Running late, serenely, aboard Paris Metro’s line 7 on my commute to class I watched Bad Bunny’s Half Time Superbowl performance, 10 hours after the fact, on my phone screen. The car was full, silent, and I controlled my smile as I watched, letting my head bounce a little every now and then. Honduras, shouted out at the end along with every other American country, brought me right back onto the train. I was there again, in France, and the distance between myself and the house I grew up in became at once visible. There, next to indifferent shoulders, and soft white lighting, and swirls of songs from high school parties, I could have retraced my footsteps if I had tried.
Born out of Puertorican experimentation with Panamanian Reggae and hip hop throughout the 90’s, reggaeton owes that distinct, unmistakable base rhythm, to Jamaican dancehall, as prolific music producer El Chombo tells Ronald Ávila-Claudio for BBC. The Panama canal brought around 100,000 Caribbean immigrants, among them many Jamaicans, to Ciudad de Panama and its surroundings for a majority of the 20th century. With them, Reggae that was translated into Spanish which eventually found its way into the colorful, aptly named private bus system “Diablos Rojos” in the 70’s, becoming a staple on Panamanian commutes and gaining some international fame with “La Chica de los Ojos Cafe.” Years later in Puerto Rico, Nando Boom brings dembow rhythms into the mix, ushering a new underground scene in San Juan, with artists like Daddy Yankee and Ivy Queen coming into play. There, reggaeton, as we know it today, starts to take form.
It felt rebellious in elementary school to listen to reggaeton. Latin American Christianity, so deeply ingrained, so inescapable, creates an interesting rift with reggaeton’s hypersexual, at times violent, nature. Like religion, reggaeton felt inescapable growing up. I remember high schoolers blasting “Gasolina” and “Candy” out of speakers in the background while my first grade gym teacher would tell us to turn away from it. It’s not real music, she’d tell us. My mother’s disapproving shake of her head at my singing “El Taxi” after it being stuck in my head all day. Cars zipping past, remnants of song carried up to my window in the form of that unequivocal bass. These sounds were part of life, and though the line seemed clearly drawn between piousness and the genre, both sides created a cultural phenomena that I, even as a kid who couldn’t explain it at the time, felt added dimension to the listening experience. I distinctly remember, in the early days of Bad Bunny’s career, watching the “Si Tu Novio Te Deja Sola” music video projected onto my fifth grade class whiteboard that my peers somehow convinced our teachers to put on. It was on one of the last days of school before summer break and, looking back at it now, the beginning of a discography closely intertwined with my evolving identity.
About a week before the Superbowl Half Time show, leaving the theatre after a late night viewing of Dog Day Afternoon, I stumbled upon this Mexican restaurant, El Guagamole, and decided to go in.
It was the first time I had spoken Spanish since getting to Paris. I vaguely registered my surprise at letting out a deflated sigh of relief when hearing another native speaker’s voice break through the Reggaeton playing in the background. Old, new, I recognized all of the songs played, though I hadn’t heard many since high school. And, sat there facing Rue Place Monge with the first taste of latino food I’d had in a while (tacos aren’t even part of my traditional cuisine), Quevado’s Bzrap Music Session brought genuine tears to my eyes. As I get older, it seems as if these moments of confrontation with identity happen in increasingly strong and unexpected—funny even, ways. You don’t have to listen to more than a few seconds of that song to know that it doesn’t usually warrant crying, yet there I sat focusing on my breath. My reactions to music are at the forefront of these moments where I face my identity.
I spent the day after watching Bad Bunny’s performance listening to my middle and high school playlists. Each one of his albums corresponds to a different point of my life from age 12, threaded through with the rest of the reggaeton I would listen to. I was situated among the rest of those moments the music brought back; induced memories from years ago that have and will continue to be stored in these songs. With reggaeton, these memories are communal. I remember the people I was standing next to, who I was face-to-face with, what we were sharing together that was worth enough to get stored in the notes. We were sitting on the team bus on our way to the final game. We were sixteen and dizzy on the curb catching our breath. We were close enough to the sea, now, to pick the salt off the palm leaves all the way from the car window. These people were conjured into my dorm kitchenette while I made dinner that night, and with them came the person I was as well. They were all stacked upon each other in front of me, like desert mirages, waiting to be seen.
And then, in the most obvious way, it’s impossible to ignore just how bigger this all is than myself. There’s a strong undercurrent of belonging that courses through reggaeton. I think a lot has to do with how my listening experience has been, for the most part, a group activity. I belong, then, to the music as much as I believe I have hold over it. Our history precedes it, our culture maintains it, and, having music as a large point of reference to wherever I am in the world, reggaeton becomes a port of call to belong somewhere within the space it creates regardless of where I stand.