Around the turn of the millennium, Underground began reaching a mainstream audience, effectively shedding its underground subculture status. This newfound commercial success and growing fears of copyright infringement had a profound effect on the sound of Underground (50). Not only do more original (as in not just remixed Hip-Hop, Dancehall) tracks make their way to the nightclubs, the music of the clubs begins to inform the new Underground. The new club-style Underground begins sounding like techno (53), though this is not to say that Dancehall and Hip-Hop completely disappear from the musical language. Daddy Yankee’s 1999 “Todas Las Yales” perfectly articulates this flux.
The name of the song references “yales” which is synonymous to “Panamanian slang guiales, which itself adapts gyal, a Jamaican creole version of girl or girls” (53). And yet, if you only heard the first couple of seconds of the song you’d think it was any other techno/ club hit. A buzzy techno beat gives way to Daddy Yankee saying “ritmo” or ‘rhythm’t in a sort of strobing manner. Finally, 26 seconds in, the unmistakable riddim takes form with Daddy Yankee’s rapid style rapping.
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Reggaeton, Raquel Z. Rivera; From Musica Negra to Reggaeton Latino (Wayne Marshall)
https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1405/Reggaeton
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