As reggae became more popular and gained recognition as Jamaica's national genre, foreign nations started to utilize it to create a sense of identity within their own respective cultures. Though Jamaican culture has been famously appropriated, specific nations took it a step further and conjured up a way to make it a presence in their music while maintaining the voice of their own cultural genres. This is reggae fusion.
Born from Puerto Rico during the late 1990s Reggaeton is a fusion genre of reggae, Latin American and Caribbean styles, and hip-hop and is named in reference to its beat and long-playing mixes, a "maraton" (marathon) (Flores 4). Despite using "riddims" reflective of traditional reggae music, reggaeton takes on more dancehall qualities with its use of synthesizers, samplers, and personal computers to produce "dembow riddims." Introduced to the dancehall and reggaeton scene in 1991 by Jamaican DJ and vocalist Shabba Ranks, dembow appears in "upwards of 80% of all reaggaeton productions" (Marshall 131).
Through analyzing the lyrics found in reggaeton, one can begin to understand the true reach of reggae and the culture from which it had emerged. Though sometimes referred to as "reaggae en espanol," the term "reggaeton" is largely preferred as presenting reggae in a new cultural context is not achieved through a simple translation of lyrics from Jamaican patois to Spanish, but through transculturation. This process has occurred to bring the native culture, Jamaican, together with foreign cultures, Latin American, Caribbean, and American, and created a platform for which they can become a single unit (Lecture 5).
Reggae music likely appealed to Latin consumers because it was exposing of the lives of its people and their culture lent itself to a rebel attitude. Similar to that of reggae, reggaeton is revealing of themes that showcase the underground life of Latin culture, its lyrics taking on an explicit tone, speaking to poverty, violence, sex, love, and drugs. Though Puerto Rico was exposed to roots reggae as early as the 1970s, it was the upper and middle class that made up the audience. Labelled "blanquitos," this crowd "tended to be white and [their] musical preference [was] for rock," attracted to the music not because of its rich culture but because of the aesthetic of Rastafari that is embedded in the roots reggae sound (Flores 7). In the early 90s, when reggae returned to Puerto Rico, it arrived in the form of dancehall, its fans the lower-class population. Enticed by its infectious beat and energy, the youth understood it as more than just a clothing choice or image, and adopted it into their culture, combining it with the rap and underground music that they were already listening to in ambition of establishing their own identity within their environment.
However helpful in defining Latin culture, the genre has received much backlash due to the way it ignores its origins in reggae and hip hop in favor of producing something marketable. Originally referred to as "musica negra" or "melaza" (molasses), reggaeton began to make its claim as a Latin genre, "whitening" itself to suit a wider, more commercial audience (Marshall 132). Race, and the women who embody it, "become reference points" devised to encourage people from all ethnicities and cultures to partake in reggaeton, which as ideal as it sounds, elicits the threat of appropriation (Pereira 81). In fact, the image it presents often ends up overshadowing any message indicative of its makeup of struggling minority cultures. Rather it presents wealth, over-sexed women, and a male-dominant society.
Revered as the "King of Reggaton," Daddy Yankee introduced the genre to a global audience, reaching more cultures than those who contribute to its musical style with his hit "Gasolina" in 2005. The song is evocative of a sub-culture that strives for excess and emphasizes a party lifestyle, its chorus ringing out that "she like gasoline," in other words, she likes to go fast or she likes to party along with other provocative innuendos. Not only revealing of this behavior in its lyrics, the song also suggests it in the moves of its dancers, a style "known as 'perreo' (doggy style)" (Flores 1).
Still, catchy and consumable, it seems this music never fails to create some kind of viral media upheaval. "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi and featuring Daddy Yankee, released in 2017, became the most viewed YouTube video in history, raking in 5.12 billion views. Featured on the 60th Grammys, the song is representative of a genre that has managed to establish itself with such prominence that it gets a prime spot on the biggest night in music broadcasted by a nation that does not speak the same first-language.
