Please forward the info to raquelzrivera@gmail.com

Reggaeton in "Tha Global Cipha"

Yesterday, I walked into my classroom at Columbia to find a greatly pleasant surprise: James G. Spady and Samir Meghelli came to visit!

James and Samir are two of the co-editors (the third is H. Samy Alim) of the newly-released book Tha Global Cipha: Hip Hop Culture and Consciousness, a collection of interviews with artists from all over the world—from U.S.-based MCs and DJs, to dancehall, rai, shaabi and reggaeton artists. Ivy Queen, Tego Calderon, Yaga & Mackie speak from these pages right alongside Jay Z, Eve, Talib Kweli, Trina, Pitbull, Fat Joe, DJ Kool Herc, Lady Saw, Sean Paul, among many, many others. Even Sonia Sanchez, George Clinton and Rick James!

I have my copy and can't wait to dig into its pages.

It was perfect timing for James and Samir’s surprise visit, given that Carlos “REC” McBride had accepted my invitation to come speak about his work as the Director of The Teen Resource Center in Holyoke, Massachusetts—particularly about the ways in which he is integrating hip hop and reggaeton into his programs. To top it off, REC brought one of the young members of the Center, Juan a.k.a. Knowledge.

Juan and REC gave us a very focused picture of the way reggaeton and hip hop play out in an economically-depressed, largely Puerto Rican town in the U.S.’s Northeast. Meanwhile, James and Samir took us on a global tour, exploring many of the “children” and even “foreparents” of hip hop.

I have yet to get feedback from the students (which I will be sure to ask for during our next class session). But judging by the way they enthusiastically interacted with our guests, I suspect they might agree with me that it was the most dynamic class all semester.

Juan, REC, Samir and James: I can’t thank you enough.

La Bruja and "Mi Gatita Negra"

Last Tuesday in the class I am teaching at Columbia University, we watched two segments of The Chosen Few, El Documental (Part I): Sex & Reggaeton and Women in Latin Hip Hop / Reggaeton.

La Bruja is featured in both, speaking her sharp mind.

In the discussion that followed, many students expressed that for them La Bruja had been the main voice of reason in those sections, particularly because of the way she criticized the portrayal of women in popular music as one-dimensional objects of lust.

It occurred to me that showing La Bruja's risqué Mi Gatita Negra video might provide some counterpoint to the discussion, since lust is very prominent in that video's imagery.

One of the students had her laptop, so she searched for the video on youtube and we all crowded around her screen to watch.

Posted By:LA BRUJA

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

The ensuing debate was fascinating. Some argued La Bruja was contradicting herself by producing the usual kind of images that exploit female bodies as bait. Others said the images were innovative because the video's milkman was being equally exploited. Others argued that maybe La Bruja was just showing her sexy side; she may be righteous and socially-conscious but that does NOT and should NOT cancel out her sensual existence. Others speculated maybe the video was just a promotional ploy to hook viewers; once they became La Bruja fans, she would have them captive to receive the knowledge she can drop.

One of the students, who goes by Poet Warrior in myspace, had the fine idea to try to contact La Bruja and get answers straight from the source. And get answers she did! You can read their exchange in La Bruja's latest myspace blog titled How Could You Bruja?

Much respect to La Bruja. And to Poet Warrior.

The Myth of Latino Brown-ness

Language conspires against us. How to make ourselves understood and at the same time speak in a way that does not perpetuate crazy myths?

For example: “Black” is used as a synonym for African American in the U.S. and, more and more often African Americans and Latinos are spoken about using the language of skin color: “Blacks and Browns.”

But is brown a useful label when so many Latinos are (whether by looks or by ancestry) just as black or even “blacker” than many African Americans? Is brown a useful label to describe Latinos ranging from the milkiest skin-toned to the ebony complexioned?





(Below, a great and scary example of racial disparities and myths in Latin America, courtesy of a Colombian travel site.)



The work of photographer Luis M. Salazar, born in El Salvador in 1974, was showcased last year at the S-Files collective exhibit at El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem.



The photo series is titled Spark La Música: Hip Hop en español in New York City, 2003-2005 and features artists like La Bruja, Enemigo, Don Divino, Inti and El Meswy. Considering the huge range of skin tones evident in the photos (from Don Divino and Inti’s deep brown skin to La Bruja’s and El Meswy’s cream-colored complexions) the text accompanying the photos struck me: “They come from [description of their various regional backgrounds]. And besides their color of skin and mother tongue, they all share the love of hip-hop culture.” I wondered: How can the text state these artists share a “color” while the photographic evidence right next to those words screams to the contrary?

“They are the ‘brown’ people,” states the exhibit text, curiously placing “brown” in quotation marks, but still describing their skin color as uniform.

To add yet another spin to the matter, while the above mentioned hip hop artists featured in Salazar’s photo series are from Latin America (Puerto Rico and Colombia), El Meswy is from Spain. So not only is this European artist being incorporated into the definition of Latino, but he is also endowed with the mythical brown-ness of Latinos and Latin Americans. It is a brown-ness that, though using the language of racial phenotypes (looks), stands as a synonym for a Latino pan-ethnicity that reaches across the Atlantic to Spain: to the “motherland” or “evil stepmotherland” of Latin Americans, depending on who you ask.

Some people insist that describing Latinos as brown is appropriate because we are supposedly all mixed. Yet, describing all Latinos as brown is tricky considering some of us are more mixed than others; also considering that some of us are just as mixed as African Americans, Native Americans, Asians or whites in the U.S.; also considering that some of us are not mixed at all; AND, also considering that depending on how mixed you are, you get treated differently, courtesy of Latino and Latin American-style racism and self-hatred.

Other people say that Latino brown-ness is just a convenient label that uses the language of skin color but really points beyond race. They say that brown-ness is a good symbolic way for Latinos to bridge our racial differences. But I do not buy it. This all sounds way too much like Mexican writer Jose Vasconselos’ dangerous myth of the “cosmic race” from back in the 1920s or like 1930s Puerto Rican writer Tomas Blanco playing down Latin American racism as “a kid’s game” compared to racism in the U.S.. Using the label brown to describe all Latinos sounds like a re-packaging of the old myth of “racial democracy” in Latin America.

As long as white is the color of privilege among Latinos and Latin Americans, pretending we are all brown sounds like a terrible idea to me. How can we address racial conflict, differences and inequality among Latinos if, supposedly, we are all brown?

Los boricuas no comen mangu… Thoughts on Ethnic Chauvinism and Racial Exclusion

The other day I attended an amazing Boricua roots music block party at the Casita de Chema in the Bronx: plena and bomba galore, courtesy of Bomplenazo 2006. I was intensely enjoying myself until one of the verses sung from the stage got caught in my ears, my brain, my heart.

I wish I could remember verbatim what the singer said in Spanish, but it was something to the effect of: I dont eat mangu; I eat mofongo because I am a proud Puerto Rican.

Huh?

Now really, what is the relevance or purpose of basing our Puerto Ricanness on the food we (supposedly) do not eat? Specially, when that food (though mofongo's cousin) has its incomparable charms and, we could argue, is just as much ours, since it is Caribbean. (And, last time I checked, we are still all Caribbean.)

Chill, I told myself. Its just a silly, unimportant statement. But it was so silly that it worried me. Its upon this kind of silliness that larger silliness rests on. And on and on until it turns into a big ludicrous situation. Those silly verses catapulted me into a flashback.

Twas the night of the Puerto Rican Day Parade. Lets call this story: El mini-Tego y la presunta no-boricua

Estamos en el Club Exit la noche del Desfile Puertorriqueño. La discoteca esta forrada de jovenes que perrean con desenfreno y cantan euforicos a la par del Abayarde. Tego recorre el escenario con su gracia y aplomo caracteristicos, inclinandose microfono en mano frente a alguno de los asistentes para dejarlo o dejarla rapear varios versos.



Alguien imita las inflecciones vocales (el mentadisimo flow) de Tego de manera tal que este le tiende la mano y lo sube al escenario. De entre la muchedumbre surge un joven minusculo, aun mas bajito que Tego, coronado por un gloriosamente enorme afro. El look y la habilidad rapeadora del muchacho arranca enardecidos aplausos, brincos, silbidos y gritos a los presentes. Al final de la intervencion de su mini-doble, Tego le da las gracias y le pregunta su nombre. Casi no escucho el nombre que ofrece en respuesta, pero si los gruñidos y suspiros desencantados del publico cuando dice: yo soy dominicano pero...

Ya violadas las presunciones nacionales del publico, de nada le sirve al mini-Tego su declaracion de amor y respeto por los puertorriqueños y su musica. La leccion? El Dia del Desfile Puertorriqueño las frustraciones se canalizan orgulleciendonos de ser lo que otra gente (supuestamente) no es. Ese dia no es buen momento para intentar cruzar fronteras, por inmateriales que sean.

Y eso que el rapeador dominicano mantuvo su credibilidad intacta hasta que declaro ser de la isla no homenajeada de la noche. Peor suerte tuvo la muchacha que antes de Tego subir al escenario se habia encuerado hasta mostrar sus grietas mas reconditas (ninguna de las otras dizque concursantes se atrevio a tanto) para deleite de la perreadora concurrencia.

De hecho, los aplausos del publico la habian declarado ganadora hasta que al presentador se le ocurrio decir: Pero esta mujer no me tiene cara de boricua. Ustedes creen que esta mujer es boricua?

Un rumor interrogativo recorrio la multitud y acto seguido se empezaron a oir los abucheos. Que le decimos a esta?, pregunto el presentador al bien entrenado publico. El gentio estallo a coro: Pintate pal carajo!

A mi alrededor zumbaban los detalles: Esa seguro era dominicana, dijo una. She is obviously African American, dijo otro. La primera respondio: Claro, una puertorriqueña no iba a ser tan fresca.

El mini-Tego quedo descartado cuando abrio la boca y dijo que era dominicano. Pero a la muchacha la descalificaron mucho antes de poder pronunciar palabra. Mientras que la piel acaramelada del mini-Tego no desperto mayores sospechas, la piel de la presunta no-boricua era reluciente azabache. Y asi, ella tambien fue desterrada del colectivo que esa noche celebraba su orgullo nacional, quien sabe si con su puertorriqueñidad clavada en su negra garganta.

All I have left to say is:

Too black to be Puerto Rican?!
(Award-winning writer (and one of my heroes), Mayra Santos Febres.)

And, is this what Puerto Ricans must deny for the sake of national pride?


If we insist on being so narrow-minded, we will keep missing out on most of what WE are.

As if "Blackness" and "Latino-ness" Don't Intersect

Last week in class, I had a hell of a hard time explaining that blackness and the African diaspora in the Americas include LatinAmericans/Latinos. Students were very resistant to the concept that "The Black Atlantic" can include Latin America. The most difficult assumption to break (in their case) is that the music of the English and French-speaking Caribbean is somehow "blacker" (across the board) than the music of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.

It was an odd discussion we had. Their objections were based more on preconceived notions than facts but they were nevertheless very resistant to the facts. I had no audiovisual material at the moment (aside from reggae and reggaeton tracks) to make it all more concrete for them, so I have been looking for the best ammunition possible to put the matter to rest once and for all. I am confident some musical/visual material will persuade them.

I have access to some early 90s documentaries on music and the African diaspora, like Routes of Rhythm. I can also play clips from the JVC/Smithsonian video collection on Caribbean roots music. But I am wondering if anyone has anything else to recommend.

A recent documentary that illustrates musically The Black Atlantic (Paul Gilroy's book) or "The Caribbean as a Musical Region" (Kenneth Bilby's article) would be ideal, particularly if it includes more contemporary expressions like hip hop and reggaeton.

Where is that documentary? I can't find it! Does it just not exist? Does this mean that it is up to one of us to make it (or somehow facilitate the making of it)?

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.

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?

Email Conversation With Felix Jimenez on my Blanquitos and Reggaeton Post

Felix Jimenez is a journalist, professor and author of Las practicas de la carne (2005) and Vieques y la prensa (2001).


Mi Querida Raquel: LOVED YOUR BLOG! Las preguntas que tienes son pertinentisimas. But add this to the mix: The problematic reality of self-description. I wonder how many of the wildly successful, platinum-record winning regaetoneros would have self-destructed without an initial barrio-bound, non-blanquito description that was concocted to give them an early sympathy factor at the start of their careers. The fact that property values (and other financial and educational opportunities that might have been offered by their parents) are concealed from the equation REGGAETONERO=DEL PUEBLO=GENUINO=REAL=DE LA CALLE is a function of the ever-present "reggaetonero template" which eases the way for many a reggaetonero-hopeful to enter the musical world. As Cuba Gooding's character in Jerry McGuire, the template shouts "Show me the money!"

The myth of the street is a vital factor of reggaeton's "identity litmus test." It is an item on the essential check-list. How real and genuine can you be - in reggaeton's "identity litmus test" - if you have lived in a five-bathroom, gold-fixtured house in a gated community? The conflation of "genuine" and "real" with perceived barrio roots (and, thus, non-blanquito origins) is the ideal PR/PR (Puerto Rican Public Relations) ploy for nascent careers. WITH IT THEY AVOID QUESTIONS AND CEASELESS INTERROGATIONS ABOUT "WHY NOT ROCK?" OR "WHY NOT BALLADS, OR SALSA" OR "WHAT MADE YOU CHOOSE REGGAETON?" Public relation machines here dictate that reggaeton is not a choice, or should not be perceived as one - it must be a natural outgrowth of a performer's "background." So performers act accordingly, even if reggaeton is a choice for them over other musical rhythms. As long as reggaeton seems to be an inevitability (meaning said reggaetonero HAD to go that route because it fits with his socioeconomic and cultural non-blanquito, barrio-caserío background) less questions are asked, and the reggaetonero acquires a more natural stance, a patina of "inevitability,", of being "the real thing," "the genuine item."

Daddy Yankee's Villa Kennedy-to-riches story, for example, includes the tid-bit that he did finish his associate degree. But his geographical milieu to a certain extent dictated his natural selection of reggaton. It was not choice. This "white' poor boy, (and OH SO HANDSOME) has said so himself: Era la musica que oia en mi calle. Yo adoraba a Vico C.

Ivy Queen recounts how she had to ask for money in stop lights to help feed her family when she was living in Añasco. Her story gives texture to her present. How many reggaetoneros (and there are many, which is weird) have been barbers or stylists? That does not necessarily correlate with the educational and financial opportunities they might have had (and discarded or missed or blatantly ignored) when they were growing up. It means that - again, in the realm of the "perceived "- that they are somewhat wayward. Thuggish. Not conventional. The "thugness" factor- cosmetic as it might be in some cases - pays off.

By the same token, Residente Calle 13's perceived intelligence is a function of his cashing in on the educational/financial opportunities that his lawyer father and actress mother lavished on him. Not that he was silver-spooned, but that he acted upon the possibilities that were there, afforded by whatever metal the spoon was made of. He is and was intelligent. Not thuggish enough. That is why people have such a difficult time pinning him down on his kind of music. And he hasn't labeled himself a full-blown reggaetonero either. From the outside perspective, and also from Calle 13's perspective, that would be an impossibility. He is cashing in on that impossibility. He knows the rules.

I think that the discarded opportunities that Tego, Voltio, Mexicano, and the like have are part of what they sell. Example: the public discussion about Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila's invitation to Don Omar to serve as a spokesperson for the Department of Education. At the end of the big brouhaha, when he was "disinvited," the question was, "So who can inspire the kids to stay in school, the one who did stay and graduated or the drop-out who feels he made the wrong decision and wants to warn would-be drop-outs"? The answer seemed obvious to 12 reggaetoneros who discussed the topic in a TV program: Drop-outs do it better because - all of them said - they have THE EXPERIENCE of having dropped out/

The entitlement of the street trumps the entitlement of education. Choosing to be DE LA CALLE classifies you as non-blanquito. The real blanquitos will never stand up.

What do you think? I'm curious. Contestame cuando puedas. Soon.

BESOTES,
Felix


Hi Felix.

Que bueno estar en dialogo sobre esto contigo!

Me parece bien acertado eso que dices de la estrategia de relaciones publicas de la "inevitabilidad" del reggaeton para artistas "reales" "de la calle".

"I think that the discarded opportunities that Tego, Voltio, Mexicano, and the like have are part of what they sell. "

Your above quote is fascinating. Its not only about the thug persona they adopt, but about the opportunities discarded. YES!

Este mito y romantizacion de "la calle" es mind-blowing. As you say, to discard those opportunities to have a conventionally successful life, is celebrated as a sign of thuggish chic, an emblem of sexy rebelliousness. But is there more than front and image to all this?

Ultimately this is all about WHAT? What can we boil down this romantic "myth of the street" to? A symbol of youthful "rebelliousness", late 20th/early 21st Century style? A sign that the "traditional" way success was defined (and said to guarantee happiness) is bankrupt? Why is it bankrupt? Because its a socio-economic impossibility for many? Because its perceived to be too hard? Too unsexy? Is it because once you become "successful" then you are a slave to your "success" and happiness remains ever-elusive?

What does this all say about the way a sector of the youthful population is constructing/perceiving happiness? What does this all say about the conditions a sector of the youthful population is growing up in?

Where does pride in your community end and self-serving myth-making begin?

The street is a myth. And a reality. Shit, this is making my head spin.

"Choosing to be DE LA CALLE classifies you as non-blanquito. The real blanquitos will never stand up."

Another mind-blowing concept: "choosing to be de la calle". YET it is a choice that has to be camouflaged in the language of inevitability. Why?

I completely agree "the real blanquitos will never stand up." As long as authenticity in reggaeton is defined the way it currently is, no one in their right mind will "stand" against the interest of their bread and butter (and cars, and women, and bling).

te abrazo,
RZ

On Appropriation, Class and Reggaeton

This post is inspired by David's, Negrura's and TatoBrujo's comments to my previous blog post (on www.myspace.com/raquelzrivera).

Appropriate:
1. To take to or for oneself; take possession of
2. To take without consent; seize; expropriate

Expropriate:
1. To dispossess a person of ownership

It has become increasingly common to talk about racial appropriation in the U.S. (particularly appropriation by whites of black cultural expressions). But, as David points out, there are class divisions among racial groups; divisions that sometimes get sidelined. When middle-class African Americans across the U.S. became engaged with hip hop, was that not "appropriation"? Yes indeed. We don't have to ignore class fault lines in order to highlight racial/ethnic unity. (Though, unfortunately, we often do. Acknowledgement of class, gender and sexual power dynamics is often suppressed in the name of racial/ethnic unity.)

Of course, when middle and upper-class African Americans adopt a cultural expression born from marginalized African American communities, though there may be some friction, the result is usually perceived as "appropriation" (meaning #1, above) rather than "expropriation" (meaning #2, above. classic example: the history of Rock and Roll).

In Puerto Rico, since there is a perception of a shared national/ethnic identity (save for immigrants, particularly Dominicans), it is a bit more common for class fault lines to be acknowledged (when compared to the States).

It fascinates me how those class distinctions are purposely blurred in contemporary reggaeton.

Reggaeton has a mythical alliance to "the street," an interesting metaphor considering even the most expensive neighborhoods have streets, as Felix Jimenez (author of Las practicas de la carne) pointed out to me in a recent conversation.

Reggaeton artists purportedly represent "the street," the barrios, the caserios. Some of these representatives grew up or live in those places, while others, though not having grown up or lived there, become representatives by virtue of being perceived to be down.

If an artist did not grow up in those neighborhoods he/she "represents," then: What exactly does it mean to be down with the street? What does it mean to have street credibility? Is it about adopting/appropriating a culture? Is it about assuming a street identity through your sympathies and solidarities? Is it a costume you can take on and off? All of the above? None of the above?

If you are down with the street do you then eventually become "from the street"? Is "tener calle" (literally, having street) the same as "ser de la calle" (being from the street)?

Since both share an obsession with street credibility, the following questions apply as much to hip hop in the U.S. proper as to reggaeton in Puerto Rico: How much of contemporary street credibility is about surface aesthetics and how much about culture, community and solidarity? Does that solidarity entail certain responsibilities? Or can you just adopt the mannerisms, don the clothing, hire a good Public Relations machine, and PRESTO?

Will the Real Blanquitos Please Stand Up?: Class, Race and Reggaeton

El blanquito guillao de caco, I have heard many call Residente Calle
13. The Eminem of reggaeton, I heard a MUN2 video show host quip.

Blanquito is a Puerto Rican term that combines class and
race, with the emphasis (or so the story goes) on class. So while
there are plenty of reggaeton artists whose phenotypes are closer to
the white end of the spectrum, they do not get labeled blanquitos.
Why? The easy answer is class.

Residente Calle 13 has been singled out as reggaeton's Resident
Blanquito. While the other reggaeton artists are presumed to be "del
barrio," Residente Calle 13 is supposedly the affluent (dizque
"suburban") exception. But is he really the exception? How is he the
exception?



He certainly is not the only reggaeton artist with professional
parents, or who hails from an urbanización, or who is
university-educated.



Tego's parents are a teacher and a government employee. His family
at one point lived in the urbanización Loíza Valley growing up, and for a long time near el Viejo Comandante (still there? anyone know exactly where?). Oh wait, but he did not go to college and went to jail. Plus he is much too black and much too proud of it to be labeled a blanquito.



Unlike Tego, Glory is university-educated, yet she doesn't get called
blanquita either. She has her bachelors, is working on her masters
thesis and has plans to complete her Ph.D. Oh wait, she's too
dark-skinned to be easily pegged a blanquita.



So how about Tito el Bambino: the quintessential pretty, white Rican
boy? He grew up in the urbanización Parque Ecuestre, where Voltio and Hector El Father also grew up.



Isn't Parque Ecuestre (see above) an urbanización, not a barrio? And how different, really, is Parque Ecuestre from the urbanización El
Conquistador where Calle 13 grew up?



I conducted a very unscientific quick little cyber-quest and looked up
property values of houses in both urbanizaciones. It turns out the
property values I found for Parque Ecuestre and El Conquistador placed El Conquistador a bit higher on the price scale. But not by much:

Parque Ecuestre, $115,000
El Conquistador, 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms, $140,000
El Conquistador, 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms, $160,000
Parque Ecuestre, 6 rooms, 2 bathrooms $165,000
El Conquistador, 4 rooms, 2 bathrooms, $175,000
Parque Ecuestre, $185,000

How about urbanizaciones other artists live or have lived in? Where
did Nicky Jam grow up, aside from the time he lived in Barrio Obrero?
(And why does he get called "el riquitillo"?) Rakim and Ken-Y? Alex
and Fido? Wisín and Yandel? (sure, Cayey but where?) Ivy Queen?
(Añasco, but where?)

As I mentioned before, Tego at one point lived in Loíza Valley.



Example of house prices there:
Loíza Valley, 4 rooms, 2 bathrooms, $135,000

Now lets go back to some folks that were very hot in the genre mid to
late-90s. Mansion Crew from Mansiones de Carolina.



Example of house prices:
Mansiones de Carolina, $185,000

Joelito from Las Guanábanas used to live in Villas de Loíza a decade
ago when I interviewed him for the San Juan Star.



Examples of house prices:
Villas de Loíza, 3 rooms, 1 bathroom, $118,000
Villas de Loíza, 4 rooms, 2 bathrooms $135,000

Hhhhmmmm so it seems property values in all these neighborhoods are not always substantially different. There seems to be quite a bit of overlap between the places Tito, Hector, Voltio, Calle 13, Tego, Mansion Crew and Joelito lived while growing up.

Now compare that to the scores of artists who grew up in public
housing projects where, of course, the residents don't own the
property. (For example, Vico C and Lisa M grew up in the now-demolished Las Acacias, and Daddy Yankee in Villa Kennedy.)

I tried finding images to no avail of Las Acacias, Villa Kennedy, Llorens, Canales, Torres Sabana and other well-known public housing complexes. All I found was a picture of an abandoned caserío in Mayagüez, then set to be demolished.



I also found a picture of the Residencial Público San Agustín in
Puerta de Tierra. Freshly painted and deceptively quaint, its certainly
not a typical public housing development image.



Then there are the neighborhoods thought of as the quintessential
slums, like La Perla, recently featured in the MTV special My Block: Puerto Rico. There are also working-class barrios like Canteras, Villa Palmeras and Barrio Obrero where residential property values are at the low end. (Don Omar grew up in Villa Palmeras; Nicky Jam at some point lived in Barrio Obrero.) But, again, notice the overlap with some of the above-mentioned urbanizaciones.

Examples of house prices:
Cantera, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, $58,000
Barrio Obrero, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms $95,000
Villa Palmeras 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms $135,000



These two images are from Villa Palmeras in Santurce.



Ok, so to recap. We have the no-real-estate-owning public housing
population. Then we have the lower end of the urban property spectrum fluctuating roughly around $58,000-$135,000. Then we have a whole bunch of urbanizaciones where quite a few reggaeton artists grew up in, with prices fluctuating between $118,000-$200,000. Now compare that to high-end urbanizaciones like Encantada where houses start around $345,000 and can reach $2 million.




Examples of house prices:
Encantada, 4 rooms, 2.5 bathrooms, $345,000
Pacifica, Encantada, 4 rooms, 3 bathrooms, $565,000
La Cima, Encantada, 6 rooms, 5 bathrooms, $2,000,000!!!



So if Residente Calle 13's relative affluence (judging by the
neighborhood he grew up in) falls somewhere in the middle right along with a whole bunch of other artists', we go back to the question: Why single him out as Reggaeton's Resident Blanquito?

I am not suggesting Residente Calle 13 is not different from most
reggaeton artists in terms of his upbringing. He went to private
schools and is university-educated (even has a masters) and grew up
in a gated urbanización (which may be a sign that his neighborhood is
relatively more upscale than other urbanizaciones with no controlled
access). (Does anyone know if any of the other urbanizaciones
mentioned above have controlled access?) Residente Calle 13 is also
considered white according to Island standards and never went to jail. As far as I know, no other popular reggaeton artist fulfills all qualifications mentioned above.

But shouldn't we be complicating the mythical "reggaeton as barrio
phenomenon" party line? How do so many urbanización-bred artists get to be portrayed as barrio and caserío-down, in a way Calle 13 is not? Perhaps the answer is that the former come from lower-middle class urbanizaciones one step away from the barrio. Is that why? Then lets talk about it.

What makes Llorens Torres and Canales housing projects different from La Perla different from Barrio Obrero different from Puerto Nuevo different from Parque Ecuestre different from Mansiones de Carolina different from El Conquistador different from Encantada and Los Paseos? What are the boundaries between caseríos, barrios and urbanizaciones? Should we be making distinctions between working, lower-middle, middle and upper-class urbanizaciones?

Who is a blanquito? How much racial and class privilege puts you in
the blanquito definition? If you are light-skinned and upwardly
mobile, but grew up in a caserío: Can you be considered a blanquito?
Does it make a difference if your upward mobility is propelled by the
sales from your reggaeton album vs. by becoming a succesful architect? How about if you are black, upwardly mobile and grew up in a caserío? Can you be considered a blanquito? Can your children?

Is blanquito about how much money you presently make? How much money your parents made when you were growing up? Is it about where you grew up? About where you live now? About the education you did or did not get?

And then throw that pesky factor called phenotype to the mix.

Would Tego be a blanquito if he had a Ph.D.? Would Calle 13 not be a
blanquito if he was black? If he did not have a masters degree?
Would Glory be a blanquita given her education, if it wasn't for her
phenotype? What if she was light-skinned and was writing quirky,
flower-power lyrics like Calle 13?

How much do personal style and musical aesthetics have to do with who gets defined as a blanquito? If Residente Calle 13 was not doing the experimental lyrics and videos, if he stuck to the prototypical
so-called barrio reggaeton aesthetic, would he be as likely to be
labeled a blanquito?

How much does behavior, dress, speech and attitude have to do with
being or not being a blanquito?

On the one hand, I think the class and race boundaries that separate
blanquitos from non-blanquitos are much blurrier than we make them out to be. On the other hand, it boggles my mind that while romanticized caserío and barrio imagery produce juicy earnings for a few, class and race-based divisions and injustice are as rampant as ever in the Island of Enchantment.

What do you think?

Calle 13’s “La Jirafa”—“The Giraffe”

Multifaceted, the Calle 13 who brought us "Atrévete te te"s lyrical imperative of hitching up our skirts all the way up to our backs and the Residente responsible for "Chulin Culín Chunfly"s me gusta como me guaya tu papaya, also bring us "La Jirafa."







I'm no fan of sappily happy love songs. But I can appreciate a good one that strays from the norm. I particularly welcome a love song from a reggaeton artist who elides the pop conventions that presently reign supreme in the genre (either te guayo te piso te pillo or sudando pasión, mi linda flor, te bajo la luna, etc.).

So I'm really feeling Calle 13's music, lyrics and video for "La Jirafa."

Though the music does not rely on the prototypical reggaeton percussive pattern, it feels reggaetoney, begging to be danced in similar pelvis-swaying ways. Also, since I'm a sucker for the accordion, the instrument's incorporation into the music and video is a big plus for me. (Thanks to Wayne Marshall for lending me his musical ear and helping me figure out why this song pleases my eardrums.

The lyrics are simple and simply gorgeous. Its imagery relies heavily on the colors and textures of nature. Sensual, as well as sexual, it awakens listeners' all six senses. And I do mean six. Why else would he ask her to flutter the cloth in her grandmother's name? Maybe that verse is taking me places Residente never intended: but I see his woman dancing bomba, piqueteando with her skirt, connecting through movement with the spirit world.

I'm also captivated by "La Jirafa"s surrealist qualities, both in the lyrics and the video. As usual, Residente rhymes seemingly by free association. But "La Jirafa"s lyrics are uncharacteristically tender. They remind me of Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez who lets the rhyming structure drive his word choice, employing almost non-sensical images to paint a vivid lyrical and musical picture.

Check the video.

Check the lyrics in Spanish.

I searched for an English translation and could not find it, so I will try to do them some justice. (Any suggestions or corrections are greatly appreciated.)

Plant your feet like two roots
With that swing
You'll probably cast a spell on me
Careful
So I don't step on you
Mamita, with caution
Flutter the cloth
In your grandmother's name

Mi little cinnamon
Mi little sugar
My pretty Sara [Linda Sara is the name of an acclaimed 1994 Puerto Rican movie]
My hurricane-like little storm
My Saint Clare [Santa Clara was a hurricane that hit PR in 1956]
I 'm not gonna let anything weird step on you
I 'm gonna light the candles so nothing happens to you
Here there's no knives or guns
There's only
A lot a lot a lot of cooking pot

Here there's a lot of sun
A lot of beaches
A lot of waves
Here everything is molasses
Nothing is pangola
I will paint the beach for you
Crayola blue
We're leaving
We're going
We're leaving
In a yola [small boat]
And if there is no yola
We will keep it rolling
So that
So that
You will see how your tail floats

When I saw you
I felt a lot of tickling
It was like having
Forty ants
Scratching my belly
You know, you know, you know
You're so fine
You took my pants, you're a thief
Lets spread ourselves into a tortilla

Lets make coconut pudding mixed with custard
I will eat your wood
Even with the termites

She eeee eeee
She eeee she
She eeee eeee
She eeee she

I want to see
The whole giraffe
I want it to kick me
See who can get away
Stirring the batter
I want four cups
Of carrots with pumpkins
You take me
Flying through the countryside
Off the floor
Walking on stilts
With a patanco basket
To walk over the ships
Until I get to your mountain range
The one who heals me
There are rumors going around
That you are
The luck of all the colors
A garden full of beans
A lot of necklaces adorned with seashells
Your name came out in the three cards
The comets told me
To dive in
To the bottom with no flippers
To go on the trip
With no suitcase
To go the whole way around
The planet
In a mattress
Lift up
Lift up
Lift up
Your shoe soles
Lets coil the washer disk
Gimme, gimme, gimme
A bit of Nutella
With you I'll go with nothing
A capella

Interlude: Residente Calle 13 On Masculinity, Gender Roles

Thanks to Tato Torres for the reference to a Cultura Viva program he saw on HITN. Anyone have a copy?

In it, Calle 13 said: "Los hombres también tenemos presiones sociales y a veces recurrimos a lo macharrán." "Algunas de mis canciones son hypermacharranas".

Translation: We men also have social pressures and sometimes we go the macho route. Some of my songs are hyper-macho.






The following is from an April 21, 2006 Primera Hora article dedicated to Calle 13 (see the translation below):

Aunque se pudiera interpretar que la lírica de Calle 13, sexualmente cargada, podría clasificar a la mujer, René Pérez descarta por completo tener una actitud machista.

"Las personas que estén en ese viaje están queda'os pero bien pega'os. Ya eso pasó de moda. Les recomendaría que se lean a Judith Butler, que ella defiende a la mujer sin ser feminista. Ella piensa que ser feminista es estar queda'o a estas alturas. Tengo cuatro hermanas y los roles masculinos y femeninos los tengo bien claros en la mente", asegura.

¿Cuáles son esos roles?

Yo pienso que la gente no debe estar tan consciente del rol que están asumiendo en cuestión de género. Deben hacer las cosas como sientan y como fluyan. Las mujeres pueden hacer cosas de hombres, y los hombres cosas de mujeres. Aquí en Puerto Rico y en (el resto de) Latinoamérica, en especial, es difícil bregar con los géneros y la gente todavía no acepta a los homosexuales, pero eso se va trabajando.

TRANSLATION:
Even though Calle 13's sexually charged lyrics can be interpreted as [] classifying women, René Pérez denies having a sexist attitude.

"People who are on that trip are far behind. That's out of style. I would recommend they read Judith Butler who defends women without being feminist. She thinks being feminist is being behind the times at this point. I have four sisters and the masculine and feminine roles are real clear in my head," [Residente] says.

And what are those roles?

I think people should not be so conscious of the role they are playing in terms of gender. They should do things the way they feel and the way they flow. Women can do men's things and men can do women's things. Here in Puerto Rico and the rest of Latin America, specially, its difficult to deal with gender and people still don't accept homosexuals, but we can work on that.

Reggaeton and Gender: We Keep Talking Past Each Other (Part 4: On Masculinity)

Reggaeton just happened to be the music genre my students and I were discussing when we had those long debates regarding images of women in music videos. The issue is not just specific to reggaeton or even hip hop. These blog posts could have just as easily been titled Popular Culture and Gender: We Keep Talking Past Each Other.

Reading over my three previous posts and some of the comments they generated, something caught my attention.

In both discussions with my students, the spark for the debate was images of women in reggaeton videos. On the first occasion, the conversation centered around the interplay of women's roles as wage earners, mothers and wives. On the second occasion, we focused on the impact and the limits of choice on women's lives. Notice how both times the discussion centered on women.

We definitely should be talking about the ways womanhood is defined in our society and how that impacts the kinds of images we see on popular music videos. But we should be talking just as much about how manhood is defined.

Filmmaker Byron Hurt has some thoughts on this: "Most of the time when people think about gender issues, they think about women. Most people don't think manhood when you talk about gender issues. [] No one asks: What does it really mean to your manhood to have cars, to have jewelry, to have women?"

That is precisely why six years ago Hurt set out to make a documentary called Beyond Beats and Rhymes: A Hip-Hop Head Weighs in on Manhood in Hip-Hop Culture. It premiered this summer at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and will soon be shown on PBS. I saw it and it is definitely a thought-provoking and much-needed piece.



The 36 year old, self-described hip hop head has gone through great lengths to frame the discussion as a loving and unyielding critique of the music he grew up with. Hurt says: "So much of the ills in our society come from the way we men define manhood. I want this film to really get men to question and to challenge the way we're socialized and conditioned."

Just as lovingly and just as unyieldingly as Hurt, we should all be challenging ourselves and each other. What do we expect of ourselves? What do we expect of others? Why?

Hurt's documentary is a great start. Now it needs plenty of follow-up.

Reggaeton and Gender: We Keep Talking Past Each Other (Part 3: On Self-Respect)

Dear R.,

Are the reggaeton female fans, dancers and models who are getting naked and scandalously sexual on the club stage, dance floor and music videos being the tragic victims of their own self-hatred?

I agree with you that, when it comes to the decisions of reggaeton's gatas, low self-esteem needs to be taken into account as a factor. Self-esteem often plays as much a part as the pursuit of money, career, sex and/or love. But to that I have to add: Just like for everyone else.

Being a wild reggaeton gata is indeed a consolation for one too many women with low self-esteem. Just like being a wild reggaeton pitbull is a consolation for one too many men with low self-esteem.

Not to say all wild gatas and pitbulls suffer from self-esteem issues. Some do. Some don't. (Actually, don't we all have self-esteem issues?) People's reasons, experiences and pleasures are informed by way too many factors to reduce it all to low self-esteem.

For example: Is it possible that some (many?) of reggaeton's gatitas (whether they have self-esteem issues or not) are deriving great pleasure by being part of a social scene where they don't have to play coy and hard to get? Where they can pursue their lusty fantasies in ways usually reserved for men? Where they can be more honest about what they want?

Reggaeton has some distinctive dynamics: for example, it has stretched the boundaries of appropriate public sexual behavior for many people. But other dynamics, like the male/female power struggles are not reggaeton-specific. They are human issues.

Similar gender power dynamics exist among salsa, bomba and rumba fans, musicians and dancers (to take the example of some genres we both love). Women flaunt their beauty; men flaunt their power and wealth. As my Dad learned as a little boy in the 1950s in the mountain town of Naranjito: Las dos cosas mas terribles en la vida son una mujer fea y un hombre pelao. O sea: The two most terrible things in life are an ugly woman and a flat broke man.

So how to start defining ourselves and others beyond our material possessions? How to interact with each other in less utilitarian terms?

Much respect,
RZ

Reggaeton and Gender: We Keep Talking Past Each Other (Part 2)

A few classes went by. And the spiny subject of gender came up again. Elsie was giving an oral presentation on her final project. She was a hardliner in terms of expecting/imposing a certain so-called decency standard on reggaeton and other manifestations of popular culture. In my earlier feedback on her paper, I challenged her to distinguish between lyrics/images that sexualized women and those that sexualized AND demeaned women. I suggested there was a difference between

I want that ass and I’ll smack it if you just say the word
VS.
I want that ass you piece of trash and I’m gonna smack it whether you like it or not

But Elsie had not heeded my calls for temperance. So while she talked about the objectification of women in videos, the masculine faces in the classroom were carefully composed into impassiveness, but itching and twitching with disagreement and irritated condescension below the surface.

Why were the men, again, not speaking up? It took a lot of asking and prodding on my part, until finally the floodgates opened.

Women who complain about those images is because they feel insecure about their bodies, stated Max. They complain about the images because they can’t compete with the models.

You don’t hold it against a smart female doctor that she’s smart, said Victor. Then why hold it against a big breasted female model that she’s sexy?

Besides, its their decision to be in those videos, added Max.

But that decision is conditioned by a social context!, argued Rosa, Zenaida and Elsie. Why do you think there are all these men in decision-making positions and all these women working for very little money in the videos?

But they can say no, shot back Max. If this is going to end, you can’t blame the men and say women are victims. Its up to the women to change it.

I am not saying women are just victims, said Zenaida. I am saying both women and men are responsible. And they both need to work at changing it.

You know, this is about supply and demand, said Max. As long as there are women willing to do the work, men will hire them. You can’t stop it as long as women choose to make their money that way.

I intervened, noting that many of those video models work for free, hoping to someday make it big.

That’s still their decision, said Max.

Besides, they’re doing it to get ahead, kind of like an internship, said Victor.

Lets go back to the point about change only being up to women, I said. Without the support of white people the Civil Rights movement would not have succeed the way it did or when it did. Same goes for the abolition of slavery. Why expect only those most affected to be responsible for addressing the problem?

This is just like the issue of prostitution, said Max. As long as women prostitute themselves, the problem will exist.

That’s a great example!, said Rosa. Because it really shows how neither the women in the videos or the prostitutes make their choices in a vacuum. I don’t know the exact numbers, but huge numbers of women and their kids live in poverty. That’s one big reason for female prostitution. Also, 75% of women in prostitution have been abused. Its not a choice made in a blank slate.

That is not a good statistic, answered Max. Show me the statistic that says most abused women go into prostitution and then maybe you have a point. I am a Bronx Puerto Rican. If we go by the odds, I am supposed to be in jail. I made the choice to be here.

But your parents were not crackheads, snapped Zenaida, beginning to lose her patience.

Yeah, your parents were there to put you on the bus to school, added Elsie. It was not just your decision. You could make the decision to go to college because your parents made sure you got a proper education beforehand.

There are no buses to be taken to school in NY, said Max sharply. Maybe in the suburbs where you grew up it was different.

Well, ok, then lets say your parents were there to register you for school, said Elsie. If your parents were crackheads, they probably wouldn’t have registered you.

I intervened, attempting to summarize their points and the two separate ideological camps that had materialized along gender lines: Some of you have been talking about the existence of personal choice and people not being absolute victims of their circumstances. That is an important point. Some of you have been talking about the influence of your environment on your choices. Which is another good point. These two are actually positions that feed into each other and balance each other out.

If it was all about personal choice, then everyone would be in college, said Rosa.

Not everyone wants to go to college, said Victor.

But not everyone who wants to get to college can get there, Zenaida pointed out. Maybe they can’t afford it. Or maybe the public school they went to was so crappy that they can’t compete with the folks that went to better schools. The child of rich parents who are Harvard alumni will have a better chance of getting into Harvard than most other folks.

That is not true, Victor contended. You can’t just buy your way in. Everyone who goes to Ivy League schools is because they earned it.

Even George Bush?, Zenaida asked incredulously.

Once class was over, I went to my office to gather my belongings. Max came in to talk about his upcoming oral presentation. I took the opportunity to ask him why he and the other guys were so reluctant to talk about gender issues in class. Why had they fed me the reggaeton-is-sexist line all semester when they did not believe it for a second?

Max replied: You know why? Its because those views are not welcome at this university. There is this climate here where you get looked down on if you have views that are not considered politically correct. Professors and other students hold it against you. So I have just learned to keep my mouth shut.

I was floored. I had a flashback to my freshman dorm experience at Brown where my only friend was the right-wing guy who, though at the opposite end of the political and religious spectrum from me, was a brilliant independent thinker. Everyone else seemed to me like boring, wishy-washy, liberaloid p.c. sheep.

After speaking for a while longer and encouraging him to keep voicing his actual opinions in class, I bid him goodnight.

So our first class discussion about gender and reggaeton turned into a 2 hour debate addressing if women’s place is in the home, after all. Our second discussion was a 2 hour debate on the role of personal choice in men and women’s lives.

It was the end of the workday and I wished I could have just shut my brain down. But it refused. I could not help but keep strategizing on how to better navigate the philosophical and social issues that must be addressed in any honest discussion of gender and popular culture.

Reggaeton and Gender: We Keep Talking Past Each Other (Part I)

I did not imagine guiding discussions about gender dynamics in university classrooms would be this hard. Oh, it is! And it is also illuminating, worrisome, infuriating and exhilarating.

The seminar’s focus was hip hop and reggaeton. That day’s topic was the pre-history of reggaeton. The assigned readings were a chapter from Keith Negus’ Popular Music in Theory and Mayra Santos’ “Puerto Rican Underground”. The students seemed subdued and some even sleepy, so instead of beginning our conversation with the readings, I decided to start with the musical examples.

I began with Vico C’s “De la calle,” old-fashionedly recorded on a cassette tape. It was a live recording circa 1986. Then I moved on to video clips of Vico circa 1989 doing “La recta final,” and then rapping in “Blanca” with Jossie Esteban y la Patrulla 15 and singing with Toño Rosario in “Otra vez” around 1991. Then I showed a clip of “Bomba para afincar” from 1993.

Vico: Y yo quiero que todas mis gatitas me digan ‘ah ah’
Female chorus: ‘Ah ah’

Ugh!, exclaimed in exasperation Rosa as she dropped her head to the table, burying her face in her arms.

Comments?, I asked, once the song was over. Silence. What was your ‘ugh’ reaction about?, I asked Rosa.

She was the only female student that day in class. Zenaida and Elsie were absent. So it was Rosa, Pete Jones, Michael, Max, Victor, Pete Gonzalez and Professor Rivera (that would be me).

I’m tired!, Rosa exclaimed. Its always the same thing. The sexy gatitas in the video background, the sexual objects. I hate it!

But they were fully clothed, weren’t they?, I asked, playing devil’s advocate.

It doesn’t matter if they’re covered or nearly naked. Women are always objectified, sexualized, said Rosa. I’m sick of it. I like reggaeton, but I just have such mixed feelings about it. It affects our lives as a whole, people think of us like that, reduce us to sexuality.

But its women who choose to put themselves in the object position, countered Victor. No one is forcing them to. They’re getting paid for putting on those little shorts.

The conversation kept following the its-their-choice-so-whats-the-problem vein for quite a while. So I interjected.

True, it is their choice, I noted. But why do you think its women choosing to display their flesh for the most part? Why are men overwhelmingly the artists and women the flesh-displayers?

They considered it, in silence. Rosa intervened.

Men are mostly the ones in decision-making positions in the industry. This is the way they want to see women, so that’s what happens, she explained.

How we got from that subject to the next is a bit blurry to me. But next thing I know a few of the men in class were talking about the child-raising responsibilities of women as a way of explaining why women are not in decision-making positions.

Not everyone is the same, stated Victor emphatically. Men and women are not the same!

Who in this classroom said the contrary?, I wondered silently.

Since the first two people on Earth were around, men have been the ones providing for the woman, whose job is to provide for the child, said Max. Women have in their bodies the capacity to feed the child. They are better equipped for child-raising.

Plus, if a man chooses to be a stay-at-home Dad, his buddies are going to be laughing at him, society is going to look down on him, added Pete Jones.

Men have greater strength, greater muscle mass, Max said. You think you will be a better construction worker than Pete who is stronger and has been doing it for years and years?, he condescendingly asked Rosa. You really think you guys should make the same amount of money?

I was glad the male students’ true opinions were finally surfacing, even if it took them almost the whole semester to open up. But there was an edge of over-eagerness in their voices. What is going on here?, I wondered. And why did they wait so long to speak up? I had suspected they did not buy the reggaeton-objectifies-women and reggaeton-is-sexist party line they had been feeding me in class all semester long. I had tried to open up the space in our classroom discussions so they would feel comfortable stating their ideas. To no avail. Until that day.

These young men, though they give lip service to the existence of sexism, they are actually content with the status quo!, I realized. They don’t really see what the problem is. This is just the way things are. It makes sense.

Yet in the same breath they will admit that it’s a twisted patriarchal world.

I think men keep women down out of fear, Pete Jones said. There is some Greek story about women withholding sex and baby-making from men until they stop some war.

Rosa was countering their arguments como gato bocarriba (like an upside down cat, so to speak). I was trying to play it cool, though, kind of like a referee, but Rosa was by far outnumbered and the guys were pushing it on the haughtiness. They were bordering on disrespectfulness when refuting Rosa’s ideas.

I wondered: How could they describe the world as patriarchal and say it all makes sense in the same breath? How can they ask how do we change things but at the same time make arguments for why things need to stay the way they are? And why all the attitude?

Today’s world is not only about muscle mass, Rosa countered Max. Why would a man and a woman who work at a bank have an income difference?

It does make sense, said Victor. Why would they make the same? When the woman takes time off to have kids and then goes back to work. Lets say she takes off five years. That man is going to have five years of experience on her.

But what if she’s working from 22 until 35 and then she decides to have kids?, I asked. What justifies her making less money than him for 13 years?

He seemed to consider it, but said he still didn’t see what the big problem was.

I wish my mom had not worked so I didn’t have to go to after-school programs, said Max. So what if my Mom makes less? She should have been at home with me!

But what about all the female-headed households?, Rosa asked. Why would those women make any less?

Social policy should not be built on what should be an anomaly, Max shot back. We should not be basing policy on broken homes as the standard. The man is supposed to take care of the woman and the woman take care of the children. It has always been like that.

Wait, Max, I cut in. That’s not a fact. It has not always been like that. The breadwinner dad, the homemaker mom and their kids in a house model is not even a hundred years old. The dominant scheme in human societies has been that mothers work outside the home, whether they are also engaged in child-care or not. When they have worked outside the home, then they have either taken the kids with them or there were others of the family or community who provided that care.

They stared back at me with blank looks in their eyes.

What do you mean?, Michael asked.

Pete Gonzalez finally spoke up: I remember reading about that. Like in indigenous communities everyone was a mother and a father to a child. It wasn’t just up to the couple.

But even more recent and closer than that, I added. Lets take Boston and New York at the beginning of the century. Buildings were occupied by relatives and friends. It was a network of resources and childcare.

Trying the tactic of human understanding and empathy, Rosa told a personal story: My mom dedicated herself to me and my sister her whole life. Now that we are in college she feels so lost. She tells me her only option is to become a cashier because she has no other skills.

The guys didn’t see what the problem was.

But your Dad is still with her, right? And he needs to eat when he comes home at night, right?, asked Max.

Well, first, we have a cook, Rosa said, revealing the specifics of her class background which probably did not win her mom much sympathy with the mostly working-class group. So my mom doesn’t really have to do that. She was so depressed for such a long time.

But isn’t that what happens when people retire? They just have to find something else to do, said Max.

That’s supposed to happen in your sixties, not when you are forty-three!, Rosa retorted.

Well how about when couples do break up?, I asked.

Then the woman gets alimony and child support, Max said.

Alimony! Who the hell gets alimony?, I thought. Certainly not any woman I know. Most of them don’t even get child support from their former spouses. Before I could interject, Victor provided the clincher.

Well, even if women make less money than men, they have something so great that no man can ever do: to give life, said Victor.

But you can’t do that without a man!, Rosa jumped it.

Isn’t it suspicious that motherhood gets put up on a pedestal as the greatest thing in the world as if it’s a privilege women have so they shouldn’t be complaining about making less money than men?, I asked.

Rosa nodded vigorously. The rest of them looked thoroughly unconvinced.

By then, class time was over and I wondered how time had gone by so quickly. As they rowdily filed out of the classroom, I kept asking myself: How on earth did we start a two hour discussion focusing on the gender politics of reggaeton video imagery but quickly moved on to spend most of our time debating if women’s place (after all) really is in the home?