Petra R. Rivera-Rideau’s article on reggaeton principally presents the musical genre, reggaeton, and its artists as a concept that has been racialized in the United States, similarly to how Puerto Ricans have been characterized as similar, but still a different sector from African Americans. She argues that reggaeton as simply hip-hop or simply Latino music as understood by the United States is not its true essence. The identity of reggaeton is complex and is a result of many different elements, mainly a diaspora that includes aspects of race, class, and gender.

Firstly, when discussing reggaeton, it is impossible to exclude Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina.” This track is the biggest reason for how reggaeton became introduced into the United States. However, the United States narrowly viewed the music as Latino and the the artists’ appearances were emphasized as “not quite black.” With this new style of music and its integration into U.S. society, an evolution of the music ensued. It became more popularized among radio stations, but at the same time, stereotypes started to develop and the term “Hurban” was implemented to describe the audience of the music. Hurban proves to be a very complex term comprised of the words Hispanic and urban. The Hispanic portion homogenizes the Latin American population as one very large audience. The other part of the word, urban, is actually an indirect way to refer to blackness, low class stature, and stereotypical occurrences that are part of urban areas, such as violence and crime. The author describes it as a counterpoint for the “homogeneous, white, middle-class, and suburban United States.” Hip-hop also contributes greatly to the meaning of Hurban as it has also been racialized as strictly a form of music for blacks.

Another factor besides race and class that contribute to the evolution of reggaeton is gender. Reggaeton has been compared to gangsta rap, which both stereotypically represent thug masculinity. The music is very sexualized and the rappers are often depicted as tough men who enjoy to party. However, as the author suggests, these comparisons are lyrically based, are often highlighted by the media, and are ultimately inadequate. The musicality and the diaspora that created reggaeton are being ignored.

As a result, the author effectively explains the misconceptions about reggaeton and delineates that reggaeton is a a way for “disrupting the boundaries between blackness and Latinidad that have become so entrenched in the United States.” Reggaeton can be seen as a way to understand cultural exchange because as it has spread, it has allowed more people to gain an understanding for its connections with hip-hop, its African diasporic history, and artists, like Notch can continue to demonstrate its distinct identity.

In the Chapter “Enter the Hurbans” by Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, she talks about how the rise of reggaetón came to be and how was perceived when it entered mainstream United States music. Rivera-Rideau’s central argument is that the U.S media has made reggaetón into something it is not. Rivera-Rideau’s point is that the U.S media has made the reggaetón singers into hypersexual people who are fairer-skinned than most of their Latin peers. The U.S media also portrays the singers as people from the “hood.” Daddy Yankee is the poster child for reggaetón because he is a lighter-skinned Latino who states that without reggaetón he would either be dead or in jail. Rivera-Rideau detests the fact that the U.S media also portrayed well-established Latin singers as “new discoveries.” Rivera-Rideau also dislikes the fact that hip -hop does not get credit for influencing reggaetón. Rivera-Rideau’s dream would be that race would no longer affect the music industry and it should be valued for what the music is and not where it comes from.

Reggaetón is a form of hip-hop that is often sung by Latin artists especially Puerto Rican artists. Reggaetón is associated with “urban” Puerto Rico. What Rivera-Rideau says this translates to is black, poor, thug Puerto Ricans. Reggaetón is often associated with Afro-Puerto Ricans and, because of this, it has been put in this box with hip-hop. The box that reggaetón and hip-hop share is they one that is called “Hood Origin Music.” This means that they both are seen as coming from poorer areas of cities which means they are associated with drugs, sex, and gang violence. Therefore, they are associated with a “lower” class of society and may never be seen as socially acceptable. Reggaetón is male dominated genre, but the singers are portrayed as being super sexy Latinos. A classic example of this is Ricky Martin.  

The reason the cultural exchange between reggaetón and the U.S happened is because the U.S music industry saw the “hurban” population as an “untouched motherload,” meaning they saw dollar signs. As a result, many radio stations started broadcasting reggaetón and other Latin music. If the U.S music industry did not see financial potential for them in reggaetón, it would not have entered the average American’s vocabulary. The U.S music industry say how the hurban population was not having a music directed at them, so they took it upon themselves to make reggaetón more available to them. The cultural exchange between the U.S and reggaetón is because the music industry wanted more money.

In this chapter, Rivera-Rideau argues that the racialization of reggaetón creates negative stereotypes that apply to all people of Latin American descent. The author seems to be incredibly frustrated with the way American media represents reggaetón and Latin Americans in general as well as hip hop and African Americans in general. The term “Hurban”, a combination of Hispanic and urban, is often used to describe the audience of reggaetón. However, the author argues that the association of reggaetón with urban areas is problematic. This is because in American media urban areas are typically depicted as being unsafe areas of crime, drugs, and violence. In terms of race, categorizing the music as “urban” marks it as being connected to Latin American and African American culture, which thus allows people to stereotype these cultures as being naturally violent and criminal. Additionally, the author argues that the term hurban marks reggaetón as a Hispanic only music genre, which completely ignores the African disaporatic roots of the music. The American media views reggaetón as being not quite black, which the author claims is bad because it has black roots but also is not a completely black genre. It is difficult to understand what the author is finding a problem with, because to claim that reggaetón is black music would be to ignore all of its non-black roots, but regardless the author finds fault with calling reggaetón “not quite black”.

In terms of class, the author argues that because reggaeton is described as being urban, and because the words “urban” and “inner-city” are associated with blacks, Latinos, violence, and crime, reggaeton is stereotyped as being “lower-class” as are black people, Latinos, hip-hop, and urban areas. The classification of the genre based on class and race force a connection between the two, and thus most American media coverage of urban areas overlooks the racist policies that created the economic issues in the urban areas and instead the blame is put on the black and Latino communities.

Finally, the author seems to argue that reggaeton and hip-hop are wrongly depicted in the American media as being inherently misogynistic music genres. The author argues that the media depicts Latin American women (as well as Latin Americans in general) as being hypersexualized, promiscuous party people, which are negative stereotypes that affect Latin Americans as a whole. “Urban” men are typically depicted as violent thugs, and thus as a result, those who perform and create reggaeton are also considered violent thugs at times.

These negative stereotypes of the music genre and the cultures it was born out of prevent the public from truly understanding the diverse roots of the genre and the people that create it.

The central argument in this chapter is that the racialization of the Reggaetón in the U.S. has created the social prejudice to the hispanic artists in the same way they did to the African American musicians. The images and messages delivered by the media portray the hispanic and African American as violent, dangerous and deviant and their value as a counterpoint towards the mainstream value. The music genre, like raggaetón and hiphop are considered as “urban”, for their hyper sexual lyrics. Hence, The negative portraits of the music genre only will deepen the racialization and impose negative influence on the race itself.

The process of racialization represented Reggaetón and communities associated with it as “not quite black” and therefore, makes the artists less likely to assimilate into the mainstream. Then, with the false delivery which only deepens the negative influence toward the Hurban musicians by the media, people start to relate the Reggeatón with the hiphop music and even consider the booming music genre as part of the hiphop culture. With the efforts the Reggaeneros has done, it gradually become a music genre. However, its situation only gets even worse. The economic factor actually plays an important role in the evolution of the Reggaetón. Since most of the artists who performed Reggaetón are from lower class and poverty afflicted neighborhood, their lyrics always reflect their true wishes. However, it gives the media a reason to portray the reggaetón as the urban and deviant without the proper coverage of the underlying reasons.

The Raggaetón composes an interesting way to help understand and learn more about the cultural exchange. I think the media plays a major role in shaping people’s view towards the newly booming subject. Right now, most of media covers the news with prejudice, which poses the difficulty to the people to actually understand the subjects. For instance, without totally understating the social background, it is too partial to just relate the Reggaetón or Hiphop as deviant and violent.

Rivera-Rideau’s central argument in this chapter is that- reggaeton was a vehicle for the evolution of culture, behaviours, and the identity of Latin American artists and the portrayal of Latin American culture in the media since the Latin Boom of the 1990s until today. He argues that the racialisation of reggaeton led to the creation of a Latin American racial class between black and white on the racial spectrum with association common to both groups, but especially to black communities and hip hop.

Rivera explores Daddy Yankee’s original smash hit brought reggaeton to the United States despite his singing being in Spanish, he appealed widely to English audiences as well. Gasolina was about historic sound, self identity, otherness, race, and place. The US. media at the time ignored this history and the complex themes that reggaeton explored, increasingly labelling it as Puerto Rican, and then Latino. This emphasis on portraying Daddy Yankee as new, and only sparingly mentioning his already illustrious career in reggaeton in Puerto Rico fit well into the tendency of the US. record labels to present their Latino artists as “new discoveries.” These artists, Enrique Iglesias. Shakira, were presented in the Latin boom in stereotypical ways; hypersexual, “hot tamales” The media also emphasized these artist’s whiteness- a racialization of performers of Latino descent. This phenomenon created a racial niche in which Latinidad artists occupied between white and black- the Puerto Rican being closer to black than white, and other artists like Shakira and Ricky Martin, nearer to white on the racial spectrum and capable of being assimilated into whiteness, fit. In this way, music was used to create racial classes and divisions which it in turn reinforced. The artists that followed would try to fit into these stereotypical moulds. The media also reinforced distinctions between Latin American artists and African American artists and therefore widened the already existing divisions between Latin American communities and black Latin Americans whose authenticity of identity then became suspect.

The influence that the media and record labels had in the development of Latin American music, its racialization and therefore the racialization of its performers is undeniable and Rivera Rideu makes this clear when he describes the creation of the Hurbans largely through the development of Latinadad culture and music. He describes the impact companies seeking to segment their markets to more easily market their music to groups as a driver of the divisions between black and Latinadad groups.

In the formation of a Hurban group- Rivera notes the importance of music and commercial companies and record labels in developing our identities. The new Hurban group also references the importance of place in forming our identities. In this way, reggaeton shares linkages with black American identity in its roots in urban life. In both Puerto Rico, and the United States of America, the term urban carries with it implications of blackness. Scholars such as Robin D. Kelley and Murray Forema reference urban areas as being predominantly black spaces. This is especially evident in terms like “inner city,” which references urban black neighbourhoods. In this way, concepts of place and race play into each other inseparably. These generalizations simplify the complexity of black and Latinadad culture, perhaps again in a bid to simplify a single market for music record labels and corporate entities.

Rivera then links the association of place- “urbanness,” with gender-” masculinity,” by noting the relationship between perceptions of urbanness, with masculine black “thugs.” These traits make black and Latino groups counterculture to the white middle class majority. Scholars like Linda Chavez, then propose hypotheses that African Americans and Puerto Ricans are viewed as experiencing cultural poverty, and therefore beyond and without true need of intervention or assistance. Rivera notes how these observations ignore the racial, colonial, and exploitative roots of these problems  now explained away as being cultural. Rivera describes a shift in the cultural ownership of Hip Hop from being seen singularly black, to being both Latinadad and black-owned around the 1990s

Common links between Hip hop and reggaeton are further explored as describing their places of origin, describing the violence of urban centers, the partying, drug use, and emphasized sexuality. The media portrayed the inner cities this way, and the music produced describing them this way and all of this worked together to reinforce the already dominant narrative that hip hop and reggaeton were counterculture.

Gender hierarchies shaped the evolution of reggaeton in that reggaeton described the day to day life of Latinadad staying in urban centers where gender hierarchies were a part of everyday life, and the differences between gender were start and clear. Similarly, class hierarchies, and race influenced its evolution because as artists composed their music, they sought to tell the authentic story of the lives they lived and singing about race, gender and class all served to make these issues more public and mainstream. This all served to make reggaeton viewed as being contrary to general culture which was viewed as being more conservative and restrained.

Reggaeton is useful as a way to understand cultural exchanges in that it is a genre of music which has influenced and been influenced by a plethora of other music genres and the observation of how it has evolved and continues to evolve over time exhibits the same way in which cultures interact and creolize.

Rivera argues that reggaeton’s history has been influenced significantly by U.S. interpretations of it and the media and record companies have often portrayed it in ways, whether incidentally or intentionally, that polarized the groups that produced it and made them seem separate and distinct despite their common origins in many cases. He ends the chapter by exploring the possible futures that reggaeton and hip hop may have and their continued rise in popularity on global platforms like Youtube.

Rivera-Rideau argues in this chapter on the development of Reggaeton as a popular music genre in the United States. He mainly accredits this to the hit song “Gasolina” by Daddy Yankee and other artists such as Shakira. Rivera then goes on to discuss how these artists when making songs that appealed to an English speaking audience portrayed an “appearance of whiteness” suggesting that Latino culture was being stereotyped for the sake of profits. This rationalization has two sides to it. On one side it can portray Latino culture as a bunch of people who love to party and on the other hand they can be portrayed in a similar light to people in the USA to help artists push their genre into the mainstream.

Rivera-Rideau’s central argument in this chapter is that Reggaetón has become racialized as Latino in the United States in the same way that Hip-hop has been racialized before it. The racialization of these genres of music are damaging because these genres are portrayed by the media as deviant and criminal. Because of these portrayals in the media, Reggaetón and rap have both come to be known as urban (or hurban in the case of Reggaetón), gangster, and violent. When these genres are portrayed negatively and then associated with an entire race of people, it reduces the people, the music, and the culture to simple negative stereotypes.

Originally, Reggaetón and Latin music in general was not portrayed positively but also was not seen as hoodlum. The first artists to popularize Reggaetón had lighter skin and were portrayed as discoveries and as sexualized, spicy Latinos or Latinas. One example of this is Ricky Martin who is much whiter and was one of the first to bring Latin music to the US. Ricky Martin. Ricky Martin was never portrayed as hoodlum, he was portrayed as sexy and almost white. As Reggaetón evolved and more Afro-Latinos began to get into the genre, it became seen in a more negative light like rap. Another factor that contributed to the negative portrayal of Reggaetón in the US is the fact that many of the artists who performed Reggaetón were immigrants who were usually lower class and lived in poor urban areas. The economic status and living conditions of these artists made it easier for the media to portray the artists and the entire genre as urban and hoodlum.

Reggaetón is an interesting area of study that may help us learn more about cultural exchanges in America. In Reggaetón we can see that some artists have made an attempt at fusing Reggaetón and rap for example N.O.R.E however this has caused push back from African American and Latino communities. This may be indicative of the situation that Latin american immigrants face in the United States. Latin American immigrants may attempt to assimilate into American culture by attempting to connect to African Americans with whom they share some cultural and ethnic identity however when they attempt this there is often a push back from the African American community. These Latin American immigrants seem to face the same problems when they try to connect with White Americans which puts them in a strange place because they are not quite White and not quite Black.