Attack of the Pygmie Rappers: Reggaetoon 2005

Thursday night marked the very first Reggaeton concert event I've had the pleasure of attending. Reggaeton, basically, is a style of music that combines Caribbean beats with fast-paced rapping in Spanish. Although entirely done in Spanish, Reggaeton sources much of it's culture and style cues from US hip hop acts. The concert, pronounced Mega-ton, was spelled Megatoon. Please don't ask me why.

Oh, the comedy I saw. First of all, none of the band members stood over 5 feet tall, and their stature looked worse from their oversized US sports apparel.

The show itself consisted of 4 bands from Peru, each of which took the stage with a spotlight, a little fog machine, and accompaniment provided by CD player. It was nothing if not bare-bones. Do read on...

This is the first time in my life that I've ever been to a concert where 3 consecutive bands played 10 of the same songs. I would estimate over 90% of each band's set was spent singing Reggaeton hits that, get this, are from other bands. So, essentially what I saw was a revolving door of short Peruvian duos with microphones, doing covers of songs from other more popular current bands. How this differs from Karaoke, I've yet to figure out.

Though you see half naked girls in every Reggaeton video, dancing sexily, these dudes brought no girls with them at all. Instead, they asked for girls from the crowd to come up, and then shamelessly grinded them in the most sexual ways they could think of. Most embarrasingly, they pushed the girls heads to the floor and grinded them from behind. The Bolivian girls, usually pretty concervatice, looked pretty sheepish at that point.

Normally, I wouldn't be so bothered by this behavior from a music act, but they asked the girls their ages over the PA before grinding them. They ranged from 14-17 years old, which in reality means 12-15. Gross.

Then came the final insult. The last 3 bands that played, including the band pictured in this post, all CLOSED WITH THE SAME SONG. Wow. The song they closed with, Gasolina, is a hit from Daddy Yankee, who was admittedly nowhere near Bolivia at the time.

How can you sleep at night as a Peruvian Reggaeton musical artist? I just don't know.

Comments

[steven s bellido]

Hi there,
I was reading your page and I could not help to have a good laugh about your experiences in La Paz. I can tell u ...I relate. I was born un the US but since the age of 6 raised in La Paz until I finished High School and traveled to the US and at 21 finally joined the army (what an idea...) Anyhow I read the comments of this "conejo" dude and I would say Dont even bother reading his "black" wannabe writting style shit.
Is no insult to tell what impressions we really get out of wherever situation we encounter while visiting diferent countries. Some can be exciting and some others plain funny and hilarious. When I was a kid I used to watch this all day marathon shows on a very "popular" TV show and sometimes they would have this contests (this was broadcast life from a movie theater) and it used to be so much fun to watch...Jesus I almost always ended up crying laughing about the whole thing....Anyways , Nice page u made telling your experiences down there. Congrats
steven

[steven bellido]

hi test

[conejo]

oe conchatu mare hijo de la gran puta,
no me insulten a m gente peruano, gringo muthafuka talk shi get ur neck ripped by a peruvian uu bicth dunno wa u sayin all dis site is bullshi starigth

xavier REGGAETOON 1es
04167668142