Reggaeton

I cannot overstate how critically important this volume is. It captures the synergies of a musical and cultural movement that few have seriously grappled with, even as the sounds and styles of reggaeton have dominated the air space of so many urban locales. Mark Anthony Neal, author of Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic This anthology introduces a chapter in hip hop history that brings it all back home, back to our transnational Afro-Spanish-speaking countries and diasporas and 'hoods where young people are going through their hip-hop ecstasies and traumas, but in their own language and in their own unique and hitherto unknown style. Juan Flores, author of From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity, from the preface to Reggaeton The kinetic contributions in Reggaeton melt false borders--ones wrapped like straitjackets around peoples, knowledges, and cultures--and move the crowd. More than an exciting, exhaustive treatment of this vital musical culture, this anthology is a fine blueprint for engaged cultural scholarship right now. --Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation It's about time academia dared to include reggaeton. This might mean that we're finally understanding that all of us are los de atras (the ones behind): our country, Puerto Rico, and the whole Caribbean. I hope people support this book so it can be translated into Spanish, and kids in Puerto Rico and Latin America can read it. Because we Caribbean people, even if we don't want to, even if we don't like it, even if it hurts, we come from behind ... and there's a value to that. There's a beauty to being los de atras. --Residente, frontman of the Grammy and Latin Grammy award-winning duo Calle 13 Reggaton, a rump-shaking Latino take on dancehall and hiphop...This collection of essays is the first attempt to critically engage with the phenomenon, and wisely hedges its bets with a broad collection of writings - earnest academic appraisals are affectively offset by punchy location reportage from Latin America, Q&As with major protagonists and landmark magazine pieces from the music's early days...it's a largely informative and sometimes exhilarating survey of a multinational phenomenon. - Derek Walmsley, The Wire, May 2009