2002-2008 The Golden Age of Reggaeton & Hip Hop En Español (Exclusive) part 1

 2002-2008 The Golden Age of Reggaeton & Hip Hop En Español part 1

By Reggaeton Party Mane 1

First off, I wholeheartedly disagree with the title.  This is a general consensus thing.  It's because the audiences in the 90's was very small.  We are at least referring to the core more dedicated audience.  Sure, Big Boy, El General and even Control Machete reached millions.  But the audience paying attention to the beefs between The Noise and La Industria, observing MC Ceja, Mexicano and Tempo as the successors to Vico C's throne and even fans of Vico C or Ivy Queen numbered only in the few hundreds of thousands.  But a lot has changed in recent times and this is what the first part is dedicated in covering.

The main difference between now and then is that Rap & Reggaeton used to be mostly regional.  It still is, when you consider overall talent, but with the main difference being that the biggest artists now receive a worldwide platform when back then they didn't.  As big as Vico C eventually became and even in the 90's, he went to Mexico and parts of South America, him (Vico) as an artist and the culture overall would mostly remain regional.  The artists from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic were mostly relegated to the Spanish Speaking Caribbean provinces and parts of the US with heavy Nuyorican/Dominican Populations like New York, Miami, Philadelphia, New Jersey etc...

  

Mexican-Chicano Rappers would mostly be relegated to Mexico and parts of the Western United States with the occasional Midwestern market like Chicago, Denver or Phoenix.  Panama would mostly be relegated to Panama and sometimes Colombia... when it got really big like La Factoria, El Chombo or Aldo Ranks, it would reach Mexico.  But big names from back then mostly remained regional.  That's why you didn't hear much about Spain in New York unless you were really into the Underground Urbano Music of the day.  Yes, CPV, Mala Rodriguez and a host of others did perform in NYC, but it was mostly relegated to small clubs despite them being big acts by the 2000's.

But when Tego Calderon broke through with 2002's "El Abayarde" it reintroduced this culture to the mainstream.  Let's not forget that El General and Vico C did the same exact thing in the 1990's but did not bring the rest of the culture with them.  The great difference is that Tego brought Ivy Queen, Daddy Yankee, Nicky Jam, Vico C, Wisin & Yandel and all the other hot Latin acts inside Reggaeton to the mainstream as well.  

Maybe if in 1991 the genre was as big as in 2002, then the same would have happened.  But only 5 years later, in 1996, the culture expanded to a similar stature as it would in 2002, with movements like The Noise, Playero and Cuentos De La Cripta in Panama, but they were mostly banned from mainstream platforms.  At first, it was due to the dirty lyrics which even resulted in government oppression, but even when the lyrics were cleaned up, they still did not want us in the mainstream.  Why is that?

Latino culture in Latin America was much different back then and mainstream Latino culture had different sensibilities compared to today.  There was a Latin American aristocracy that was threatened by the Urban underground movements which mostly represented poverty.  Although the great majority of Latin Americans lived in working class conditions or worse, the images we saw in the entertainment avenues of back then was much more flashy, brightly colored and "Fresa".  It was preppy.  The guys and girls they sold us on TV seldom looked like us in real life.  To males, they sold us the images of types like Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, and Carlos Ponce.  To girls it was Fey, Thalia and Paulina Rubio.  Real "Fresa" types which is the antithesis of what Urbano culture was all about back then.  Boy have things changed...  Today, Urbano culture is sometimes more Fresa than Pop culture.  Just look at Manuel Turizo.

So it seemed there was this sorta of Aristocratic backlash versus Urbano culture that kept it held down for so many years despite the music being really popular with certain crowds.  But slowly, the Fresa rich kids started listening to our stuff too and they were gradually making their parents accept our culture as well.  But one key difference is that Tego made a masterpiece.  It is #2 on our greatest Urbano albums of all-time list.  Had that album not been the great work of art it is, the doors would have only been open halfway at best and not everyone would have gotten through.  The reason being is that its quality made many outside our culture come in and have a listen.

It was the perfect formula of Underground attention crossing over to the mainstream, a classic work, record breaking sales and something else that had people wanting more.  Personally, I disagree with 2002-2007 being the golden age.  For me it's 1994-2001.  For even bigger Old Schoolers it is 1987-1993.  But we are entering the era in which this culture for the first time reached the millions in terms of dedicated followers. 

But Tego's breakthrough success was not overnight.  Well it was and it wasn't.  First let's talk about the cultural success of Tego Calderon's "El Abayarde".  This was not the first time an Urbano album was widely accepted and hailed internationally.  1993's "Xplosion" by Vico C was a big international sensation and sold somewhere around 100,000 units in its time which was amazing for those days.  1996's "Mis Ojos Lloran Por Ti" by Big Boy was reported by MP Records to have sold over 300 thousand units worldwide.  El Chombo with 1997's "Cuentos De La Cripta 2" charted in Mexico and went platinum within that country.  The Noise 7 had similar successes in Venezuela that same year and has sold 300 thousand units worldwide, according to DJ Negro.

But Tego Calderon's "El Abayarde" had a different impact.  First, it sold 50,000 units in its first week of sales which was astonishing back then.  But what was even more of a blessing was the bootlegging.  "El Abayarde" by Tego Calderon is one of the most bootlegged albums of all time.  In Latin America where most people could not afford to buy an original Compact Disc which averaged at around $13-15 (US Dollars), they bootlegged the hell out of Tego Calderon.  And this is what led to "El Abayarde" becoming the widespread phenomenon it was throughout Latin America.  Tego owes his entire career to bootleggers.

That's why his impact was so sudden.  No one in the Reggaeton world foresaw this.  Tego was hot at the time, but there were many artists more popular than him including Ivy Queen, Daddy Yankee, Baby Rasta & Gringo, Wisin & Yandel, Eddie Dee, Tempo, Nicky Jam, Don Omar, Hector & Tito among others...  So no one expected Tego to sell that well.  He had some buzz, but it didn't really become huge until the month "El Abayarde" came out in Puerto Rico which was November of 2002.  

Tego barely had any hits before "El Abayarde" came out.  In fact, most of those songs he released prior did not become hits until he included them in 2004's "El Enemy De Los Guasibiri".  "El Acabose" from La Mision 2 was very well received with a now lost music video as well as his appearance on "En Peligro De Extincion" with Eddie Dee.  But most of Tego's songs from then were not big hits.  That is until "Cosa Buena" came out in Summer 2002.  That was a very big hit.  Many people bought "El Abayarde" thinking the song was on there but it wasn't.

Regardless, it was a toss up whether Tego's debut would do well or not.  But in the month of the album's release the singles "El Kambumbo" and "Pa Que Retozen" were released on radio and tv full with a music video campaign.  That song "Pa Que Retozen" struck a chord with the audience.  Around the same time the Luny Tunes bootleg with "Al Natural" came out.  The song, originally featured Yandel, who was then cut from the final tracklist and replaced with an additional verse from Tego to evade any negative impact the bootlegs might have had on sales.  On the contrary, the bootlegs helped build up hype for "El Abayarde".  And the Yandel version was eventually released in 2004's "El Enemy De Los Guasibiri" which was a compilation album with 3 new songs.

The release of "Pa Que Retozen" as a lead single is what caused everyone to want and go out to buy "El Abayarde" back when music stores used to be physical.  Remember Tower Records?  In Puerto Rico it was the famous 'Casa De Los Tapes' where everyone rushed to buy the newest Reggaeton product.  So Tego's seemingly overnight success pretty much came out of nowhere.  No one saw it coming.

But the success was anything but overnight.  In the 1990's the underground movements from Puerto Rico, which is how Reggaeton evolved; including famous projects like Playero 37 and 38, The Noise 1, and DJ Eric's "Street Style" were outlawed by the Puerto Rican govt for its perceived lewd content citing explicit lyrics about drugs, sex and street violence.  These underground productions tended to depict true to life realities affecting the most impoverished neighborhoods of Puerto Rico at that time and a message that would later resonate with Latin Americans in other countries who were going through the same struggle.

Then, in 1995 the 'Clean Lirics' era began.  All those Underground albums started coming out with a label that read 'Clean Lirics' allowing them to be sold as the content had been "cleaned up".  This lasted until the early 2000's.  Although Hector & Tito came out with the first Explict Lyric album since 1995 in 1998's "Violencia Musical", the explicit lyrics wave wouldn't catch on for a few more years.  And Producers preferred the censorship at first so as to avoid any potential repression from authority.  It wasn't until DJ Blass and "Reggaeton Sex" broke the mold in the year 2000 that dirty lyrics became cool again.

For years, Reggaeton and Spanish Hip Hop fought to be recognized in the mainstream but it was continuously denied.  Despite record breaking sales, the limited audience was making artists go broke.  Because they would sell 100,000 units but the lack of mainstream exposure limited the amount of bookings artists could get back then.  You can only perform in the same Puerto Rican nightclubs and caserios so often.  The genre needed to grow or it was going to fade away.

Thankfully, those record sales had major record companies calling since the late 90's but the first contracts they offered were mostly unfair to the artists and provided little ownership upon their respective intellectual property.  Some like Maicol y Manuel and Rey Pirin took the chance with a varying degree of results.  El Chombo and DJ Negro were the only ones able to get joint venture deals with Sony for their respective 'The Noise' and 'Cuentos De La Cripta' brands in 1997, but the majority of Reggaeton/Rap artists were offered deals with far more restrictions than a joint venture.  

Ironically, the Underground artists who did not know anything about Publishing back then, knew that they could own their works through handshake 50-50 deals with the likes of companies like BM Records and VI Music.  These artists may have been from the barrio, but many of them owned their own material.  And this was the main demand that came from artists to the major labels that wanted to sign them.  But for the first few years, the major labels would mostly not budge and only offered the Underground artists standard deals.

So when Sony and Universal came knocking in 1999 trying to steal Don Chezina from Pina Records for $100,000, he said no to them, because they wouldn't let him retain ownership to his masters.  It took another 3 years until Juan Vidal, owner and CEO of the famed 'VI Music' obtained a joint venture partnership with Universal Latino in which Vidal kept ownership of all his works and whatever deals he made for those products.  That is why in 2024 Daddy Yankee was able to sell the rights to "Barrio Fino" for an astronomical sum because the deal he made with Juan Vidal in 2003 made Daddy Yankee and his label 'El Cartel Records' owner of all Yankee's masters and publishing.

So, the Reggaeton artists intelligently waited until the major labels came back with fairer deals, and they did.  As far as Tego... he had been trying to make a go of things since the early 90's and was rapping since the 80's.  He famously recorded for the classic underground album 'Mad Jam' by DJ Adam in 1995, but was kept off the final tracklist because Adam felt Tego had not found his voice yet.  But Adam kept his eye on Tego over the years and when he came back to him in 1999 after making some appearances on obscure albums like 'Crazy Boricuas 2' and 'The Cruce Underground 2',  Adam felt he was ready and brought him to Eddie Dee.

Eddie Dee had his own label via his deal with Boricua Guerrero.  This allowed him to sign artists.  He signed Tego after listening to his vast improvement as an artist.  Thankfully, Tego held no resentment towards DJ Adam and went to work on many of the classic underground songs that would form part of the "El Enemy De Los Guasibiri" compilation.  Tego also kept it mostly Hip Hop which limited his appeal but made him more valuable due to his authenticity as an artist.  It also made the times he would Rap over a Dembow beat more interesting and intriguing.

So after over a decade of grinding it out and paying his dues, Tego's album hits the store shelves and is a resounding success.  What no one expected is that Tego Calderon would be the artist planting the flag for the Urbano movement on an international stage.  Could it have been someone else, like Daddy Yankee or Don Omar?  Possibly, but Tego's works inspired those two to become even better versions of themselves elevating the game entirely.  It might have still worked, but it would not have been the same.  It had to be Tego Calderon as the 'Chosen One' who elevated Spanish Rap and Reggaeton on a worldwide stage.  And the people were the ones who made that choice.

To be continued in part 2...