El Reggae y el Hip Hop en Español: Tracing Reggaeton

El Reggae y el Hip Hop en Español

On tracing the history of Reggaeton, we need to follow the path of reggae and hip-hop, chronologically, from their creation to their present state[1].  In particular a look at how these genres affected urban music and were interpreted in Latin America.  Looking at the progress of both these genres in this manner will inevitably lead us to this new genre taking Latin America, and the world, by storm.

 

Mento, the proverbial father of what we know today as Reggae is described by Stephen Davis as, “… Jamaica’s Cuban-inflected calypso music that dates from the late 19^th century… a celebratory, rural folk form that served its largely rural audience as a dance music and an alternative to the hymns and adapted chanteys of local church singing.” (2011).  In essence mento, as the first recorded Jamaican music, was a mixture of different forms of folk music such as that from the Pocomania[2] church, fife[3] and drum music of Jonkanoo[4] masquerades and the tradition of work songs from Jamaica’s plantation system (Barrow & Dalton, 2001:3).  Although it is the first Jamaican music to be recorded, mento is primarily a genre that is performed live by Jamaican bands (Barrow & Dalton, 2001).

 

“Absorbing the instrumentation of the swing bands and the pulse of rhythm and blues, infused with bass-driven mento, Jamaican musicians developed a native rhythm called Ska” (Davis, 2011).  Ska made use of a four-four-shuffle rhythm from American r&b, with an afterbeat played on piano (Davis, 2011).  There was a large migration from the rural areas of Jamaica to its capital, Kingston, following World War II and this population were in search of a more assertive music that was similar to their new lives (Barrow & Dalton, 2001:11).  They found this in “the hard-edged, boogie-based American r&b that was reaching the island by various routes” (Barrow & Dalton, 2001:11). This was made possible by the introduction of sound systems that were at the time beginning to replace dance bands who had been playing swing and mento (Barrow & Dalton 2001:11).  The ska ensembles used horns and reeds to emphasise the guitar’s chordal beat with the trombone dominating solos (Davis, 2011).  The horns or staccato guitar chords emphasized the after beat, the second and fourth beats of every measure (Katz, 2003:31).

“If ska the newly independent Jamaica with the force of Hurricane Hattie, then rock steady arrived in the shape of a cool breeze nestled in the calm after the storm” (Katz, 2003:65).  During the political turbulence of the 1960s, ska singers became protest singers (Davis, 2011).  This eventually led to the ska tempo being slowed down to about half its tempo and the horns were replaced by monochromatic guitar figures, while the drum and bass-line became locked together spawning a new sound called rocksteady (Davis, 2011).  “…created by smaller, studio based groups that used horns as complementary instruments rather than as musical focal points” (Katz, 2003:65).  Rocksteady used the dominant beat, unlike the after beat in ska, with a rhythm that came to be known as the ‘one drop’, with a pronounced whack on the bass drum or floor toms on the third beat of every bar (Katz, 2003:65).  It must be noted that rocksteady is not just a slowed down form of ska, “The major switch from ska’s profusion of percussive instruments, catchy guitar riff and abundance of horns to rocksteady’s bold bass lines conveyed in a very laid back fashion.  Hence…the name – you danced by ‘rocking steady’ in one place” (Chang & Chen, 1998:38-39).

“[A] shift in subject matter was one of the many changes that came to the fore of Jamaican music once rock steady began to wane” (Katz, 2003:95).  This was the introduction of a new form of urban music based in the ghettos of Kingston, reggae.  One of the first songs to bring the new sound to prominence was Do The Reggay by the Maytals where they slowed down the rock steady pulse (Davis, 2011).  The electric bass now played a more pivotal role (Barrow & Dalton, 2001:93).  Unlike the ‘steady rocking’ dance style of rock steady, reggae had a faster dance style built around a rhythmic, two-chord organ or guitar shuffle that almost resembled the word reggae in sound (Katz, 2003:98).  The common consensus through most texts is that the year reggae came about is 1968.  By 1975 there was a shift to rebel music, which was thus termed due to the increase in younger producers and the displeasure often expressed in the lyrics of the music, the majority of who were Rasta[5] (Barrow & Dalton, 2001:135).  This move coincided with an increase of Rasta chants being recorded (Barrow & Dalton, 2001:135).

Jamaican audiences were still receiving their dance music from sound systems, which is part of the reason reggae was more a studio recorded genre rather than a performed one (Davis, 2011).  Deejays began speaking over instrumentals of the records they were playing, which in turn led to many producers providing records where studio engineers had the vocals dubbed-out on the B-side (Davis, 2011).  “These ‘versions’ provided sound systems with tracks for their own deejays to talk, or ‘toast’ over” (Barrow & Dalton, 2001:227).  This new sound that came from such techniques came to be known as dub or version.

As dub became less inventive, Jamaican music underwent yet another change with a new group of singers and deejays being known for their ability to improvise lyrics live over dance music, this came to be known as dancehall (Barrow & Dalton, 2001:250).  These lyrics were often misogynistic, full of boasting and invective, this slackness style merged with the new digitized rhythms that were also called dancehall (Davis, 2011).  According to Stephen Davis, “Dancehall originated around 1982 when a Jamaican producer accidently sped up the pre-set reggae rhythm on a digital synthesizer and became intrigued by the possibilities of mechanizing the essential beat” (2011).  However, Barrow & Dalton trace the origin of dancehall from around 1975, the time in which a tape was made with U-Roy talking over a recent Horace Andy hit (2001:261).  There are indeed earlier examples of the style in the form of tracks recorded by Lone Ranger in the mid to late 1970s (Katz, 2003:325).

The history of reggae as outlined above, though it omits a present style known as ragga, is sufficient for the description of the main genre we are describing, namely reggaeton.  For indeed reggaeton takes its influences from Jamaican reggae in the form of its initial predecessor el reggae en Español, from Jamaican dancehall and finally from hip hop music and culture.  “Although some dispute the national character of the genre, reggaeton is most frequently represented as a Puerto Rican and, increasingly, pan-Latino fusion of hip-hop and dancehall reggae” (Marshall, 2011). This then allows us to move onto the other contributor to reggaeton, mainly hip-hop music and culture.

Hip hop is an urban youth arts movement that originated during the early 1970s in the Bronx, New York (Keyes, 2004:1).  The movement is made up of four stylistic features, which include deejaying/scratching, MCing/rapping, breakdancing and graffiti writing; these are commonly referred to as the ‘four elements’ of hip hop (Keyes, 2004:1). 

   

It is rather pertinent to note that hip hop was almost entirely created by deejays and the first hip hop deejay was the Jamaican-born Kool Herc (Toop, 2011).  Equally important is to note that, “[Sound systems] were set up in parks, schools and abandoned buildings in the Bronx, and, following Jamaican traditions, Kool Herc added MCs[6] to his [deejay] sets…” (Toop, 2011).  The importance of this should not be lost in the context of this paper.  It becomes clear that even hip hop, as with reggaeton, is a genre that was founded in Jamaican traditions of urban, popular music.  Musicologists rarely mentioned this fact, except when mentioning the fact that it was a Jamaican deejay who pioneered the musical genre.  The difference here however, is that the deejays used short percussion or ‘break[s]’ of funk records by artists such as James Brown (Toop, 2011).  With the addition of the MC came a form of cadenced spoken rhymes known today as rapping (Toop, 2011).

Rap music is a style in which rhythmic and sometimes rhyming speech is chanted (Britannica, 2011), accompanied by rhythmic, electronically based music (Rose, 1994:2).  “Rap went relatively unnoticed by mainstream music and popular culture industries until independent music entrepreneur Sylvia Robinson released “Rappers Delight” in 1979” (Rose, 1994:3).  Although it was not the first rap song to be recorded, that title goes to “King Tim III” by the Fatback Band, it was however the first to gain attention beyond what was at the time a rather small hip hop community (Watkins, 2005:15).  It was performed and recorded by the Sugar Hill Gang, named for the name of the record label under which they were signed and recording (Watkins, 2005).

 “Latin hip hop developed alongside African-American hip hop in New York during the late 1970s and early 1980s” (Kattari, 2011).  Latinos became involved in the hip hop movement initially through Puerto Rican rappers, deejays, breakdancers and graffiti artists (Morales, 2003:336).  Most, if not all, Latin hip hop sounds like African-American hip hop, the only difference being the use of Spanglish (a mixture of Spanish and English) and the fact that the artist is Latino (Kattari, 2011).  There is also a strong reliance on Latin American and Caribbean musical styles (Kattari, 2011).  Rap music spread to Latin America and took on a Spanish-language flavour, starting in California when the Los Angeles based Cypress Hill made its debut in 1991 (Morales, 2003:300).  They were the first Latin outfit to flaunt their Latino heritage and gain hip hop success with songs like Latin Lingo (Morales, 2003:300).

From 1991 onward Latin hip hop evolved into a genre called Dancehall ReggaeEspañol that mostly came from Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, using mega-beats of Panamanian rappers like El General (Morales, 2003:339).  This was largely due to the mixture of cultures in Panama due to the building of the canal, this led to an integration of musical styles such as reggae, dancehall, merengue as well as son and salsa, the can be attributed to a large migration of Jamaicans working on the canal (Morales, 2003:339).

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[1] This paper will use as its basis the chronology of reggae as outlined by Stephen Davis under the subject “Reggae” on Grove Music Online.

[2] “… [Combination] of African and Christian religious elements, and involve[s] handclapping, foot-stamping and the use of the bass drum, side drum cymbals and rattle.” (Barrow & Dalton, 2001:5).

[3] Small shrill flute used especially with the drum in military bands (New Oxford American Dictionary, 2011).

[4] A masquerade festival/parade from The Bahamas, believed to be of West African origin…traditionally performed through the streets during the Christmas period (Wikipedia, 2011).

[5] Members of a cultural and religious movement that blossomed in Jamaica which sees emperor Haile Selassie I, Lord of Lords, King of Kings and the Conquering Lion of Judah, as the reincarnation of Jesus the Christ.

[6] Master of ceremonies.

  

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