Reggaeton’s rise to global phenomenon is not only a Puerto Rican story. Rather, the genre—which features variations on Spanish-language rapping and singing over a Jamaican dembow beat—is intertwined with the history and politics of several different Latin American countries, as well as the United States.
Part of reggaeton’s origins can be traced back to the construction of the Panama Canal, when laborers from what were then the British West Indies moved to Panama for work. Decades later, despite having permanently settled in the country, these laborers’ descendants continued to listen to music from their home countries—including now-independent Jamaica.
In the 1980s, Black Panamanians of Jamaican descent started singing over Jamaican dancehall beats to birth one precursor to reggaeton, reggae en Español. Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico, some musicians who followed the early development of English-language hip hop began rapping in Spanish. Being able to sing and dance to songs they understood felt like “the movie went from black-and-white to color,” Puerto Rican artist Ivy Queen said on LOUD: The History of Reggaeton. She narrates the series, a deeply researched, impossible-not-to-dance-to audio documentary that traces the more than 30-year story of the genre.
In the early 1990s, as Panamanian and Puerto Rican artists frequently traveled to New York City, a version of the Jamaican dembow drumbeat was recorded there that would go on to serve as the base for countless reggaeton tracks. The sample—a boom-chk-boom-chick on loop—quickly made it back to Puerto Rico, where artists recorded their lyrics over it. Puerto Rican “underground,” also known as the earliest reggaeton, was born, with lyrics that told of working-class life in San Juan. Along with Daddy Yankee, the genre’s biggest stars in the 1990s and 2000s included Tego Calderón, who used his songs to denounce racism and colonialism.
Reggaeton is “about how kids who were young or poor, Black or dark-skinned—kids who were discriminated against in every way—how we refused to be quiet,” Ivy Queen argued on LOUD.
U.S. record labels failed to fully recognize the genre’s potential in the 2000s, according to LOUD. Though labels made deals with a handful of artists after the success of Daddy Yankee’s 2004 album, Barrio Fino, many quickly lost interest, viewing the genre as just a fad.