With jazzy orchestra sounds, folkloric Afro-Boricua percussion, and political lyrics united over a ubiquitous dembow riddim, Tego Calderón’s album El Abayarde embodies the soul of reggaeton. Twenty years after its preliminary launch in 2002, the undertaking is a basic that’s as well timed and obligatory as ever, with each new pay attention revealing new layers.
When the Puerto Rican rapper emerged as one of many purveyors of reggaeton within the late Nineties, his bombastic persona, unapologetic Black delight, and undeniably slick lyricism rapidly received over crowds. However El Abayarde was a game-changer that set him aside as a legend.
The album was launched on Nov. 1, 2002 in Puerto Rico, below the label White Lion Information, and acquired unprecedented success for a sound that was nonetheless underground and censored by authorities. White Lion Information, based by Elias de León, turned a musical dwelling to Latin reggae and pioneers comparable to DJ Playero, and a few of White Lion’s artists would go on to change into stars like Daddy Yankee. But El Abayarde was among the many label’s early success tales: It offered 50,000 copies throughout its first week, and as soon as it was re-released internationally below a distribution take care of Sony BMG in 2003, the LP turned one of many first reggaeton initiatives to chart within the U.S.
Whereas Calderón made historical past with reggaeton, he was ambivalent in regards to the style at first. Born Tegui Calderón Rosario, he grew up in a family surrounded by conventional music, artwork, and Black delight. His mom, Pilar Rosario, was a poet and a trainer, and his father, Esteban Calderón Ilarraza, labored in administration but in addition sang and performed percussion for a salsa band. Calderón’s household moved to Miami, Florida at one level when he was younger; there, he was surrounded by completely different cultural influences. Calderón performed percussion for a rock band earlier than making a reputation for himself in rap circles. His perception in being inventive and unique was truly what him vital of reggaeton early in his music profession.
“At first, there was an excessive amount of caryaqueo in reggaeton,” he informed LA Times in a rare 2005 interview, saying artists would steal from Jamaican reggae. It wasn’t till he attended a reggaeton social gathering in Outdated San Juan that he fell in love. “I danced the entire evening and thought, ‘No surprise that is so well-liked. I gotta do reggaeton.’”
He recorded “Cosa Buena” in 2001, a tune that launched his deep voice and inclination in direction of Afro-rooted percussion. Within the lyrics, he calls out different rappers, taunting, “They assume they’re actual however they don’t compose.” The observe established him as a groundbreaking, dexterous rapper and inventive thinker, and one 12 months later, he bolstered his talents by releasing his debut album El Abayarde.
In 2022, as reggaeton dominates radio waves and streaming platforms, it will get additional away from its Black, marginalized roots. Nevertheless, El Abayarde stands as a journey again to the style’s true dwelling —and into the thoughts of Calderón as he paints the struggles of his group by 19 boisterous tracks.
The album begins with a haunting but triumphant melody that builds steadily, incorporating new devices — violin, keys, percussion — earlier than bursting right into a salsa-driven dembow riddim. A younger voice, recognized solely by the identify Luisma, declares the arrival of “el abayarde,” a nickname derived from a small ant with a mighty chunk, the type of underestimated pressure that you simply don’t mess with.
A tangle of drums drop in earlier than the album goes into the title observe, pushed by a growling trumpet and a sluggish boom-bap. The association is a nod to basic jazz influences whereas Calderón boasts about his lyrical expertise and Black delight. “The place does my taste come from?” he asks in Spanish, answering the query himself: “Me inculcaron semillita de esta cultura/Desde la cuna, agradecido de esta negrura” (“They instilled in me a bit seed of this tradition/from the crib, grateful from this Blackness”).
In an interview with NPR in 2008, Calderón made it clear that the aim of his music was to uplift Black individuals, all the time. “I began to do music from a Black beat, in order that Blacks can really feel proud being Black,” Calderón informed All Songs Thought-about. “El Abayarde” is true to that spirit — a illustration of a loud and proud negritud, which continues to be uncommon in Latin America amid cultural erasure, racist oppression, and stereotypes that place whiteness as the usual of magnificence.
Singles comparable to “Al Pure” supply up gutsy, sexual lyrics, whereas “Guasa Guasa,” a diss observe aimed toward hip hop duo Lito y Polanco, went past an ordinary tiraera and have become an iconic hit. The album reaches one in all its many peaks, showcasing how wealthy it’s in that means and religious fortitude, when the sixth observe, titled “interlude,” explodes into bomba. The observe is a version of Afro-Puerto Rican musician Don Félix Alduen’s bomba tune “Oí Una Voz Y Me Le Da Memoria,” and it contains a call-and-response that could be a signature of West African sounds whereas the singers re-introduce Calderón.
Bomba is a rhythm synonymous with resistance in Puerto Rico; it became a symbol of survival and pleasure in the course of the period of slavery. The drums used within the bomba custom are referred to as barriles, and had been comprised of the wooden of storage rum barrels. The album boasts two bomba interludes, making it really feel as if conventional festivities have been woven into the material of Calderón’s hip hop and reggaeton sounds. It’s a triumph for the Afro-Caribbean diaspora that incorporates the sentiment of “sankofa:” to retrieve the great from the previous in an effort to use it within the current.
Elders of various West African traditions have lengthy spoken about drums as a “transportation device” between worlds. After the primary bomba interlude, Calderón breaks into the vital observe “Loíza.” Via his political and rebellious raps, Calderón makes use of the tune to sentence the oppression and criminalization of the Black group in Loíza. In a 2003 interview, Calderón shared that whereas he lived in Río Piedras most of his life, his father would consistently take him to the traditionally Black pueblo of Loíza the place they participated in conventional gatherings, celebrating saints. “He instilled that love in me,” he stated on the time. Calderón even calls out the parable of racial equality and mestizaje, and people who really feel superior due to their proximity to whiteness: “Me quiere hacer pensar, que soy parte de una trilogía racial,” (“They need to make me assume I’m a part of a racial trilogy”) he raps, and later provides “Lambones, pal carajo España,” (“bootlickers to hell with Spain”), capturing types of racism which might be nonetheless true a long time because the album’s launch.
By together with his genuine opinions and true grievances with the system on such a well-liked undertaking, Calderón opened up area for conversations about injustices and racism in Puerto Rico. El Abayarde infused radical thought into reggaeton, following traditions of the style’s hip hop predecessors. At the moment, Black artists from Latin America like Colombian group ChocQuibTown proceed to push these concepts ahead with songs comparable to “Rebelión,” a brand new tackle the salsa basic “La Rebelión” by Joe Arroyo.
Along with “Guasa Guasa,”” songs comparable to “Poquito” and “No Me La Explota,” that includes Eddie Dee, turned a masterclass in dissing. They’ve their pitfalls: A few of the lyrics lean on hyper-masculinity tropes and homophobic insults that stay all too frequent within the tradition of hip hop. On the identical time, Calderón got here up battling in brutal underground rap battles, the place he additionally gained respect as one of many realest MC’s to ever hit the mic.
With a few of the style’s powerhouses within the credit just like the Dominican duo Luny Tunes, in addition to Puerto Rico’s personal DJ Nelson, Noriega, amongst others, the sound of the album is hard-hitting and in a position to survive the take a look at of time. Within the promiscuous observe “Dominicana”, he celebrates negras and Afro-antillean brotherhood and delight, reimagining the spell-binding salsa basic “Ojos Chinos” by El Gran Combo. And “Pa’ Que Retozen,” regarded as one of the best reggaeton songs ever made, lit up perreo dance flooring and marquesinas throughout Puerto Rico, in addition to the neighboring Dominican Republic, the place the album peaked at quantity 5. With a catchy acoustic riff that follows bachata preparations, uncooked percussion beats, and minimalist digital keys behind Tego’s unfiltered quips about letting all of it out on the dancefloor, the DJ Joe-produced tune remains to be an anthem.
Calderón packs the album with slang and colloquialisms particular to Puerto Rico – even the very phrase retozen is imbued with a deeper that means that defies direct translation. Within the Spanish dictionary, “retozen” is roughly outlined as “leaping or joyfully operating.” But the native Caribbean that means is extra in keeping with “play-fight” or “mess with one another.” Like most Afro-Caribbean slang, “retozen” is a bridge created by el bajo mundo (the barrio-rooted underground) to explain the fluctuating and unpredictable experiences of these on the margins of society — the type of livelihood that static, established language of the Royal Spanish Academy can not seize. It additionally strikes on the coronary heart of what reggaeton means to so many: An artwork and a language of pleasure. It’s ironic then that on the time when Calderón was hitting the radio waves, the state was still waging a warfare on the style’s makers saying that they had been selling felony exercise. But, the music itself wasn’t an inciter of violence however moderately an outlet from it.
Calderón’s immaculate palabreo and easy stream proceed to solicit admiration. In August, Bad Bunny wore a T-shirt with one of many legend’s album covers, rapper Residente talked about him in his now-infamous diss to J Balvin, and Spanish singer Rosalía pledged allegiance to him on her tune “Bulerías.” Identify-dropping the style pioneer is equal elements paying respects and equal elements vying for a type of street-cred throughout the music area. Artists from Panamá, comparable to El Basic, helped form the style, and Daddy Yankee is basically credited with breaking information with “Gasolina.” However it’s Calderón’s contributions which have change into a go-to reference for perreo and the intrinsic resistance of reggaeton.
Calderón is understood for declining interviews with media and being extremely selective with collaborations (he famously declined to change into the face of Diddy’s clothes line Sean John). Although he got here again to the scene briefly in 2022 for “Chambean,” a collab with controversial bori rapper Cosculluela, he solely contributed a number of phrases to the refrain, leaving listeners hoping for extra. His tendency to keep away from the highlight has solely strengthened his co-sign as he’s identified to remain true to his convictions.
His influence on the style is ubiquitous — he is likely one of the makers of its blueprint. At the moment, because the music business machine continues spurning out simple to eat pop-reggaeton tracks, El Abayarde reminds us of the style’s gritty, rebellious, uncooked spirit. The LP stands as a historic second that not solely captivated the world: It opened a portal to liberation.
