Perreo & Sandungueo!®: Reggaeton Acabando con TO!

The roaring thump of full bass backbeats, complemented by various synthetic beat-boxing and hip-hop flows in Spanish, may be a modest description of the recent offshoot of hip-hop dubbed “reggaeton.” Fanned and fueled by its Latin roots, it has been steadily growing in popularity since it hit the scene a little less than 10 years ago. Originally termed “reggae de Puerto Rico,” it has come a long way from its underground origins.

“The root style of this kind of music is salsa, maybe with a pinch of Tejano and a whole cup of hip-hop. It’s new and it’s old, but I think this genre is here to stay,” Amerykah Ford, a disc jockey at the Austin dance club Elysium, said. Today, artists like Daddy Yankee, who performed “Gasolina” and Shakira have pushed this genre into the pop limelight’. Shakira and Wyclef Jean’s collaborative hit, “Hips Don’t Lie,” is currently No. 2 on the Billboard Pop 100.

“It is really hard to ignore when you’re at a dance club. Whether you’re a hardcore fan or not, you’re almost driven toward the dance floor,” family & child development junior Katherine Green said. With its increase in recognition among mainstream audiences in the past years, several bars in San Marcos have began to carry the latest hits of this variety, including Lucy’s on the Square, Nephews and Gordo’s Bar.

Ford, who has been a professional DJ for the past five years, remembers her first encounter with reggaeton.

“It was very interesting at first … the request that I was playing had a very slow intro. It sounded very similar to Celia Cruz, but then these big, fat bass beats start to thump and it takes on a life of its own from there,” Ford said.

Some may be familiar with the public face of this unique style, but the underground face of reggaeton is a growing scene that even the plethora of Latino and Tejano radio stations in Central Texas fail to cover completely.

Taking up the slack for the local stations are niche-market Internet sites such as Musica360.com. Currently, it is the only online radio and downloadable source used exclusively for independent Latin music artists, according to Chris “Cartel” English, CEO of Musica360.com.

“It’s raw, urban music and it’s currently in its youth. It kind of reminds me of the early days of hip-hop,” English said.

Doing their best to stay on the forefront of this genre, Musica360.com already has big plans for the future.

“Our future plans for Musica360 include launching our Internet radio with more sub-genre-based stations; right now it’s just reggaeton, a MySpace-like social networking section catering to the needs of Latin artists, e-cards and hopefully to get investor backing so that we can compete with some of our competitors on a more level platform,” English said.

At their core, they are a site catered to the artist and the listener, making it easier to share the music with anyone and everyone.

“Where you should really be looking toward is the up-and-coming artists that most have never heard of. People like Felo Master, Mirror Image and Pura Vida. These are names that you should definitely watch out for in the future,” English said.

From its beginnings in Puerto Rico — as little more than Spanish rappers adapting Jamaican dancehall and reggae beats — reggaeton has immerged as one of the most popular dance-hall genres.

To English, describing reggaeton requires more than words — it requires a complete experience.

“It’s like trying to describe the sun to a blind man,” English said.