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Latin Music is Lost- Driving with No Direction - 2007/08/14 11:21
Latin Music is Lost- Driving with No Direction
How many Times have you heard??
Reggaeton is dead, Salsa needs a hit, Merengue is coming back, Bachata is this, that, Latin Hiphop is coming strong, etc. Man, I am sick of all this bullshit.
Why? because while some of these statements may have some truth, no one really knows where shit is going. With artists like Don Omar now recording merengue, and Daddy Yankee recording with Fergie (are u serious dude!??), we seem to be left clueless. Radio stations are scared to take chances unless you have a buzz already or you are an established artists.... are you fucking kidding me????? how does a record become a hit in the American market? - They let the audience decide. Research my ass!
Where is the Latin Industry headed? I been working in this industry forever and for the first time I AM CONFUSED myself.
There is no major movement within ONE genre right now. We are lacking good Merengues, Bachatas, Salsa, Reggaeton, spanish R & B, and everything else deemed "spanglish", the language of our generation.
Go inside a club or listen to any Latin Radio station, and you tell me where is the banger of Summer 07 ? There isn't ONE. More specifically, where are the "Dile, Gasolina, or La Tanguita Roja, of THIS summer? There isn't ANY. How many times can I dance to the shit from 3 or even 5 years ago?
Believe ir or not, House music has a good chance now, as Latinos rather have THAT for now. Since they havent heard it for so long, it actually sounds new. Tropical music you ask? Yeah right!! DJs are still pllaying "no le pegue a la negra" by Joe Arroyo! Why? because no new classics are being created. Confused yet? Good! So am I. Read on....
Many Latinos whom once identified with their own sound relative to their spanish speaking countries have gone Back to HipHop while the "Industry" makes up it's mind on what direction we are going to take this.
Yet no one has developed the cojones to go into a corporate boardoom and say "hey mister radio station program director, take a walk outside! step into a nightclub. Go buy a series of mixtapes, as they are the google of the hood!!! Do the research. Don't just sit a bunch of people inside of a room and tell them "you like this song?" - LOL - it actually makes me laugh.
The problem lies in that we're driving without mapquest directions. We are on a road with NO destination. Listen to any Latin Radio station and this statement will hold true. There is no consistency with no specific Genre. In essence, They're confused too! They are waiting for someone or something to set off another movement so that they can jump on it and say "look, we did this".
Instread, the industry should be taking more chances with new sounds, new genres and creating a movement here in New York, the mecca for setting trends.
It amazes me that Latinos working in the industry cannot set trends, maintain any level of consistency or even move with the times and set new rules as Hip Hop does. ALL the Latin industry copies from HipHop is the SLANG, but not the methods of introducing new sounds. We are a race yet so powerful, but yet so SLOW to addapt, take chances and move together as ONE. It's actually DEPRESSING.
If Reggaeton is really dead, then WE killed it. "We" meaning, Producers, DJs, Artists and Promoters. How many times you heard, Reggaeton has the same beat? How many times did you hear the same about Merengue? how it says the same thing, it's the same fast beat, etc. Oro Solido came out back in the day with a fresh sound and EVERY merenguero copied it because it was the "successful formula".
We need to develop and take chances on new sounds. The shit is, that if the PEOPLE who control media and mass delivery of this content don't take the chance because they want a "Bonified Hit", then we WILL be in this same PLACE 10 years from now. Remember this!!!!
Mainstream will only consume what we are giving them, and what we are setting off in motion. But the problem is that we are trying to be so much like our HipHop Counter parts that we are being lost in the process.
Thanks for Reading.
DJ Frikkiao
FiestaCaliente.com
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