Sonic Sundays Special | Latin Heritage Month Part II

Image | NASA

Latin Heritage Month (aka National Hispanic Heritage Month) in the United States lasts from the 15th of September to the 15th of October. It starts mid-month because between September 15th and 21st, several Latin American countries celebrate their independence days, including Mexico, El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

Last week’s Sonic Sunday highlighted Ritchie Valens, Celia Cruz, and Selena. Below are a few more Latine artists that have impacted US pop music. The artists and genres covered in these articles barely scratch the surface of the diversity and depth of amazing music from Latin America and Latinos around the world. For example, Brazilian bossa nova took US jazz by storm in the 1960s. Cuban music was brought into 80s pop with “Conga’” by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. José Feliciano and Linda Ronstadt were famous Latinos in rock music. And the list goes on and on! If you want to learn more about Latin Americans in US popular music, visit this website, on which you can find more stories about important Latine genres and musicians.

Rock n Roll

Carlos Santana, known for his distinctive style of playing electric guitar, is a prolific example of Latino contribution to American pop music. Born in Jalisco, Mexico, Santana developed his unique playing style at a young age and moved to San Francisco where he became involved with the psychedelic rock scene. Santana’s band was a multiracial and multicultural group, and each of the members brought their own styles and heritage to crate mesmerizing rock music. The band took audiences by storm at the Woodstock festival in 1969, and their performance of “Black Magic Woman” and “Soul Sacrifice” put Santana on the rock n roll map before the band had even released their first album. Santana has had a prolific career and continues to release award-winning music, particularly Supernatural in 1999.

Here is Santana’s performance of “Soul Sacrifice” in 1977, 15 years after his big break at Woodstock.

Boogaloo

Boogaloo emerged in the barrios of New York City in the 1960s as the modern successor to Mambo, a Caribbean style of music that was big in the 1950s. Boogaloo songs incorporated elements of funk, blues, and rock into Caribbean rhythms, and was often sung in English. This new genre reflected the experiences of Latin American and Black communities and their musical collaboration and innovation. If you want to learn more about Boogaloo and its impact on US popular music, check out this special from PBS, “We Like It Like That.”

More recently, the word “boogaloo” has been co-opted by right-wing extremist groups who use the term to reference a “race-based civil war” on internet forums. This article tells more about the evolution of what “boogaloo” has come to represent in US popular culture.

Here is rapper Cardi B’s song, “I Like It” that samples Pete Rodriguez’s boogaloo classic “I Like It Like That” and features Reggaetón stars Bad Bunny of Puerto Rico and J Balvin from Colombia.

Warning: explicit content

Reggaetón

And finally, how could we not talk about Reggaetón? The popular genre reached the US via Puerto Rico, but traces its roots back to Panama. As the name suggests, reggaetón evolved from reggae. The construction of the Panama Canal drew Caribbean immigrants to Panama between 1904 and 1914. From this blend of Caribbean and Central American culture, “reggae en español” was created, and musicians like El General from Panama and Vico C from Puerto Rico helped evolve reggae and hip hop fusions into what would be termed reggaetón in the 1990s. Although it’s been around for decades, reggaetón is finally finding its place in pop music in the US, with the popularity of songs like “Gasolina,” “Despacito,” and “Con Calma” as well as features of artists like Bad Bunny by US artists and vice versa. Reggaetón is characterized by its classic “Dem Bow” beat, named after the beat in the song of the same name. (Dembow is now considered a separate genre from the Dominican Republic with the same roots as reggaetón.)

Popular reggaetón songs are usually about themes like dancing and sex, and the genre is dominated by men. Daddy Yankee’s massive hit “Gasolina” and the 2017 summer anthem “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi brought reggaetón to mainstream US popular music. However, there are many reggaetón artists who discuss other themes, such as Tego Calderón. Credited with popularizing reggaetón in Puerto Rico, Tego Calderón leans into his Afro-Puerto Rican identity and incorporates social critiques into his music. Below is his song “Loíza.” Here are the lyrics and a translation.