“From Música Negra to Reggaeton Latino”: Musical Examples
This page will host audio & video clips to accompany my article in Reggaeton (Duke University Press, 2009), “From Música Negra to Reggaeton Latino: The Cultural Politics of Nation, Migration, and Commercialization,” p. 19-76.
Please consult the chapter in question for contextual information on the meanings of the schematic representations below. (As noted in the book’s acknowledgments, I am indebted to Rebecca Nesson and Jesse Kriss for their help with these images.)
Figure 1: A skeletal sketch of reggaeton’s boom-ch-boom-chick
Figure 2: Dancehall reggae’s minimal “bomp bomp”
Figure 3: A (very) skeletal sketch of roots reggae’s “one-drop”
Figure 4: Vico C’s version of a standard hip-hop beat*
Figure 6: The basic elements of Puerto Rico’s localized Dem Bow
* The Vico C loop comes from the following clip from the documentary Chosen Few. I claim fair use for these 14 seconds –
For more of my writings on reggaeton, see here and here, and for the items I’ve tagged as reggaeton-related around the internet, see here. For a 40 minute mix of dembow-related tracks, go here; and here for an 11 minute mix of “Dem Bow” cover versions.