Madrid, Jul 8 (EFE).- Spanish television platform Movistar Plus+ is releasing a new documentary on Monday regarding the latest great genre to emerge in the world, reggaeton, in an attempt to show the reasons for its success beyond prejudices and dismantle false ideas.
Over the course of three episodes directed by Elena Pascual and José María Clemente, icons such as the American Justin Quiles, the Spaniards Omar Montes and La Mala Rodríguez, or the Panamanian Lorna, responsible for the hit ‘Papi Chulo’, appear in this window to offer their perspective.
Promoters, record label managers, journalists and even anthropologists join them in establishing the spatial and temporal framework in which this style emerged.
It is said that it was born from the influence of Jamaican dancehall that Caribbean workers brought to Panama during the construction of the canal. Once “Latinized”, the mixture ended up in Puerto Rico, where the term reggaeton was coined as a result of the reggae marathons that used to be held there.
Often confused with other currents of Latin urban music, one of the first bases that the documentary tries to establish is what is reggaeton and what is not, based on the fundamental rhythmic pattern of “dembow.”
One of the most curious conclusions of the documentary is that there are songs like ‘Girasoles’ by the Spanish Rozalén that, with the bandurria and everything, clearly point towards reggaeton, while global hits like ‘Bzrp Music Sessions, vol. 53’ by the Argentine Bizarrap and the Colombian Shakira are not.
This is not the only idea that this production tries to dismantle, which focuses its entire second chapter (titled ‘Motomamis’) on showing how it went from being a genre in which women barely had a presence to being the terrain in which, according to journalist Victor Lenore, “a female artist can go as far as a male one.”
“In the early days of reggaeton, there were unacceptable lyrics that reproduced or amplified the sexist discourse that is a reflection of Latin culture, which in colonial times established male domination, which some authors even relate to slavery and the rape of women by the colonists,” says anthropologist Carles Freixa.
In contrast to this model, which was highly criticised at the time, there is a generation of strong women such as Rosalía, Karol G, Becky G and the duo K-Narias, the latter being precursors of reggaeton in Spain, who not only use this music as a means of empowerment, but who also place their own pleasure at the centre of the conversation.
Although, as singer Zahara points out, “even John Lennon said in a song that he would kill you if he saw you talking to someone else,” the alleged machismo of reggaeton is one of the stigmas that still plagues the style, which had to overcome numerous prejudices in Spain, perhaps due to its humble origins.
“We are very uncomfortable enjoying the same music as the Ecuadorian messenger who brings us our packages or the lady who cleans our house once a week. And there is also a certain colonial feeling, because we, who are the colonizers, are going to take things away, not to learn from them,” says Lenore in this regard.
Juan Magán, ambassador of electrolatino, joins the conversation by recalling how at first he was criticized for making “panchitos music.” “Thank God the prejudices are not what they used to be,” concludes the Spanish artist.
Even a Spanish National Music Prize winner like Rodrigo Cuevas admits his taste for occasionally enjoying music that has become the latest great genre coined in the world, probably the one that best defines the specificity of this era.
“It’s a complete paradigm shift. We can’t talk regarding fashion or trends, it’s a historical reality,” says Melani Parejo, Spotify’s director of Music for Southern and Eastern Europe following three consecutive years, from 2020 to 2022, in which Bad Bunny became the most listened to artist on the planet… singing in Spanish.
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2024-07-12 04:36:51