In the genre’s early days, many artists eithercalled New York home or spent significant time there.Furthermore, underground, reggaeton’s predecessor, washeavily inflected with Nuyorican (New York PuertoRican) hip hop sensibilities. Reggaeton is even sometimescalled a subgenre of hip hop.

due to its transnational circuit throughout Latin Americaand the United States.Reggaeton’s sound is characterized by Spanish-language rap or singing over a definitive“boom-ch-boom-chick”beat pattern typically calleddembow,

The explosiveness of its parting lyrics, its referencesto drugs and vigilantism caught the public’s attention and broke boundaries: Something taboo was being uttered on a record for the firsttime in a popular song by a Black woman entertainer. Bradford’s gamble on “a Black woman nobody’s ever heard of,” as the popular musichistorian Elijah Wald put it in a phone interview, was “a huge conceptual leap.

In its nearly three and a half minutes, Smith sings in a robust vibrato atop horns and woodwinds, lamenting alove affair that brings her a boatload of pain. This is heartbreak that demands a multitude of emotions, so it’s no surprise that she wouldlean into her pronounced theater-world chops.

In doin so, it gives s1gn1 cance to all t ose _an orientation 1n time. g .h' h vertheless help to make us f i nee w 1c ne indefinable aspects O exper _e f . music is a constant, reminding I th · ft whirl o time . · what we are. n e sWI ·d which we asp1re. Art thou d of that towar us of what we were an 1m . t ill ennoble thee.