Pearsall's Tunes

I'm giving my apartment a comprehensive clean tonight, which is probably a bit overdue, so no long post, just a template bit of quoting someone else's article and then giving you some mp3's (which is what you are here for, right?).

I like reggaeton. Considering that while I am, say, watching tv I often find the sofa vibrating from someone driving by playing it at death star volume, it's a good thing. I live on the third floor as well. As far as bass heavy music goes, it's fun, and it's nice to listen to something and just concentrate on the sound of the voices without having a clue what they are talking about - undoubtedly the lyrics are as foolish and stereotypical as a lot of English-language music, but if you don't know what someone is saying you can pretend that they're talking about serious stuff (maaaan).

Anyways, the quotage (from "Riddims by the Reggaetón" in this week's Village Voice)

"Tego Calderón enters stage right at Madison Square Garden. On cue, the crowd at last October's second annual Megaton concert—the largest reggaetón event in the country—erupts into a frenzy. They're drunk off the deafening riddims pulsating from the venue's enormous speakers. Midway through a medley of hits that secured Tego's position as the king of reggaetón in the U.S., Fat Joe and the Terror Squad join their Afro-Boricua counterpart to perform the year's pervasive "Lean Back" remix. And the sea of almost 20,000 screaming (and some sobbing) fans of all ages and races ripple enormous Puerto Rican, Dominican, Colombian, and Ecuadorian flags in the air. It looks like closing night at the summer Olympics.

Today, the stuff is increasingly invading the U.S. rap and r&b charts, and a whole crop of stars have major releases scheduled for this spring. Last month, S.O.B.'s even kicked off its weekly "Picante Fridays: Latin Rap & Reggaetón Fiesta" at Joe's Pub. Other Megaton top-billers—Zion y Lennox, Trebol Clan, Nicky Jam, Mickey Perfecto, and the genre's next great brown hope, Julio Voltio, who is on Tego's own Jiggiri/White Lion label—blur the lines between hip-hop and reggaetón culture. Like rappers, reggaetón artists are driven by the competition of freestyle battles. And the incorporation of the DJ into sets is becoming the industry norm. "Musically, reggaetón was born in a hip-hop environment, with a little bit of Jamaican dancehall and Puerto Rico's own tropical flavor and ritmo," says Vico C, one of the movement's founding fathers."

Yer mp3's:
Don Omar - Dale don mas duro
Ivy Queen - Matando
Tego Calderon - Bailalo Como Tu Quieras