Feminist reggeaton? Exists? Is it an oxymoron? The very idea produces arcades in the most orthodox groups from side to side, but it is true that with elbows the discourse that vindicates the struggle of women has infiltrated the urban genre from the beginning and it already seems to be reaching the mainstream stage, to the less as a subject that challenges him.
The most recent (and noisy) turning point is "I dog alone", The new single from Puerto Rican Bad Bunny duet with the female voice of his compatriot Nesi. The song has given rhythm, flow and a topic of conversation to the quarantine of the large Regetonan parishioners. It is certified by more than 120 million visits on YouTube in just three weeks and similar numbers on other platforms.
“You see her drinking from the bottle, the boys and girls want with her. She is over 20, the ID showed me, and in love she is incredulous, ”says the song, which in itself does not proclaim anything new. It is the story of a girl who claims her right to freely enjoy music and who does not accept “no slimy” on the dance floor, a place (or no-place) for pleasure but also for confrontation and to dispute the symbolic exercise of power. Although it is a letter that goes against the current with the most positioned reggeatón, it is not that it is a pioneering discourse. It could have been one more reggeatón.
The plus came with the video clip. The staging offers Bad Bunny himself dressed as a woman, or rather, as women, walking through various stereotypes of a female figure and putting himself in the shoes of those who enjoy the perreo down to which their songs invite but, naturally They reject that their wiggling be interpreted as an invitation to harassment.
Reggeatón has historically been accused of being a misogynistic musical genre that mocks women and hypersexualizes them. From its irruption in the late 90's to its current planetary apotheosis (they already call it "the new pop"), female participation in this universe has been at least scarce and the representation it has made of women has consisted of images in which they are presented as objects of desire or as hysterical. Therefore, everything related to this culture has been instituted as the antithesis of any feminist militancy.
However, neither is reggeatón the only macho music, nor is it true that the voice of women remained silent within this current of the cultural industry. Nor that Bad Bunny is the standard bearer of a battle that in this particular case has been going on for two decades.
"No, take it easy"
Beyond the transformation into a woman of its protagonist, the video of Bad Bunny, digested by himself, offers a tasting of various discursive elements that go in the opposite direction to the aesthetics and even the ethics of the reggeatón that sounds the most, and the which he himself is part of. For those winks, which for many and many are being used (and abused) opportunistically, is that the piece is "accused" of being a feminist.
Costa Rican filmmaker Laura Astorga delved into the footage in an interview with Juan Carlos Arciniegas, one of the chroniclers of CNN shows in Spanish, and put it under the magnifying glass of her Sexismograph, a method she herself devised to detect sexism in stories audiovisuals. For the director, in the first place, the video is a product that she registers within the current of "Femvertising", the advertising that uses the growing sympathy for the discourse of gender parity to appeal to the young market that is considered avant-garde and that identifies with that and other progressive flags.
However, it does not discard the value of the piece as a vector to bring the basic notions of equality to an audience that normally does not consume these contents, and above all to “dialogue with the future”. For example, for her, one of the values of "I perreo alone" is the distance it puts with masculinity that is normally shown in the culture regetonera.
Can we imagine Daddy Yankee or Pitbull dressed as women? Maluma's sexuality was questioned when she made a video with Ricky Martin, to the point that she had to respond, taking out another act where she proclaimed that she had sex with "four babies" to clear her image of any hint of doubt.
With his proposal, Bad Bunny laughs at all that. Rather, by transvesting, he is traveling against his colleagues and even rebukes and challenges them. So much so that at the end of the video he speaks directly to them and their male audience with the message: "If he doesn't want to dance with you, respect him." Perhaps the manifesto that summarizes the whole intention of his song.
Astorga also mentioned the different scenarios that alternate during the video. In one of them, in green, with the same color tone used by feminists in the campaign for the decriminalization of abortion, the slogan "Women rule" (about her body?) And "Not one less" are read, one of the slogans against femicide, the most dire consequence of male violence. In another, a Bad Bunny in a kilt presents himself as the slave of three fierce women, and in one in white, which seems to be the most masculine, the Puerto Rican intones his handwriting while works that evoke the work of Keith Harring, iconic American visual artist and queer activist who died of AIDS in 1990.
Another scene presents him dressed in pink and enjoying the perreo of four dancers covered in flowers who do not appreciate their faces. Perhaps there he criticizes the role of vase women who normally accompany their colleagues (and himself) in exact circumstances.
Other feminists who shared their views on the piece were the Colombian YouTube channel Las Igualadas. This group, which dedicated one of its recent episodes to talk about "Yo perreo sola" and reggeatón vindicates gender as a platform to express sexuality without taboos. "It is not contradictory that feminists dance reggeatón but quite the opposite", they affirmed.
Regarding the video of “I fight alone”, they said: “This is not about returning to a feminist icon Bad Bunny or putting your hands in the fire for man, but recognizing that within your gender you are questioning stereotypes because what the regetonero videos have us accustomed to is a fairly toxic idea of masculinity ”.
"I want to dance"
In 2003, when Bad Bunny was a 9-year-old boy, Ivy Queen "La Caballota", singer of the first litter of mainstream regetoneros and the only woman in the group, broke into "I want to dance”, A theme that speaks of the same dilemma as“ I dance alone ”: autonomy on the dance floor. Today it is still the greatest female anthem within the reggeatón culture.
"Because I'm the one in charge. I'm the one who decides when we go to the mambo, and you know it, "says the lyric of Ivy Queen in which she clarifies to her dance partners that her passionate bullfighting" doesn't mean I'm going to bed. "
Yvy Queen was a lonely voice for years. In minor reggeat leagues, voices such as Chocolate Remix appeared, an Argentine group born in 2013 that interprets a “feminist and lesbian” reggeaton through which it denounces gender violence and questions the roles traditionally associated with women.
This year, also in that "indie" league, the Peruvian-Belgian group Chicos y Mendez brought up the theme a year ago "Feminist Reggeatón”In a duet with the Portuguese Flavia Coelho. In the video they stage a female version of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper and in the place of Jesus sits the lead singer of the transvestite band as Frida Kalho. The Spanish Brisa Fenoy, who dreams of leading a movement to feminize reggeatón has a wide dance repertoire with committed lyrics. In her song "Holy ovaries"She reproaches her manager for the sexy outfit that forces her to wear to succeed in the" world of music "and says" I'm tired of being cliché. "
As for the reggeatón of the major record labels, in recent years there has been a significant rise in the number of female performers. Most continue to embody the traditional culture of reggeatón with the body, sex as the central theme and bling blig as a value, however, the themes are beginning to approach female sexuality from another perspective and that is already a triumph.
In "Downtown”For example, the song that Anitta launched a duo with J Balvin two years ago, presents a sexual game in which she demands and he pleases. In "The answer”Becky G emphasizes to Maluma that if he is looking for a woman to wash and iron him, do not even consider her. Even Shakira herself in "Pure blackmail”Sets conditions to accept a relationship without ties. "I'm not yours or anyone's," he says to the "Pretty boy."
The reggeatón could hardly be considered a leading agent of change for the vindication of women, but perhaps it can be a sounding board for the message to reach more audiences. That their culture has not been indifferent to the changing world is already a fresh breeze.
Nesi yeah bitch alone
At the same time, and as a culmination to this histortia, something curious. In "I Perreo Alone" is that Nesi, the Puerto Rican who sings the song with Bad Bunny, does not appear in the video. The reason is merely contractual. The young woman's commitments to other record labels prevent her from showing her face in the piece that today gives so much to talk about and that supposedly vindicates her gender.
In order not to let it pass under the table, the 22-year-old who made herself known with freestyle videos on social networks, recorded her own version, in which she appears perreando on a yacht surrounded by models in bathing suits who dance, bathe in champagne and have fun with references to lesbian sex.
Nesi clarifies that Bad Bunny only “bought” his voice and that the song is authored one hundred percent of the “rabbit”. The performer, who does not embody the aesthetic ideal that reggeatón is accustomed to, is already recording her album and her popularity on social networks is already on the rise.
