EXPLORING REGGAETON: Part 4, Defining the Boundaries, Tego Calderon and the Puerto Rican Claim
Written: Jun 29 '06 (Updated Jul 31 '06)
Product Rating:
Pros: Retrospective view of Tego's 1997-2003 period...when reggaeton became Puerto Rican.
Cons: Gritty sound won't appeal to everyone.
The Bottom Line: Tego Calderon's rough and ready sound came of age in the late 90s, early 2000s. Read on to see HOW that happened and WHAT that sound became...
mrkstvns's Full Review: El Enemy de los Guasibiri [PA] by Tego Calderon
I was listening to Raul Bryndis y Pepito on Estereo Latino a week or two ago, when I caught a bit of banter about the reggaeton tsunami. A guest called it something like "...that Puerto Rican hip-hop..."
Hmmmm....Puerto Rican hip-hop.
Not a bad generalization, I suppose, though as I work my way deeper into the murky depths of the style, I'm finding that a) it's not just Puerto Rican, and b) it's not really hip-hop. Still, there's big, shining nuggets of truth in the generalization, and it's a useful place to begin chatting about Tego Calderon and his role in defining the reggaeton genre as it exists in 2006.
The Tego Story...
In Part 3 of this series, I talked about how the reggaeton sound evolved in Panama through the music of El General (and his imitators). El General had reggaeton nailed down by 1997, yet you don't find real reggaeton albums from earlier than about 2003. What was happening during those six years from 1997-2003?
Well, what was happening was that previously unknown artists, particularly in Puerto Rico, were taking the reggaeton and hip-hop basics and doing things that were well outside the mainstream of latin music as well as being too far outside the boundaries of reggae or hip-hop to get any exposure into those markets either.
Reggaeton was small-time street music. Songs were done individually, and often through collaboration, and they were remixed more often than a good Sunday afternoon jambalaya. But nobody had a record contract and nobody was talking about it on TV. There were no reggaeton videos. Just a lot of young Puerto Ricans playing with the sounds and making it fit their own urban experiences.
So while I tend to think of reggaeton as "not really Puerto Rican," it was still Puerto Rico where the sound made a splash and where it got developed. It might have been first done in Panama, and it might be Dominicans who produce it and blend in the bachata elements, and it might be New Yorkers who bring in the strongest hip-hop aspects, but it is indeed Puerto Rico that is the fertile ground where all the seeds take root and blossom into a strong, well-defined style.
By the early 2000s, a handful of the Puerto Rican innovators were emerging from the crowd of street musicians. The first of these innovators to really become widely known was Tego Calderon, and his claim to fame was to release the first major reggaeton album to get into the mainstream music marketplace. Tego's debut album was El Abayarde in 2003, and it was a milestone marker in reggaeton's movement towards widespread acceptance as a legitimate "style" or "genre" in and of itself. But that's not the album I've chosen to review here today. Today, we're going to talk about his 2004 release, El Enemy de los Guasabiri, and the reason why I want to talk about it is because, unlike El Abayarde, it isn't all new and polished --- it's a kind of retrospective on the pre-2003 era, with songs that Tego did during that developmental 1997-2003 period. Some are straight period recordings, some are remixes, and a couple are newer collaborations that feature U.S. hip-hop artists as well as reggaeton artists like Yandel, Voltio, and Don Omar. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself now. Let's go ahead and spin up El Enemy de los Guasabiri, and we'll listen for ourselves to see what Tego was up to and how he fits into this bigger reggaeton landscape.
Tego's Brand of Hotness...
Reggaeton fans love Tego! They love his gritty sound, they love his bad-boy underdog image. These are exactly the reasons why he doesn't always play well to the casual reggaeton listener --- the listener who prefers a slicker, more produced, more pop-like reggaeton sound (like Daddy Yankee, but I'll get into that in the next part of the series).
Listening to El Enemy de los Guasabiri is an ear-opening experience, not unlike listening to an old Albert Collins or John Lee Hooker album for the first time. Do you get captivated by the earthy reality of the downtrodden underclass lyrics? Or is it the musicianship itself that grabs you? Maybe it's the rough vocal delivery, with a gritty reality and a kind of deep, grinding tone. (Great blues tunes are like that...so are Tego Calderon tunes.)
Tego Calderon's vocals aren't for everyone. He's no polished pretty boy. He's got a deep baritone sound, an unusually strong regional accent, and you combine that easily identified regional sound with his Puerto Rican diction, and you've got the makings for a kind of patois that appeals to the Puerto Rican hardcore, but that sets up a sort of wall between Tego and any audience outside the island territory. It's just like the way your basic all-American white boy from Wisconsin doesn't really understand, much less appreciate, the drawling back-country twang of a Mississippi Delta blues man. If Tego were a gringo, he'd be that Mississippi Delta blues man.
But the hardcore do appreciate him, and surprisingly to me, so do some of the U.S. hip-hop artists who've been dabbling in reggaeton recently. I suppose it's a matter of credibility. Tego's rough sound gives him cred.
Reggaeton sometimes gets categorized as a "monotonous" style, but I think that El Enemy de los Guasabiri does a lot to dispell that myth. There's a big variety of sounds here, a mix of tempos, and a mix of themes.
The strongest tracks, in my opinion, are Elegante de Boutique, Gatas Gozan, Cosa Buena, Guasa, Guasa, Cerca de Mi Neighborhood, and Bailalo Como Tu Quieres.
Mesmerizing keyboard rhythms set the mood in Elegante de Boutique, which I understand was done several years earlier in a duet form with Eddie Dee, though I don't know anything about how that one sounds. I do know that this one has a slickness to it and a mood of barely concealed sleaze. It's kind of like walking into a glitzy "gentleman's club" which looks expensive and "elegant"....just as long as you have a good imagination and don't think about trying to scratch the veneer.
That same attitude of "upscale sleaze" continues through Gatas Gozas, which even uses exactly the same kind of mesmerizing keyboard beat from Elegante de Boutique, but works in a strategic camera shutter or feminine moan of ecstasy to create its slinky feel. There's no "Parental Advisory" on this album, but if your kids speak Spanish, you might want to exercise a little parental oversight since there are adult themes and language scattered throughout (unless you don't mind hearing junior walking around talking about the b*tches --- sorry, p*rras --- he's gonna nail.)
I really like the well-integrated sound of these tracks, as well as Bailalo Como Tu Quieres, which is radically different in sound, but shares the tight integration of reggae, hip-hop, and a dash of salsa.
If you're a hip-hop fan, give a listen to Cerca de Mi Neighborhood...I think it'll be right up your alley. The dembo beat is subtle and the reggae influences muted on this track, which instead, boosts up the big bass beat and strengthens the rhyming rap. (The same combo works some magic later in No Paso el Cerdo).
The hip-hop love fest continues on Guasa, Guasa, which is one of the strongest tracks on the album, due in no small part to the big rap sound of Voltio, which at times, completely overshadows the distinctively gritty rap that Tego himself delivers. It's almost like a duet between slick New York rap and raw Puerto Rican rap, but rolled together and intertwined, it makes for a delicious mix.
If you're a fan of the stronger reggae influence, you'll probably like Naki, Naki, which is very calypso sounding (except for the oddly intriguing contribution of an occasional Japanese-sounding bell), and perhaps No Sufras por Ella. Overall though, this is an album that really underscores that reggaeton is not reggae. It gets a beat from reggae, but it shares more in mood and sound with hip-hop than with its Afro-Caribbean forebears.
Bottom Line on El Enemy de los Guasabiri... El Enemy de los Guasabiri is a great introduction to the Tego Calderon sound. It's an example of reggaeton in its mature form, but with shadows that trace the style's very recent shift in geographic focus and musical emphasis. It's an album that marks the maturity of Tego as an artist and reggaeton as a style, and so, it's perhaps fitting that it too reflects mature themes for mature audiences. It might be tough for mainstream American pop audiences to get a handle on this stuff, but the young hurban audiences just eat it up!
Until next time, see you in the music store. As always, I'm in the Latin Music aisle...
Tale of the Tracks...
17 tracks on El Enemy de los Guasabiri, 2 of which are bogus widi-widi, leaving 15 tracks of real music for a total running time of 52:06. Here's what up...
1. Intro 2. Elegante de Boutique 3. Gatas Gozas 4. Cosa Buena 5. Mi Entierro 6. Cerca de Mi Neighborhood 7. Guasa, Guasa 8. Al Natural 9. Interlude 10. Naki, Naki 11. We Got the Crown "Envidia" 12. Sopa de Letra 13. En Peligro de Extincion 14. Bailalo Como tu Quieres 15. Dame un Chance 16. No Paso el Cerdo 17. No Sufras por Ella
Footnote...
Tego Calderon has been in the studio the past few months and has a new album, El Subestimado ("The Underdog"), scheduled to be released August 29. Keep an eye open for it if you're interested in the reggaeton sound...
EXPLORING REGGAETON:The Series... This has been Part 4 of a 10-part series exploring the roots, heart, soul, and future of the reggaeton style. Stay tuned as we delve deeper into the works and influences of the artists who are forging the new flavor of urban latino music, and seeing it spread to unexpected corners of foreign genres. Here's where we've been and where we're going on this musical journey...
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