AMERICAS (By Lorraine Ali, Newsweek) May 2, 2005 - May 20 - Forget about those salsa lessons you’ve been meaning to take since J. Lo first shimmied her way onto MTV. And if you’re still waiting for that hyped “Latin invasion,” when rock en espanol bands finally hit it off with guitar loving rockers here in the States, don’t hold your breath. The newest and most promising export from Latin America is reggaeton (pronounced reggae-tone). And fortunately, you don’t have to take dance lessons or grit your teeth through cheesy approximations of American rock to partake.

Reggaeton is a mix of salsa, hip-hop and dancehall with rapid fire MC’s dropping freestyle lyrics about urban and club life in Spanish. It started in the ghettos of Puerto Rico in the early ‘90s when street kids cobbled together the disparate forms of music around them and rapped about life in the ‘hood. The pumping beats made their way outside the projects via amateur mix tapes, and began circulating through Puerto Rico and then the Dominican Republic. It took almost a decade for the music to seep up from the underground and infiltrate the rest of Latin America, as well as the U.S. Latin world. Now, reggaeton is not only the hottest style of music among young Hispanics worldwide, it’s the newest phenomenon to hit American hip-hop. Julio Voltio, El Bambino and, of course, Daddy Yankee, are just about the coolest names you can drop in a club these days. 

Daddy Yankee is reggaeton’s kingpin (its 50 Cent) and he rules the music charts from Bogotá to the Bronx. The 28-year-old Puerto Rican, a.k.a. Raymond Ayala, is the first reggaeton artist to break big in America. His last album, “Barrio Fino,” put him in Billboard’s Top 40 and has kept him in the No. 1 spot on the Latin music charts for 40 weeks. It also piqued the interest of American hip-hop artists like Nas, who collaborated with Yankee on “The Profecy,” and Lil Jon, who collaborated with Yankee on “Gasolina”—making the reggaeton star a hot commodity in rap circles.

“A few years ago, people wanted to know what reggaeton was about—is it just a fad?” says Yankee from his home in Puerto Rico. “But I was always confident in my genre. I knew it was gong to hit the market sooner or later—I just had to be patient and perseverant. Now, it’s a huge movement, a force to be reckoned with.”

Reggaeton’s rise from the ghetto to the mainstream is almost a blow-by-blow re-creation of American rap’s rise from the projects to MTV in the ‘80s. “I always compare reggaeton with hip-hop,” says Yankee, “because reggaeton artists represent the people from the ‘hood—those who struggle in life. In the early ‘90s, [some people in the Puerto Rican] government didn’t understand us. They said the music was too violent and sexual for kids.” Some state officials denounced reggaeton lyrics and music videos as being derogatory toward women, and the media picked up the story. “It was great because it gave us lots of publicity, and I think that’s when everyone else started discovering reggaeton,” Yankee believes. The furor died down as reggaeton became more popular.

Most reggaeton artists say they didn’t have to water down their edgy music in order to gain a broader appeal. But over the years some of the lyrics have gone from X-rated to R, or even PG-13. “I still feel like reggaeton is underground,” says Yankee. “We weren’t looking toward the mainstream, the mainstream came to us.”

Now that these reggaeton artists are making hits and money, U.S. and Latin American record companies are clamoring to sign them. But Daddy Yankee and many of his peers are learning to become more business savvy. Yankee started out on his own label, El Cartel Records, because no one else would represent him. Now, he’s turned the label into a major force that not only encompasses his work but also the music of up-and-coming talents like Tommy Viera. “Their getting smarter about the music business,” says Yankee’s U.S. publicist, Mayna Nevarez. “They used to release three or four singles at a time; now they’ll release one every few months—just like mainstream artists.”

The spread of the genre throughout Latin America is rare because each individual country and region have drastically different tastes—whether it’s salsa in the Dominican Republic or norteno in Mexico. “We’re using so many influences in the music,” says Yankee. “Music from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico. There’s so many styles in there that everyone feels they have a stake in reggaeton.”

Daddy Yankee is poised to break as big as Sean Paul, the dancehall artist from Jamaica who crossed over into American pop by collaborating with artists like Beyonce and Jay-Z. Yankee is looking at another collaboration with Lil Jon and even a possible song or two with Dr. Dre for his next album, out in early 2006. “Sean Paul represented the dancehall movement, and that’s the street music of Jamaica,” says Yankee. “Hip-hop is the street music of America, as is reggaeton in Puerto Rico. That’s why all these different artists from different genres respect each other—because we are all from the street. It’s all an urban music, and reggaeton is the next wave.”