Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - And where does reggaeton fit in to all this?

Oneleven · 11th August 2005

Also, as regards the BamBam riddim, it has partly to do with the era of dancehall that cats in Panama and Puerto Rico first started catching the reggae bug... And as reggaeton differentiated itself from jamaican dancehall, that specific riddim was identified with reggae in general in the minds of young latino heads... Not that kids in PR don't do roots reggae also - it just always remained marginal compared to the dancehall sound...
The other reason being that the BamBam feel resonates strongly with Puerto Rican cultural memories... It's essentially an electronic variant of the foundational rhythm of the Afro Puerto Rican Plena, the term even having become associated with the BamBam feel by young reggaeton heads... It's also similar to the feel of a number of traditional bomba ( geographically differentiated but closely related profoundly african percussive, song, and dance forms that are widely respected as forming the historic backbone of Boricua music and culture generally) genres from different parts of the island...
Interestingly, and not at all coincidently, the two reggaeton artists that are arguably the most popular, both in PR and worldwide, right now - Daddy Yankee and Tego Calderon - both have roots in Loiza, a very heavily black municipality that is the symbol of the most purely african traditions in Puerto Rico, and their families have been very important in bomba for decades... Daddy Yankee's father having been an Ayala is rather like Nas being the child of Olu Dara...

They also both grew up in Santurce, a ghetto proletarian suburb of San Juan that has historically been very important musically - it was the barrio of Cortijo y su Combo, the first all black band to play live on Puerto Rican television back in the '50's, who were primarily responsible for taking bomba y plena and putting them in the international stage of early salsa...
Now, Daddy Yankee and Tego have obviously done very different things with that heritage, but...
I just wanted to let ya'll know what te deal was with that there BamBam riddim...

11th August 2005	#14
Oneleven Gear Head Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Humboldt Park - also Known as Lil San Juan... Chicago, USG Posts: 30 Thread Starter	Also, as regards the BamBam riddim, it has partly to do with the era of dancehall that cats in Panama and Puerto Rico first started catching the reggae bug... And as reggaeton differentiated itself from jamaican dancehall, that specific riddim was identified with reggae in general in the minds of young latino heads... Not that kids in PR don't do roots reggae also - it just always remained marginal compared to the dancehall sound... The other reason being that the BamBam feel resonates strongly with Puerto Rican cultural memories... It's essentially an electronic variant of the foundational rhythm of the Afro Puerto Rican Plena, the term even having become associated with the BamBam feel by young reggaeton heads... It's also similar to the feel of a number of traditional bomba ( geographically differentiated but closely related profoundly african percussive, song, and dance forms that are widely respected as forming the historic backbone of Boricua music and culture generally) genres from different parts of the island... Interestingly, and not at all coincidently, the two reggaeton artists that are arguably the most popular, both in PR and worldwide, right now - Daddy Yankee and Tego Calderon - both have roots in Loiza, a very heavily black municipality that is the symbol of the most purely african traditions in Puerto Rico, and their families have been very important in bomba for decades... Daddy Yankee's father having been an Ayala is rather like Nas being the child of Olu Dara... They also both grew up in Santurce, a ghetto proletarian suburb of San Juan that has historically been very important musically - it was the barrio of Cortijo y su Combo, the first all black band to play live on Puerto Rican television back in the '50's, who were primarily responsible for taking bomba y plena and putting them in the international stage of early salsa... Now, Daddy Yankee and Tego have obviously done very different things with that heritage, but... I just wanted to let ya'll know what te deal was with that there BamBam riddim...