I still remember the first time I heard reggaetón music - even though it was around for a while, I heard it first when I was still in highschool - and I can remember the music blasting and pumping through the speakers. It was so energetic and loud and yet there was a rhythm to dance to. It was the song Gasolina from Daddy Yankee.
Reggaetón originated in Latin America (origins in Panama to be exact and it evolved in Puerto Rico) in the 1990's and is influenced by Caribbean styles like reggae and dancehall with a mixture of Latin music (bomba and plena) and hip hop. Reggae influenced the Panamanian musical scene; when Jamaican laborers came to help work on the Panama Canal; where local musicians were first translating Reggae songs into Spanish and this action evolved underground in Puerto Rico into the reggaetón beat, by also mixing in dancehall, hip hop and other Latin styles. This mixture of styles brought the unique Dem Bow beat to life, which is characterized by a driving drum-machine track and the sound of electronically synthesizers. Furthermore, are reggaetón lyrics similar to hip hop lyrics by reciting the songs in a rap-fashion and are the lyrics mostly open for interpretation, as the musicians insinuate sexual innuendo with the help of words with double meanings.
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Just like with the song Gasolina by Daddy Yankee, which according to the artist himself refers to women who like to go out and party (hard) with the sentence "she likes gasolina" (A ella le gusta la gasolina) and not so much about the sexual connotation of engines and cars being compared to men and women having and enjoying intercourse.
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The next song I want to feature is Contra La Pared by Sean Paul and J. Balvin. I won't go into detail about the meaning of this song, but I remember dancing to this song every time when in a club in Curaçao in 2019. Our hostess, who's an avid Latin music dancer (salsa, merengue, bachata, etc.), brought us to various dancing scenes where they mostly danced to the Latin styles. And while I appreciated the dance scene, I'm not much of a "ballroom" dancer because I'm not used to following someone else's beat and rhythm 😅, so I appreciated it when reggaetón and this song blasted through the speakers. I even had an unofficial "dance battle" with one of the Latin dance instructors.
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