MEXICO.- At a year-end work meeting an unexpected topic jumped to the table: Bad Bunny. The Puerto Rican reggaeton player had nothing to do with the gathering, but he was on everyone’s lips after the massive concert at the Azteca Stadium, where there was fraud with the ticketsand because the streaming music platform Spotify announced that it was the best-selling worldwide.
“If you want to put me in a bad mood, start talking about it,” said José Téllez, a music lover and broadcaster of academic music. “Don’t whip yourself,” the younger ones responded.
Thus began an evening that became monothematic until dawn with passionate ups and downs. Mexico is torn between love and hate for the genre that put the world to “perrear” in a moment eager to party after the hardest years of the pandemic.
Bad Bunny’s “A Summer Without Ií” was nominated for Best Album at the Grammys in 2022 and the artist was the most listened to of the year on Spotify. Rosalía also jumped as the female representative of the genre with “Motomami” when Beyoncé, The Weeknd and Taylor Swift competed.
“How can you like someone who doesn’t even sing, but talks like an idiot?” Tapia counterattacked.
And he continued, words more, words less, with his arguments: that the reggaeton authorizes the detuning and imposes the voices with bad timbre; that stimulates the existence of singers and composers without musical education, mechanical, who propagate stuttering, throatiness, circular and repetitive utterances, vocabulary limitations and musical, thematic, choreographic “ideas”…
“But it’s the best seller in the world, people go crazy for it and more so in Mexico, didn’t you see what happened at the Azteca Stadium? He filled it twice (it has a capacity of up to 90,000 attendees)” retorted Santino Cortés, scholarship holder and communication student in Mexico City.
At first, Bad Bunny was going to appear on a single date but the demand was such that they opened two. The followers fought over them and even López Obrador invited him to the Zócalo That’s why the cloning of tickets in Ticket Master and many paid up to 20,000 pesos (about 900 dollars).
“…And he came out of a little country that was so small and poor and singing in Spanish,” added Cortés.
Since the beginning of his career in 2016, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio “Bad Bunny” only sings in his native language, he refuses to do it in English. “You have to break that thing about the gringos being gods… No, daddy. Maybe it was necessary and they opened doors to this Latino boom, but that moment is over for me. I am very proud to reach the level in which we are speaking Spanish, and not only in Spanish, but in the Spanish that we speak in Puerto Rico. Without changing the accent.
“And that what?” José Téllez reverted. “Musically, the reggaeton players have nothing importantThey don’t even play, they don’t have musicians: they do everything on the computer, so what’s the joke?
Some Mexican musicians have criticized the genre like many others in the world, as the late Pablo Milanés or the pianist Jame Rhodes did at the time.
Last September, The Molotov group, one of the most famous Mexican bands since the 90s of the last century, released the song “Quiten el trap” in which the urban singers make fun of their clothing, jewelry, cars, luxuries and, above all, the flaunting of money.
The response on social media was divided. Many agreed; others reproached him for the lack of adaptation to the new times. Molotov became famous for his single “Puto” with which they made half of Mexico jump in absentia to the censorship of profanity. They aged poorly, wrote a follower on Twitter. Why could you transgress and now you complain?
at another time, Aleks Syntec, singer-songwriter, also launched against reggaeton and promoted the idea of fining establishments that play this music at inappropriate times in his opinion. “If the reggaetoneros want to continue saying ass in all their songs, it’s up to them, but not at 10 in the morning in restaurants where there are grandparents, parents, children with intense twerking at full volume.”
At the end of the year celebration, as the night progressed the conversation rose in tone. After the third piña colada with vodka, the topic of reggaeton came up as a social and cultural phenomenon worthy of study, he said. Llyther Mendez, community manager of the company. Everyone at the table recognized that reggaeton touches on issues such as racism, classism, gentrification and gender violence, but there was no agreement on whether it defended or attacked such topics.
The truth is that, due to this type of position, the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) announced that it will offer in 2023 the diploma “Reggaeton as resistance to American colonialism and soft masculinity as sexual capital”.
“It’s an aberration,” protested José Téllez.
someone answered that Those who “hate” reggeaton is because they consider that the music is listened to by the poor and with low intellectual level. The journalist Víctor Lenore had written about the former in his book Indies, Hipsters and Gafapastas. Chronicle of cultural domination. From the second theme, software developer Virgil Griffith concluded in 2014 that those who listen to groups like U2 or Led Zeppelin were smarter than those who spend time enjoying reggaeton.
-These studies, as they say one thing, say another”, responded Gabriela Aguilar. Don’t you see anything positive in reggeaton?
– I’m glad they make women move so rich.
– That’s sexist.
– On the contrary: that they be free and express themselves.
In past months, the feminist collective Las Brujas del Mar criticized the Jowell & Randy show in Mexico because on stage they said they wanted to see “the most beautiful tits in Mexico”. The debate on social networks was divided, since some Internet users said that the attendees who participated in the reggaeton show were not forced to do so: “Her body, her decision.”
At the end of the year-end meeting, the co-workers’ table did not reach an agreement. It wasn’t necessary either. Anyway, reggaeton kept playing marmoset asked me/ If I have many girlfriends, many girlfriends/ Today I have one, tomorrow another/
Hey, but there is no wedding Tití asked me…
“It’s an imposition,” concluded José Téllez. “It’s fun,” added Cortés.
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