Louis Crespo

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REGGEATON, LA PERREA & THE CULT OF SILENCE 
Louis Crespo Ilarraza

The genre of Reggeaton, also known as Puerto Rican "Hip Hop," encompasses a variety of  Puerto Rican artistic signatures.  The most obvious is the depiction of male sexuality and macho-prowess.  It is a language that frames the sexes into rigid gender roles, with males depicted as dominant and the center of all "movement," while women are subjugated to this dominance and stationed on the fringes, where they move around and behind the "male movement."  

There are several Reggeaton female artists, particularly Ivy Queen, who have found a voice that arguably stands alone.  But, they too, replicate the male Boricua signature of machismo.  Are female artists in this genre simply repeating unconsciously or otherwise the lessons they've learned as children and, hence, frame how they see men, women, children and themselves?  How far afield are their visions from the visions of our mothers and sisters, fathers and brothers, who have gone through similar Boricua cultural "rearing"?


Ivy Queen

The video "Reggeaton, La Perrea and the Cult of Silence," seeks to explore in a narrative by way of first-person conversation with the viewer, who may be a mother,  father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle or friend,  what I call the "mirage" of romanticism in contemporary Boricua-machismo culture.  The dialogue encompasses visions of Puerto Rican culture both past and present, and the relevance of Boricua machismo in the present.  This theme is explored through the music media of Reggeaton.

The narrative also raises the issue of the Boricua male "cult of silence," where the male figure leaves rearing to the female and rarely, if ever, expresses or exhibits emotion because a "macho" sees that as a sign of weakness.  Is this "cult of silence" passed on to the younger generation?  The  video also amplifies the absence of the Boricua "caballero" in today's youth and its comparison to machismo.    

Finally, as the "denouement," the video presses the idea that parents can be the best teachers who influence the best students - their children - to embrace gender neutral ideals and values.