Mood rings, bell bottom jeans, leisure suits, and low-carb diets. Fads, each and every one of 'em.
Some folks think reggaeton is a fad too. Hugely popular today, but destined for a tomorrow of footnotes in the history of latin music. It is easy to get into a monotonous rut in which every reggaeton song sounds exactly like the one you heard before --- right down to the identical beat, identical themes, and startlingly similar raps and samples.
Like the worlds of reggae and hip-hop, reggaeton can center on very similar sounds that work against any purist arguments that innovation persists throughout the style. But the death knoll of the fad can be dodged with the right hero bearing the right key.
The key to reggaeton's relevance as a musical style is innovation. Keep it fresh. Keep it real. Keep it interesting.
In my opinion, this is Don Omar's role in reggaeton. He keeps things interesting. Sometimes very interesting....
Omar is often controversial. He questions conventional thought, and he shakes on the comfortable tree of the status quo. Reggaeton fans and artists sometimes fear him...mostly, I think, because he does challenge them. He pushes change. He has the ability to bring excitement to the style, and the confidence to boldly stray off the well-worn road towards reggaeton monotony.
Omar's newest album, King of Kings is anything but monotony. It's exciting stuff, full of thoughtful fusions and full of soul and confidence. But before I get into the tunes and sounds, I want to touch on a little bit about the Don himself...
The Don Omar Story...
Daddy Yankee has the most recognized name in reggaeton, due to his stratospheric popularity after the release of Gasolina, but Don Omar is no slouch for name recognition in the genre. And while Daddy Yankee certainly has more platinum discs on his wall, it's Don Omar who might actually be the name to know as reggaeton moves into the uncharted waters of mass market awareness. We unbiased observers should at least keep a very wary eye on the guy.
Don Omar, real name William Don Landron, marches to the beat of a slightly different drummer, and his music shows a greater willingness to experiment, his lyrics a deeper sense of poetry and storytelling, and his vocal delivery a wider dynamic range. In short, Omar is a more talented musician than the vast bulk of the reggaeton performers out there today.
Omar's story is similar to that of a lot of reggaeton's movers and shakers today. He was an early adopter to the coming reggaeton wave, struggling to get his music heard in the streets and to build a name for himself in the late 90s and early 00s. His break came when he was invited to perform with Hector "El Father" Delgado. 2003 was Omar's breakthrough year (same as it was for several other reggaeton stars). 2003 saw Omar release his debut album, The Last Don, and it saw his name pop up on pop charts for the first time, with his tunes Baila Morena and Amor de Colegio.
The Don has continued to record and release a steady stream of material over the past two years with the stop-gap albums, The Last Don Live and Da Hitman Presents Reggaeton Latino.
Omar continues to write his history with his second real break-through release, King of Kings, which came out in late May 2006, and which shook up the mainstream music marketplace because it debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200 chart (not on a latin-specific chart, but *the* overall music sales chart spanning all genres --- no other reggaeton artist has done as well, though there are two releases coming up next month that I think could top it...we shall see).
I bought this album the day it was released, and it's been in steady rotation in my CD changer ever since. I've been listening to a lot of reggaeton over the past few weeks, as I work to get my hands and mind around what makes the style tick, and to be honest, most of the albums I've heard aren't going to stay in the changer for long. One of the most notable exceptions is this album --- one of the finest reggaeton albums yet recorded. Let's spin 'er up and see if we can't hear what separates King of Kings from the pack...
Listening to King of Kings...
I don't like the tendency of latin artists to put throwaway intro and intermission tracks on their albums --- they annoy me. At least they do 99.999% of the time. The other .001% is stuff like Don Omar's Intro, which intrigues me with its soothing violin passages and its melodic Middle Eastern flavor, accenting his bold rap vocals with an exotic dash of spice a la the recipe that Shakira worked so well on her hit Ojos Asi. (And reggaeton fans shouldn't be rolling their eyes at the mention of Shakira anyway, since she's evidently digging on the style herself and even managing to work some dembow work into her current smash hit, Hips Don't Lie.)
Like the master of the genre that he is, Don Omar does a seemless transition from the Intro into the intensely layered Reportense, which lightens the Middle Eastern accent just a bit, moving it slowly and subtly towards the background as he simultaneously and surreptitiously heightens the intensity of the hip-hop sound. Reportense is a power track: huge sound, great vocals, big beat, and the background of warbling effects interleaved with varyingly intense background refrains gives the song a complexity that's a rare breed, indeed, in the reggaeton genre.
You need to prepare yourself for a bit of a roller coaster ride in mood swings and themes. This isn't a one-dimensional work. You have huge sounding hits, and then you find melancholy gems like Ojitos Chiquitos, lurking just below the surface, with vaguely threatening lyrics, subtle and sly, like a cloaked ninja, lurking in the shadows of a world otherwise populated by brute force mercenaries armed with grenade launchers and C-4. And just as Sun Tzu taught us in The Art of War, one well-placed assassin can often effect a kill that an entire legion could not. Ojitos Chiquitos is like that --- subtle and complex, and strategically overlooked in a world where "all reggaeton sounds the same".
Listening to this disc, I spot maybe 4 or 5 more songs like Reportense and Ojitos Chiquitos --- songs that mix things up and sound radically different from anything I've yet heard in reggaeton. Songs worth noting for their artistry, and songs worth recalling in a year or two when you hear the same kinds of innovation coming out from Tego Calderon, or Daddy Yankee, or Hector "El Father" --- these are "role model" songs that point the path to reggaeton's bright future, and they make up almost half of this ground-breaking album.
Candela shakes things up with an almost rock-like insistence of grinding guitars and ferocious vocal delivery offset by a mesmerizingly light, and shockingly male sounding chorus. Rock style drum solos are another big surprise in this track that makes surprises surprisingly commonplace.
Salio el Sol mixes things up with an amalgam of sounds in which the sound deviates from a known Afro-Caribbean quantity to a sound that's best described as Native American, as in, the pounding beat of hand-whapped drums. You can practically picture Bugs Bunny with a headdress, dancing around the fire with his teepee in the background. (Sorry about the bizarre imagery, I just always loved me some Bugs.) Reggaeton isn't known as a style of lyrical depth, but again, Don Omar shakes up the preconceptions with a rich pattern of imagery that evokes the seasons and the workings of the cosmos. It's a startling phenomenon.
There are quite a few pop songs that draw their power from sources deep in the soul of Southern Gospel hymns, but not so many that draw from the more serene kind of holiness that you hear in the Gregorian style. Shocking to hear in a hip-hop edged reggaeton album, but Don Omar actually does instill some of the reflective moodiness of classic cathedral dignity in Angelito.
Straight-up reggaeton lovers who prefer the known sound and mood of typical reggaeton will find tracks that clearly show how Don Omar can do the sound just as well as anyone. These aren't songs that I regard as earth shattering, but they are songs that show that Don Omar has his foundation set solid. Songs like Cuentale are guaranteed reggaeton hits in the works. Cuentale especially gets that tropical mood with the basic dembow beat and the infusion of steel drums down right. So too does En Su Nota
Straight-ahead hip-hop fans will like the full frontal assault on the ears that you get from Conteo (a collaborative piece with Juelz Santana), or perhaps from Jangeo, which works mostly on the hip-hop plane, but with techno tangents and a frenetic dancehall beat.
There's an awful lot going on King of Kings. There's fascinating fusions that have been largely overlooked by reggaeton to date. There's cutting edge tunes, and there's tunes that form the traditional foundation of reggaeton, with a handful spotlighting strong reggae and Afro-Caribbean roots, and others spotlighting a strong contemporary urban hip-hop sound. While the reggaeton and hip-hop are here, it's really the cutting edge "new sound" that's going to mark King of Kings as a watershed album ---- arguably the most "artistic" reggaeton album to yet emerge from the youthful style, and a delight for curious ears.
Bottom Line...
A spectacular album. Not just "spectacular reggaeton", but an outstanding artistic work that reflects sensibility, intelligence, musicianship, songwriting, and foresight. This is an album that breaks the mold of "repetitious and boring reggaeton". It steps outside the boundaries and pushes the envelope, and in doing so, achieves something that few other reggaeton albums will ever achieve: long-term relevance.
Give it a listen. I recommend this one, and I think it's one that hip-hop fans could really sink their teeth into.
Until next time, see you in the music store. As always, that's me over in the latin music aisle.
Makin' Tracks...
Nineteen tracks here, 72:09 total running time. Lots of music for the buck. Here's what's on...
1. Intro 2. Reportense 3. Ojitos Chiquitos 4. Conteo 5. Cuentale 6. Tu No Sabes 7. Candela 8. Salio el Sol 9. En Su Nota 10. Angelito 11. Jangueo 12. Bomba 13. Infieles 14. Belly Danza 15. Muņecas 16. Not Too Much 17. Bailando Sola 18. Amarga Vida 19. La Copa
EXPLORING REGGAETON:The Series... This has been Part 9 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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