Oye Mi Reggaeton Reggaeton’s Mixture of Music is a DJ’s Delight
By John Wilbert
If you have frequented a nightclub in the past year, you
probably heard something other than Hip-Hop and House music from the
DJ. It’s likely the dance-motivators you heard pounding from the club’s
sound system — a combination of Reggae, Salsa and Hip-Hop beats mixed
in with verses in both Spanish and English — was one of the newest and
proving to be more popular sounds on the scene: Reggaeton.
“Reggaeton is Reggae with Hip-Hop and some tropical Spanish feel to
it,” says Luis “DJ Speedy Jr.” Gonzalez, one of Florida’s most popular
Reggaeton DJs.
“If it wasn’t for Dancehall Reggae, Reggaeton wouldn’t be Reggaeton at all.”
This in-demand genre, considered to be a form of Spanish Hip-Hop, is becoming more mainstream by the day.
The Sound Has Spread
What started off as an underground form of music has blown up to the
point that radio stations are starting to change their format to
include more Reggaeton tracks, and some are even changing to a complete
Reggaeton format, according to DJ Speedy.
“The N.O.R.E. track ‘Oye Mi Canto’ last year turned everyone’s
attention,” says Speedy Jr., who spins at nightclubs in the Tampa Bay,
Fla., area. “It was the first song that grabbed non-Spanish people’s
attention.”
Now, a large and growing number of people want to hear Reggaeton every
time they set foot in a club. Speedy, who also spins Salsa, Hip-Hop,
Merengue, and regular Latin music, says he will spin Reggaeton more
than half of the night on nights scheduled to be primarily Salsa,
Hip-Hop, or Merengue club nights.
Reggaeton is popular right now up and down the East Coast, but Speedy
says it’s just a matter of time before the music catches the ear of
many listeners in the Dirty South and the Midwest.
Reggaeton from the Roots
DJ Speedy says he has been a fan of Reggaeton ever since he was a kid.
Speedy has been spinning Reggaeton tracks since he was 15 years old,
despite the controversy regarding negative connotations associated with
the lyrics of some Reggaeton songs.
“Reggaeton started just like Hip-Hop,” Speedy says. “In fact, it was so
bad in Puerto Rico that cops would pull you over and confiscate your
(Reggaeton) music. That was in ‘92-’93.”
DJ Speedy makes it a point to find the newest Reggaeton tracks that
people have not heard yet so Reggaeton will not become just another
overplayed and boring style of music. The 28-year-old DJ says if DJs
like himself do not continue to showcase new Reggaeton songs, chances
are that the genre will die out.
There currently are four Reggaeton artists who have crossed over into
popular American music. Speedy says Daddy Yankee, Pitbull, Tego
Calderón and Don Omar are the four most prominent household names in
Reggaeton music in the United States.
Speedy has opened up for Daddy Yankee and Pitbull concerts, and he has
had his own Reggaeton mixes played on radio stations in Orlando, New
Jersey, Philadelphia, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
For now, Speedy takes his preferred music to the clubs, and so whenever
Saturday comes around, you know where he will be and what he will be
doing the moment the doors open at Club Fuel in Ybor City, Fla., to the
moment they close. It’s non-stop Reggaeton. NCB
If you have frequented a nightclub in the past year, you
probably heard something other than Hip-Hop and House music from the
DJ. It’s likely the dance-motivators you heard pounding from the club’s
sound system — a combination of Reggae, Salsa and Hip-Hop beats mixed
in with verses in both Spanish and English — was one of the newest and
proving to be more popular sounds on the scene: Reggaeton. 
