Still Dancing as Reggaetón Endures – Music Review | ‘Block Party’ – New York

“A few years ago, when reggaetón radio stations were sweeping the nation, excited record executives thought they had discovered the second coming of hip-hop. Reggaetón, the youth-centric Spanish-language genre incubated in Puerto Rico, was going to take pop music by storm.

Or maybe not. These days, the excitement is much more muted; no recent reggaetón single has exploded like Daddy Yankee’s 2004 smash, “Gasolina,” which did more than any other song to boost the genre. No doubt some executives have revised their expectations. Could it be that reggaetón has more in common with another of its recent ancestors, dance-hall reggae?

Maybe reggaetón is destined to endure somewhere just outside the mainstream, spawning the occasional crossover hit while keeping its core audience happy. Or maybe, by winning fans throughout the Spanish-speaking world and beyond, reggaetón has already succeeded on its own terms. Who ”” besides record-company accountants ”” cares about United States sales figures when a whole continent is dancing?”

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