Translation by Dan Whitesell
Last Thursday, August 20th, after two years of not performing in Cuba due to commitments in the U.S., Gente de Zona played at the corner of 23rd and Malecón. The duo is currently, without a doubt, the most popular Reggaeton band on the island and their show, which included the participation of other popular musicians from Havana such as Descemer Bueno and «el Micha», attracted, by conservative estimates, over sixty thousand people, even though it had received almost no media promotion.
The day after the show a good friend of mine, who is a professor at the Instituto Superior de Arte and who lives in one of the buildings close to where the event took place, called me on her phone, surprised not so much by the size of the crowd gathered to hear the concert but by its diversity. Although young people predominated, there were all ages there and –to the even greater surprise of my friend—many of those in attendance didn’t fit the image of the marginal characters who are supposedly the primary consumers of Reggaeton, or of its indigenous version, Timbatón.
Reggaeton circulates popularly because it fits into the practices of «Resolver»
I explained to her that that was not surprising, because Reggaeton attracts more than just one age group; it’s more than just a generational phenomenon. I also mentioned that it’s a mistake to associate it with marginality or to view it simply as paradigmatic of a new kind of wealth. Reggaeton circulates popularly because it fits into the practices of «Resolver» (meaning, in this case, to buy affordable pirated copies of music on the street), that are intrinsic to Cuban’s contemporary psychology. Of course my friend was horrified by what I told her, particularly when I mentioned that personally I really liked Gente de Zona.
With respect to the preceding anecdote, there is an excellent interview with Juan Formell, the founder and long-time director of the internationally renowned Cuban dance band Los Van Van, shortly before he died, that comes to mind. In the interview he stated something that was subsequently widely circulated on the Internet: «… Cuban Reggaeton is not bad compared to other versions of it from other places. It’s better to mix everything together. If Reggaeton, for example, has now become popular and people enjoy it, we should work together on it.»
I also remembered that, about the same time that interview appeared on the Internet, one of the Cuban television channels presented a program dedicated to the brilliant essayist and art critic Rufo Caballero and his legacy with respect to the video clip in Cuba. One of the participants on the program commented on how surprisingly well Rufo danced Reggaeton.
What role does music (in this case, Reggaeton) play in the constitution of morality?
All of this leads me to pose the following questions: What are the real causes and consequences of the popularity of Reggaeton in Cuba? What role does music (in this case, Reggaeton) play in the constitution of morality? Do those of us from the social sciences in Cuba have the ability to specify these causes and consequences without falling into reductionisms and tautologies? The goal of academic research is not to automatically legitimate, justify or endorse Reggaeton simply because it represents a musical cultural practice that sustains a discourse, which is obviously subject to valuation but which can also be resignified by those who consume it. As an object of study, and a prime example of urban culture, it is both possible and feasible to construct highly relevant research questions that interrogate the phenomenon and that are important not only for musicologists but also for Cuban social scientists in general.
The primary objection to Reggaeton in Cuba concerns the objectification of the female body in most of the lyrics and the emphasis placed on masculine pleasure, which is fundamental to the genre’s narrative. This has to do with the gender roles that have been imposed on all of us: the role of being in charge, of exercising power and of enjoying sexuality is assigned to men, while women are expected to be obedient and give pleasure with respect to male sexuality. Thus the critique of Reggaeton is based on the conviction that it is a very sexist manifestation. Yet this overlooks the fact that in other musical genres as well we find clear evidence of sexism. Misogyny has existed and exists in different kinds of music in particular and in the culture in general: it is not unique to Reggaeton.
Musical themes that express violence, sexist relations between partners or insults, are all reprehensible. That’s one thing, but it’s something else to state that Reggaeton is a male chauvinist dance because in the “perreo” (twerking) the female moves merely to provide pleasure to the man. Reggaeton might not considered as refined dancing, but it is done consensually, and that implies a mutual respect. True, it may reflect a hypersexualization of women as objects of desire and may not lead to their empowerment. At the same time, some of these critiques reflect a longstanding tradition of denying sexuality and pleasure to women. Because, when a girl rubs up against a boy, is it done solely to please him or does she also feel pleasure in the movement? There’s another point as well: it’s also about sharing the joy of dancing, which is another form of communication and, of course, not exclusively a sexual one.
A true equality in expression requires equality and dignity for all. Despite many instances of misogyny found in Reggaeton’s lyrics, it is possible to also identify a defense of women’s sexual freedom in its dancing and performance. It is possible to ascertain that women partake in sexual desire and pleasure in the perreo, not as passive objects, but as co-protagonists. Perreo’s erotic potential resides in the possibility of both seducing and being seduced in a context of choice.
In any case, a general appraisal of Reggaeton’s controversies in Cuba corroborates one of music’s many benefits to us and its contribution to our very complex symbolic world, often exposing in the process the contradiction between reality and morality. That is, Reggeaton in Cuba –or timbatón– questions social conventions, breaks norms, subverts social patterns and codes, generates new spaces of exchange and pleasure, and also promotes an image of social success that devalues meritocracy as the main vehicle for social mobility. Gente de Zona, moreover, has validated this view with its extraordinary international success. Because, indeed, la gozadera has no borders!
Dan Whitesell is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, at U.C.L.A., writing his dissertation on aesthetic debates that took place in 1960s Cuba. He is also the translator of Leonardo Acosta´s Cubano Be Cubano Bop: One Hundred Years of Jazz in Cuba (2003).