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n 195 CHAPTER 8 “Soy la Kalle”: Radio, Reggaetón, and Latin@ Identity Esta / es nuestra / herencia / Latina; / la voz que representa nuestra raza cósmica / . . . / Sientan el poder del reggaetón latino. —Don Omar, “Reggaetón Latino (Chosen Few Remix)” On any given day during the winter and spring of 2006, Don Omar’s anthem “Reggaetón Latino” would boom from hundreds of car stereos in South Chicago, Humboldt Park, Pilsen, and elsewhere in Chicago. Young Latin@s tuned into WVIV/WVIX, “La Kalle,” heard Don Omar and collaborators proclaim the power of reggaetón, which in their words is the voice that represents Latin@s (or la raza cósmica). Punctuating Omar’s claim, La Kalle DJs ask callers, “Quién eres?” (Who are you?). Listeners respond: “Soy Mexico, Soy la Kalle” (I’m Mexico, I’m La Kalle) or “Soy Boricua, Soy la Kalle” (I’m Puerto Rican, I’m La Kalle). Don Omar, other reggaetón artists, and employees of La Kalle have closely linked twenty-first-century urban latinidad with reggaetón music and “the streets.” As representatives of the corporate culture industries, reggaetón artists and DJs attempt to define Latin@s in ways that closely align Latin@ youth with the artists and related products—in other 196 n Chapter 8 words, with consumption. At the same time, as Latin@s wanting to assert their agency and self-define, they struggle to develop a new urban Latin@ self-identity. The above excerpted lyrics from Don Omar’s popular CD Don Omar Da Hitman Presents Reggaetón Latino draw our attention to a common phenomenon in the development of youth identity: the centrality of musical culture to identity. For many Latin@ youth in the process of developing their sense of self, including their ethnic identity, reggaetón music and the cultural practices related to it provide a new way to see themselves as young people of Latin American descent who are living in postindustrial United States urban centers. This chapter examines the formation of Latin@ youth identity and some of the forces influencing its definition. Drawing on discussions with fourteen Latin@ college students and analysis of data on the recording and radio industries, I discuss reggaetón’s influences on Latin@ youth identity. Reggaetón as a type of Latin@ youth self-representation and expression and as a commodified popular culture defined in important ways by corporate desires and values plays myriad roles in the identity formation of Latin@ youth in Chicago and elsewhere. For today’s emergent Latin@ population in the United States, music that affirms Latin@ worldviews, accents, language use, and musical and aesthetic sensibilities positively contributes to their identity formation. Capitalist market values, the consumer ethic, and radio and recording industry profit margins also influence them. In the chorus to Don Omar’s song, the singer implores young Latin@s to dance, move, and otherwise feel the power of the music that Omar and his collaborators argue is the voice that represents their race.1 Reggaetón is a music rooted in Latin@ and Latin American urban experience that includes marginalization, capitalist globalization, literal and symbolic attacks by the state on youth and their culture, imperialism, rapid development in communications technology, culture wars waged by conservative elites, and xenophobia directed especially at Latin@ immigrants. At the same time, reggaetón develops from positive cultural experiences, including the development of rap music, the spread of hip-hop culture, other African diasporic musical cultures including Afro-Cuban styles and reggae, and a spirit of resistance to colonialism inherited from their parents and ancestors. My task in this chapter is to answer the following questions: How closely do young Latin@s align their sense of self with the definition of Latin@ espoused by corporate hurban (urban Hispanic/Latin@) radio? What influence does reggaetón and hurban radio have on Latin@ identity? How do Latin@s make their own meanings around the music and related culture? What other phenomena factor into young Latin@ identity? How do different Latin@ subgroups experience and relate to the Afro-Caribbean aesthetics of reggaetón? The young adult Latin@s that I talked with about this study, while fans of Radio, Reggaetón, and Latin@ Identity n 197 reggaetón and proud of the accomplishments of Latin@ musicians, demonstrate that they are more than urban Latin@ cool, more than the music, and more than the style offered by corporate...

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