Reggaeton: Beyond a rant, why is it really bad?
This is a latin genre you must likely have heard and care little about. All my life I’ve hated it while my friends just excuse it with the “it’s about taste” line. I have to declare: It goes way beyond that… let me develop.
Also known as reguetón, is a music genre that started around the 90’s in Puerto Rico and has been growing to be a definition of what Latin music is. It’s supposed to mean “great reggae” and the term was coined by a popular singer of this genre called Daddy Yankee.
So it started little and underground but had a long way to be what you can easily recognise nowadays as the “Despacito” trend.
Generally the lyrics are about straight sex, plain and simple; couples’ quarrels, infidelities, party hookups, etc. The problem isn’t the carnal desire we all experience, the real conundrum it’s that its narrative always has a misogynist output.
It’s in Spanish so why would you care, English-speaker? Because the trend is expanding and influencing international markets.
Most of the lyrics are done with heavy use of each country slang words that even us, Spanish-speakers, have difficulties to understand –may I remind you that we are 21 countries that speak Spanish, not only Spain and Mexico.
There’s plenty of vocabulary also that we hardly know but let’s do a quick review with words that may be pertaining at the moment:
- Perrear/Perreo: (v./n.) It’s a Spanish verb that literally means “to do dog/bitch”. It’s used to define the specific “dance move” that you use when dancing reggaeton. Man is behind the woman, his crotch must be in between your buttcheeks so you can feel his cock and the movement is a swing between up and down and forward and backwards. Resembles to twerking
- Dembow: n. People can’t agree with the definition. It comes from a new music genre in Jamaica. Some people use it to refer at sensual dancing (like softer perreo) and others to the style of the reggaeton song.
- Sandungueo: n. Perreo.
- Yakear: v. Getting intimate after the perreo dance.
The melody is sticky, the rhythm is the same all the time and it’s easy to follow. People at parties or other gatherings just repeat the words even if they don’t comprehend them. Here’s an “old song” example:
Si se me pega voy a darle rakata, rakata.
Esta noche quiero hacerle rakata, rakata.
Let us attempt to translate this famous chorus line of the song “Rakata” by Puerto Rican duo Wisin & Yandel.
“Rakata” in this case is not referring to Star Wars race in the planet Lehon or a volcano in Indonesia. Is an onomatopoeia of hitting hard something (or someone). Not plenty of us actually use it in regular language but message comes through. Since it’s used in the song with the verbs give it to her and do it to her, it’s relating to sex and doing/thrusting it hard. The translation ends up being:
“If she gets close to me I’m gonna f*ck her hard.
This night I wanna f*ck her hard”
It’s worth to mention also that in no point of the lyrics it is expressed or implied that is consented sexual behaviour. We could probably make ourselves believe that it was consented (as it should be and portrayed) and it’s just a little dirty talk there. Maybe also, just using 2 lines repeating over and over it’s not enough to prove a point.
Let’s look at another example. This time the song is called “Maldades” (“Evildoings”) by Spanish group La Mafia del Amor (The Love Mafia)
Que a mí ya me da igual si eres menor o mujer.
Quiero poderte besar. Te quiero j*der
La estoy mirando, tiene la cara linda.
Está goliendo así que no puede ser muy niña.(…)
Me dice que estoy heavy, mami, lo que estoy es ready así que tráete el peri.
Está muy rica, ya no me aguanto más.
Esta noche la voy a joder sin preguntar la edad
Oh lord, I’m revolted. Let’s review a couple of words separately before heading to the translation.
- Mami/Papi: Literally means Mommy or Daddy. It’s used in many occasions to refer to any woman or man. It’s supposed to be endearing but some people feeling it quite the opposite. It’s like calling someone “my love”. From your SO (significant other) it’s ok, from a stranger it’s not.
- Ser menor: Being a minor, underage.
- Golel (Goliendo): Hard slang of some parts in Spain. From the old verb goler in Spanish (oler: smelling). Means to snoop, to peep, to pry or even to be curious.
- Estar heavy: Borrowed word from English, has a different definition. Means to be annoying or to be bothering. Comes from the Spanish phrase ser/estar pesado which translates literally the word and substitutes pesado for heavy.
- Peri: This a slang of a slang. Short for perico. Literally means parrot but in this context it’s used to refer to cocaine.
- Joderte: The sole word joder means f*ck but in this case, with the -te suffix the translations it’s more like f*ck you up.
So, the translation of this would be:
“To me it’s already the same if you’re underage or a woman.
I want to be able to kiss you. I want to f*ck you up.
I’m looking at her, she has a pretty face,
she’s prying then so young she can’t be”(…)
“She tells me I’m annoying; mami, what I am is ready so bring the cocaine,
She’s really hot, I can’t contain myself,
Tonight I’m gonna f*ck her up without asking her age”.
I think there’s no need for me to explain that having sex with minors it’s wrong and illegal (and disgusting in my opinion) and doing a song about wanting to do so it’s very questionable to say the least.
Then? We should just stop listening to these “artists” with these bad lyrics and messages and problem solved, right? You should know very well how hard is to control exposure in this age and as I say, it’s so embedded in the culture that most of people see no harm. In fact, there’s a lot of videos of children being applauded by their parents and family when dancing perreo and singing along these songs.
I don’t have children, but if I wouldn’t even want the adults to listen lyrics about gender violence, I surely don’t want kids to be exposed to this either. This is the music you hear at markets, stores and clubs. Day or night, regardless. It’s trendy, it’s what everyone listens.
Latin America has, as well as many countries in the world, a big patriarchal and misogynist culture but we managed to get a popular music genre about it to proliferate internationally thanks to USA market.
I’m an adult and so probably you. We can easily point out what it’s right and wrong and we know those are just a couple of songs that shouldn’t be by any means taking as an example of normal sexual or even social behaviour. Although, how much of that is really true for all the listeners?
We are humans who influence each other. Our own way of thinking is shaped by what we listen, by the content we consume and the people we talk to. At the end, is it really harmless all these messages in our music?