Reggaeton is a popular style of Latin urban music that had its origins in Puerto Rico during the early 1990s. It was influenced by dancehall music and American hip-hop as well as Caribbean music. This type of music features both rapping and singing mainly in Spanish. Reggaeton features a special dembow rhythm beat first produced in Jamaica in the 1980s and the name itself is a combination of the word reggae (a type of music from Jamaica) and the suffix –tón which is used in Spanish to show something is bigger or greater. 

Reggaeton began in the poorer neighborhoods of San Juan, Puerto Rico and originally featured lyrics about the challenges facing young people in that area in the 1990s. It was an underground music that was often recorded in carports known as marquesinas and then distributed informally in the streets by way of cassette tapes. Many of these carports were located in social housing complexes but the cassettes were still of a good enough quality that within a short time youth of all social classes became fans.

Reggaeton and its associated hip-hop style of baggy clothing was banned in schools in the mid to late 1990s and was often suppressed by the police. However, this new music style began to become more popular as it was used in election campaigns by politicians to appeal to younger voters in the early 2000s. One of the earliest Reggaeton acts named Daddy Yankee even appeared in a 2006 Pepsi commercial. In the same year, Don Omar’s tune King of Kings was the highest ranked Reggaeton album on the US charts.

Reggaeton finally made a huge name for itself in 2017 when Luis Fonsi debuted Despacito featuring Daddy Yankee. The music video for this song reached over 1 billion views in under three months and became one of the best-selling Latin singles in US history. Today many young artists such as J Balvin and Maluma both from Colombia, as well as Ozuna, Farruko and Bad Baddy all from Puerto Rico are continuing to have great success in this genre consistently topping the Latin charts. 

Selena was the youngest of her family and began singing in public at the age of nine with her older brothers. At the age of 11, she started recording professionally. Culturally, women could not sing Tejano music in the eighties, but Selena was persistent and won a music award in her genre in 1987, an award that she went on to win 8 more times!

In 1992, Selena married her guitarist Chris Perez and they moved to Corpus Christi. A song from her album of the same year, entitled Como la flor, is one of her best-known songs. In 1994 Selena released another album titled Amor prohibido that became one of the best-selling Latin albums in the United States.

Selena was a sensation. She was known for her hair styles and clothes, and began designing and manufacturing her own clothing line and even opened two stores. In 1994, she hired a woman by the name of Yolanda Saldívar to manage the new stores. Unfortunately, this woman stole money from the family and when Selena confronted her, Saldívar shot her. Selena died a few hours later in the hospital.

After her death in 1995, people began to refer to Selena as the Mexican Madonna. In her honor, Texas radio stations played her music non-stop for days. More than 60,000 people attended her funeral and Selena appeared on the cover of People magazine and the New York Times. Two weeks after her death, George W. Bush, then Governor of Texas, declared her birthday Selena Day in Texas because, according to him, she represented the essence of South Texas and its mixed culture.

Image by Aged Pixel

It seems that nothing frustrates learners of a foreign language more than idioms. Idioms are those phrases that cannot be translated directly from one language to another. They often involve turns of phrase, animals, colors or emotions in strange combinations! Here are some amusing idioms from various languages that, when translated directly, would make any foreigner to the language scratch their head.

He has been blue. = He has been sad.

He was caught red-handed. = He was caught in the act.

Por si las moscas (in case of flies!) = Just in case.

Andar como perros y gatos (walk like dogs and cats) = to always be arguing.

Das Blaue von Himmel versprechen (to promise the blue from the sky) = to promise someone the moon.

Tomaten auf den Augen haben (to have tomatoes on your eyes) = to be oblivious to what’s going on.

The tango reached a wider audience in the early 1900s, when it was brought to Paris, France by Argentinian sailors. By the years leading up to World War I it was a worldwide sensation. Upper class Argentinians back home that had previously turned their nose up at it due to its associations with criminals and the lower classes, now embraced it and the previously lewd lyrics were cleaned up. By the early 1930s the tango was in its golden age and no one person better epitomizes this era than the singer Carlos Gardel.

Born abroad in 1890, Gardel moved to Argentina at the age of two and grew up in the Abasto neighborhood of Buenos Aires. After having started his career singing in bars and private parties he soon rose to fame with his beautiful baritone voice and photogenic features. He began touring internationally in the 1920s and was wildly popular throughout Latin America. Unfortunately, his life was cut short when he died in a plane crash in 1935. His death at a young age has immortalized his image in Argentina. Luckily many of his recordings are still available for listening today. To view an original video clip of Gardel performing one of his most famous songs, Mi Buenos Aires Querido click here.

The tango remains popular today and tourists in large numbers descend on Buenos Aires every year to visit various venues in which to view live tango or even take lessons themselves. Opportunities to view the tango vary from impromptu dances on the streets to formal sit-down dinner shows featuring a variety of dancers and musicians. A student of mine who has recently returned from Buenos Aires highly recommends Bar Sur as THE place to go to see live tango in Buenos Aires.