Salsa is dead, reggaeton is dead: Long live the rolling Afro-Latin music thread 2009

I wonder how this was:
from Wayne Marshall's wayne and wax site
Friday, April 17, 2009:
2:00 - 3:45
>> iReggaetón! Perreo and Beyond
Venue: JBL Theater

Reggaetón and especially perreo, the genre’s doggystyle dance, has been accused of facilitating corruption. This discussion, keyed to a new book, links sympathetic and critical observers from the humanities and social sciences, visual artists and genre performers, and a perspective from Jamaica.

Moderated by: Alexandra Vazquez
Featuring: Wayne Marshall, Raquel Rivera, Alexandra Vazquez

I’m sorry to report that our “perspective from Jamaica” will be absent from the conversation. We were excited to have Sonjah Stanley Niaah join us, but at the last minute she was unable to make the trip. That’s unfortunate, especially since I’m eager to talk about perreo (aka, winding, grinding, freaking, etc.) in cross-cultural perspective, not to mention reaffirming the links between reggaeton and reggae. We’ll still do all that, no doubt, especially anticipating all the knowledgeable colleagues who might be in the audience. But it would have been great to have Sonjah inna the house.

For my part, I’ll be discussing the circulation of “perreo” outside of Puerto Rico — both traveling with and, interestingly, also without reggaeton. See, e.g., Colombia, where you get perreo con champeta

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, April 21, 2009 10:07 PM Bookmark

What I learned at EMP:

* "Te Quiero" Flex

Is this thing ever going to go away?

I'm very disappointed by a lot of the winners

Same here, except I think I'd add I'm disappointed by the nominees as well. On the other hand, not much from this period of time has really excited me, especially from the mainstream. (And that's not to say there's been a whole lot of other stuff that's excited me either.)

I think there is a post conference blog about the perreo thing on Reggaetonica.

Ahora Es should have beaten El Perdedor IMO.
Im sick of that Nigga. I mean, I am sick of Flex.

For some reason I feel I am supposed to hate Pitbull, but I can't. Was THIS the awards show that he won on? I should read my own blogs.

I am pleased to see La Republica representing, and yes, I am happy to see a little more negritude than we have seen in recent years. The whole tropical duo or group section was more colorful than usual.Like 100%. Almost enough to make me forget that Flex is named Nigga because he isn't but sings like one.
Is that the other side of "if u cant beat them join them"? If you cant beat them,invite them in and let them on YOUR team?

I am allowed to say that sort of stuff in light (no nonpun intended?) of the thread title.

:) The internets suck.When you write this sort of stuff it looks sort of angry and scary, not like the writing of a woman who played kd lang and sinead for 24 hours straight last weekend.

Corriente Latina podcasts rock. Go check em out.

ignore my new site for now. im still gathering info for articles, i have literally YEARS of collected stuff i want to post. but in the meantime i have been straying from my intended focus, because i have to get myself into the habit of blogging daily. so i'm posting things that actually belong on other blogs

but it will be pretty much about ME, with a heavy emphasis on culture in the form of music, foodways, I mean cooking, folk medicine and so forth. oh, and me hating on The Man.

Anyway, more seriously about the EMP panel, I missed Raquel's presentation and part of Wayne's because I had to run a meeting out in the burbs. Wayne focused on perreo's reach in South America, and included a lot of youtube clips, including the one above. Alex's was about sexual representations the power women have in sexualized dancing and perreo specifically. I talked with Raquel after the panel and she said she would post hers on her blog. I talked to Wayne a bit over the weekend to, but mostly catching up on what each other have been up to since we last crossed paths.

I left the word "and" out somewhere in there.

i think i'd forgotten flex is/was nigga. i'm under the impression that aside from the awards te quiero is finally deaded, even in dc at places that usually beat popular songs into the ground i hadn't been hearing it for a few weeks now.

Lotsa live music coming to the DC area in May

May 8th-Elvis Martinez (Dominican bachata I think) at El Boqueron 2, 1330 E Gude Dr., Rockville, MD

May 14-Voltio (veteran Puerto Rican Spanish-language rapper) at Terra Mare, 6108 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA

May 15-Zion y Lennox at Fur, 33 Patterson St. NE DC

Fri. May 22-Bio Ritmo (salsa and funk) at the Rock n Roll Hotel, H. St NE

Sat. May 23-Tito El Bambino (reggaeton) at the Star Lounge, 7203 Little River Tpke, Annandale, VA

Thurs. May 28-Arcangel at Ibiza, NE DC

Fri. May 29-Fri. May 29-Gilberto Santa Rosa and Victor Manuelle (salsa singers) at Patriot Center in Fairfax, VA

DJ Rupture's radio show Wednesday May 6

On Wednesday, May 6th, 7-8PM EST, Raquel Z. Rivera and Wayne & Wax, co-editors of the new ‘Reggaeton’ book, will be joining me live in studio for Mudd Up! radio (WFMU 91.1 FM NYC, streaming worldwide, no te lo pierdas!) !

From Panamanians to Playeros to post-DemBoleros, they’ll be spinning rarities alongside discussion of the genre’s complex roots and current possibilities.

also for nyc, they're going to be talking the book at the center for pr studies at hunter college on thursday.

I missed the radio show. Wonder if its archived? I'll have to go check.

http://www.wfmu.org/listen.m3u?show=31359&archive=52082

This Jowell y Randy is not so bad, I guess:

(With enthusiasm like that. . . But anyway I think some of you will like it.)

NEWSFLASH...
Descarga.com has received confirmation that the venerable salsa label, FANIA, has just been SOLD. Emusica, who had purchased Fania in 2005, has sold it's assets to Signal-Equity, the very same group that recently purchased West Side/Seeco. I just got off the phone with a representative of Signal (yes folks, that's my Friday night) and, although few details were offered, I can say that they seem very respectful of the catalog and appear to be committed to doing the right thing with this historically significant material. Look for more formal announcements and release plans later this summer/early fall. And while the 400+ existing Emusica/Fania titles are still currently available, experience tells me that there might be scarcity of product until a re-reissue plan takes effect. Distribution channels are still, as of yet, unknown. We will do our best to keep you posted as more details about the Fania turnover unfold. In the meantime, you might consider stocking up on titles you are missing...
FANIA

http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db

I still need to listen to my recent Emusica/Fania purchases from the Borders 50% off certain cds sale

Wisin y Yandel with Yaviah and Franco El Gorila "me La Llevo"

http://www.imeem.com/people/B3ZD9Qf/video/iVN8uxzU/wisin-yandel-ft-yaviah-franco-el-gorila-me-la-llevo-music-vi/

Smoother r'n'b influenced vocals and autotune on some of those

Salsa singer Choco Orta's latest, that RS mentioned earlier this year in this thread, just got a fave review by Ben Ratliff in the Sunday NY Times

The above clips sound rather disco/80's soul-ish to me. De La Ghetto's cd has a strong 80's soul sound.

Check THIS one

I hear '08/'09 r'n'b in Arcangel and that one too (which is all derived in a way from that '80s kid group soul)

They have been raiding their parents' music collections!

And just listening to 2008/2009 r'n'b hits

http://www.reuters.com/article/musicNews/idUSTRE54F03X20090516

Cuban musicians may get visas again and tour US but...

"The unfortunate side of Buena Vista Social Club and all of its spin-offs was that they saturated the market so heavily it got to a point that nobody wanted Cuban at all," IMG Artists managing director Elizabeth Sobol-Gomez says.

Meanwhile, younger artists who perform the fast-paced dance rhythms of timba and other contemporary Cuban styles have had difficulty translating their popularity among Cuban emigres and committed Cubaphiles into broader commercial success. Even Los Van Van, Cuba's most popular band of the last four decades, has failed to gain more than a cult following in the States. Its latest album, "Arrasando" (Sony International), has sold only 1,000 U.S. copies since its release in January, according to SoundScan.

"Contemporary Cuban music is very virtuosic and interesting, but not well known by the non-Cuban public," says Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, the Cuban producer who brought the Buena Vista Social Club artists together in the studio for the sessions with Cooder. "In general, for a lot of people the music is unintelligible and too explosive."

Its latest album, "Arrasando" (Sony International), has sold only 1,000 U.S. copies since its release in January, according to SoundScan.

LMAO. Funny, I think I saw this article already, but must have scanned it too quickly to catch the factoid. I'm all for normalizing relations with Cuba, but most contemporary Cuban music still sucks to my ears (the two Cuban albums I liked from last year notwithstanding).

"In general, for a lot of people the music is unintelligible and too explosive."

Yes, it's just too good for us, too hard-core. We've been hearing that sort of thing for a decade now. I hope the flood-gates are oepend up and timba etc. gets a chance to find an American audience, so that maybe the timba fanatics will finally stop blaming the embargo for the lack of US interest in the stuff. (Admitedly, they have also attributed it to some other sources.)

And the band, a traditional salsa setup with a five-man horn section and three percussionists — but no drum set — makes hard, elegant Latin swing.

Not sure why Ratliff thinks the lack of a drum set is worth mentioning, except maybe to define what a traditional salsa setup is?

New Don Omar album out and I didn't know it. I am obviously not paying very close attention these days. I was hoping this was going to be a reggaeton/Arab thing, after that track with Hakim, but I guess not.

Kind of along the lines of W&Y's house-y stuff, although I think I might like this better:

And Rob Base is new again? Really?

At least this has an eastern wind blowing through it:

I hadn't thought about autotune being applied to children's voices. Scary. Scarier, I think I might like the Miguelito track.

Ever since I was underwhelmed seeing Omar live, I've been less interested in his recorded music. Although I probably shouldn't do that

I think I like "Galactic Blues" best so far from this new Don Omar album, which you can preview here:

http://mp3latino.org/?p=2343#more-2343

A new swing revival as alternative to reggaeton going house? The rhythms shift pretty well on that one, and I think it's a Danny Fornaris track too. (Sounds like he shouts that.)

curmudgeon, I'm not a huge Don Omar fan to begin with (I wish he would do some entirely sung material, since I tend to prefer his singing to his rapping), but I would think that reggaeton might be better heard in studio form than live.

So this album seems uneven and maybe a bit slight, but I think it's probably better than W&Y's last.

It would be better if he stopped yelling "iDON!"

Ha. I need to check out big seller Tito El Bambino. I'm gonna be busy with family and miss his just outside DC in Virginia gig Saturday.

Curmudgeon. I specified 80's and 90's not 2008 or so because the De la Ghetto cd quite clearly borrows from that era, not recent stuff. I think perhaps there are similarities to recent R&B songs, but not so much because they borrow from current R&B, but because both are borrowing from the same pool of music.

De La Ghetto has Teddy Riley and some definite Full Force influenced sounds, some of the other stuff sounds more like Evelyn Champagne King and Abba than it does whoever the hell is making music these days.

W&Y, Don Omar and DY have some killer "live" cds that blow away the studio versions IMO.

I would think that reggaeton might be better heard in studio form sure, but don omar's just never been that great and pretty much overblown.

i'd like to see these live discs mentioned as i've always felt the same way about wisin + yandel.

yankee still holds ground but his recent stuff is just nothing compared to the el cangri and cartel-era nelson-type stuff.

hmm, well it may be a matter of taste. i think DO and W&Y are exciting so I like their live shows, the energy they have
but if u already are all meh about them, them being live prolly wont make a difference

I liked W y Y when I saw them live, but I thought Don Omar was coasting. Maybe it was just a bad night. Plus the sound in the arena was not that good, so that may have had a role.

If you wanted to torture me with music, this would be one of the most effective things to use:

When they do that incredibly mannered choral chest-thumping style choral rapping, and especially when it just goes on and on, I was to pull my hair out, rip my ears off, or pull my entire head off if necessary.

And then many non-Cuban timba exponents have the nerve to complain about reggaeton being monotonous, but at least the reggaetoneros can rap and don't do this drivel. (I know I'm probably shooting myself in the foot by drawing attention to this, since there's always the possibility that someone will hear it and say, hey, I actually like this. But I enjoy hating timba. It's such a visceral hate that it's satisfying.)

This is some of that "too explosive" new Cuban music that's clearly just to edgy for those of us who listen to salsa and reggaeton and Japanese sludge metal and Syrian classical music.

But once Obama lifts the embargo, this stuff will be Top 40 in the US! Of course. The US public is just waiting to descend upon timba concerts in the US. That's why the most famous contemporary Cuban band can only sell 1,000 CDs in the US.

lol
i do hate when people blame lack of timba appreciation on the embargo or unsophisticated tastes

some timba i like. well. some somgo-ish stuff. and some timba. but it doesnt move me.and i would not say my tastes are either unsophisticated or limited.nor are my tastes defined by my race, gender,nationality, class or age. timba just usually fails to excite me

i could take or leave timba, am whatever about it but the above sentiment is sort of how i feel about cumbia, which the indie rock turned "dance music" kids won't stop throwing in my face now that they've finally realized they can't ride on baile funk and baltimore club forever

I like cumbia a million times more than timba, and with cumbia you are talking about a very extensive back catalog. I could care less about the indie rock/dance music kids connection; that wasn't my introduction to cumbia.

But the cumbia you listen to may not be the same as the techno-related remixed kind that the indie-rock crossover kids (and Dj Rupture and Wayne and Wax) love. There seems to be multiple varieties of cumbia.