McCain Craves Reggaeton (Hard!)

By M.S. Bellows, Jr. and Gabriel Beltrone

Yesterday John McCain, eager to garner youth and Latino votes, grinningly accepted the endorsement of Puerto Rican music star and sex symbol Daddy Yankee (real name: Ramon Ayala) at a Phoenix, Arizona, high school while teenaged girls swooned, gasped and giggled in the audience behind him.

McCain seemed less than aware, however, of the impact Ayala's endorsement could have on women's votes, given the sexual, misogynistic and violent themes found in some of the musician/actor's work. The timing of this endorsement is especially questionable given McCain's strenuous efforts to recruit women's votes during this Democratic Convention week, as Republican operatives work diligently to win over disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters.

Ayala is a pioneer in reggaeton, a musical genre that developed in Puerto Rico from indigenous, Portuguese, Caribbean, rap, and hip hop roots. Raised in a gang-dominated barrio, Ayala suffered a serious gunshot wound as a teenager that spoiled a potential baseball career, and turned to music instead. In his personal life, he seems to have left that world behind; in his public image, however, those themes remain. A typical Daddy Yankee lyric, "Papi dame lo que quiero," translates as, "Daddy, give me the thing I want." He "plays" a DJ in one of the violent "Grand Theft Auto" video games; has acted in extremely violent movies; and his production company's website opens with graphics of handguns and the sound of loud, realistic gunfire.

Misogyny, in particular, is a recurring issue for reggaeton in general and Ayala in particular. In 2002, a prominent Puerto Rican politician active in women's rights, Velda Gonzalez, led a crusade against reggaeton, holding public hearings that, as Frances Negron-Muntaner and Raquel Z. Rivera report, were

aimed at regulating reggaeton's lyrics and the dance moves that accompany it, known as el perreo, or "doggy-style dance," in which dancers grind against each other .... Using her reputation as a champion of women's rights, Gonzalez chastised reggaeton for its "dirty lyrics and videos full of erotic movements where girls dance virtually naked," and for promoting perreo, which she called a "triggering factor for criminal acts."

In 2006, Rivera, a sociologist who is an expert in the history of reggaeton, wrote that the genre's early lyrics were "not just explicit, but violently explicit" and "extremely misogynistic."

Reggaeton's popularity in Puerto Rico has made it a political necessity for politicians like Gonzalez to back away from attacking it, much like American politicians eventually had to learn to love first rock 'n roll and more recently hip-hop. But many of their criticisms remain valid -- and Ayala's signature song "La Gasolina," which McCain referred to in introducing Ayala to the high school students yesterday, is a good case in point. Its music video features fast cars, but also gyrating, scantily clad women touching themselves suggestively. The song's Spanish lyrics are laden with double and triple entendres based on Puerto Rican slang that range from the humorous to the pornographic. For example, the song's title "Gasolina" -- gasoline -- can also refer to alcohol -- or semen. The song's recurring lyric -- "a ella le gusta la gasolina" ("she loves the gasoline") -- therefore refers simultaneously to a girl who likes to ride around in boys' cars; a girl who enjoys dressing up and going to rum-fueled parties with fancy cars and sexy dancing; and a girl who enjoys vigorous sex and craves both her own and her lover's climaxes. One lyric uses the word "zumbale" ("rag him") or "sumale" ("add him"), but those are rough homonyms for "subele" ("raise him"). Later, the lyric continues:

Get ready to catch what's coming (hard!)
Little mama I know you're not going to leave me (hard!)
It pleases me that you like to be taken away (hard!) ...
She likes gasoline (woman: "give me more gasoline!")
How she loves gasoline (woman: "give me more gasoline!")

When questioned about the song's lyrics today, McCain answered wryly that the song referred to "energy independence." But, as The Caucus' Michael Cooper neatly pointed out, the song has little to do with offshore drilling.

The idea that a pop star would project a "Conrad Birdie"-style public persona and sing sexually provocative lyrics is unremarkable. And despite reggaeton's roots in the drug and gang cultures of Puerto Rico -- drug dealers were early investors in record production -- Ayala himself seems to live an exemplary personal life, keeping his family out of the limelight and talking respectfully about his love for his wife and children. McCain emphasized those good facts in introducing Ayala. But the fact that McCain had to mention them at all suggests that someone in his campaign was well aware of Ayala's oversexed public persona -- a persona that Ayala himself put on display during his appearance with McCain, hugging and kissing all the young girls he could reach and referring, with a wry smile, to his fondness for "action" (at which all the kids laughed knowingly).

The message McCain is communicating by embracing "Daddy Yankee" in front of adolescent Latinas, in Arizona and elsewhere (the two flew off together in McCain's campaign plane) is decidedly mixed. What place does a misogynistic message about the attractions of shallow, flashy-dressing, oversexed, promiscuous young women have in the campaign of an assertively pro-life candidate who is working desperately to sell himself as strong on family values and sensitive to women's issues? McCain is wooing one narrow demographic group, in the hope that other voters, with different priorities, won't be paying enough attention to see the hypocrisy.

Follow M.S. Bellows, Jr. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/msbellows

Comments

[TheProverbialMan]

I think this one clearly shows how out of touch this guy really is...If Obama were to do something like this it'd be over.

[eden4barack08]

ROTLF. Did he really say the song was about energy independence???
This man is being led by a campaign he has NO control over. That's even scarier than being McBush.

[YunekFlava]

John will embrace GWB to win votes, oh wait, he already has embraced GWB.

[ibsteve2u]

And the moral of the story?

The Republicans don't have a problem at all with repression and oppression, if it gets them what they want: Money and/or power - and order of precedence is inconsequential.

To a Republican, democracy is but a vehicle, not a principle.

[khaleef49]

And he says that Obama will do anything to get elected. Sounds to me like the kettle calling the pot black.

[uheardme]

We talked about Ludacris...why aren't we talking about this?

[joebiz]

Bellows, you commit a disservice to readers when you misinterpret reguetón for your political ends by linking reguetón’s perceived misogyny and a right wing politician.
While it may be true that McCain is a misogynist, you commit the fallacy of affirming the consequent. If reguetón is misogynist then so are its singers, and if the singers are misogynist, then so are the people they endorse.
Reguetón, in Spanish, is music that developed throughout Latin America starting in Panama as a blend of Jamaican dancehall, bachata, salsa, R&B, and hip-hop among others syncretic blends. The music quickly traveled throughout the region enhanced, modified by Puerto Rican artists and DJs like Daddy Yankee, Calle 13, and Ivy Queen among others.
And, not unlike American hip-hop, reguetón can be perceived as mysoginist because it’s a REFLECTION of the conditions of where reguetón is created. If you live on the Texas range, you sing and croon about open spaces, cows, liquor, and your pick-up truck. These are some elements of country western music.
In the same Rivera article you cite, reguetón is blamed for societal for misogyny but also ills but fail to mention that it was used as a government scapegoat to, “Reggaeton spoke directly to the social conditions prevalent in the country: outrageous unemployment rates of up to 65% in some towns, failing schools, government corruption, and widespread drug violence,” Rivera, et al.

[M.S. Bellows, Jr. - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree with almost all you say, but you make the same mistake rappers make when they defend songs about "hoes" and glorified violence, or that makers of violent movies make when they say they're just reflecting the world. If a German singer in 1943 wrote songs glorifying gas chambers, and defended them by saying he was just reflecting the conditions around him, then I'd say he was irresponsible.

Reggaeton, as I write, is an interesting, relevant, creative musical force. To the extent it raises awareness of social ills in a constructive way, then it may be a force for good, just like rap. And Ayala seems to be a good guy in his personal life. But his biggest hit is a song celebrating young women who love fast cars, sexy dancing, alcohol, and sex. Is that the message McCain wants to send? It doesn't seem like an unfair question to ask.

I really appreciate your passionate, thoughtful comment, though!

[joebiz]

Thanks for commening. A German singer in 1943 would sing "Deutschland Uber Alles" and not "Gasolina." Obviously, one is based on fascist, racialist, satanic and military arrogance of the Third Reich. The summa of totalitarianism. The other a silly urban song played in clubs and "quiceanera" parties.

The regueton culture has been mass marketed. And, like hip-hop it is reaching into the pockets of white youths and loosening the grips on their wallets. The mass marketing of "heroic" young urban rebel is as old as music: Elvis Presley, NWA, Daddy Yankee, et al.

From the standpoint of "co-opting" regueton for political reason, McCain fails. He's ackward and obviously out of touch with the music. McCain's political choices should not be confused with regueton. One artist and singer does not a music culture make.

Had McCain been photographed with Placido Domingo or Jose Carreras, one should not associate McCain with the love of opera or that of an opera "snob." Would McCain be thought of as a lover of Wagnerian operatic sagas? Would he be "associated" with an opera and music style akin to "Tristan und Isolde." An opera in three acts that has murder, betrayal, kidnapping, and SEX or sexual undertones. No surprise.

The under-class creates a musical and political expression, some would say a "cry for help or attention." Their voices should be heard, regardless of the message. Debauchery? Misogynist? Yes to all. Is it Opera? No, but the themes are universal.

[rgersmrk]

Time on Leno...Getting endorsements from popular musicians...Who's the celebrity?

[ccmd]

"darme mas gasolina"

[blaqntelligence]

That's your johnnie mac.....
Nothing worse than a oldster trying for hip and missing badly......

[YouDisgustMe]

lol i used to love that song....had no idea what it meant though

[HarlemFreeThought]

Tell me this article is a synopsis for a sit-com for UPN or the CW this fall.

[FanofPaine]

I'm glad you pointed this out. I remember the emergence of the song and though my Spanish is rusty was well aware of the lyrics and intent of the song. When I saw McCain and Daddy Yankee together yesterday, I then wondered how McCain or Fox News would be able to continue their attacks on "radicals" like Ludicris (Hannity's favorite term and the one he used to describe the rapper) when McCain has his own "radical rapper". Daddy Yankee, while popular, would definitely rile women's rights groups.

LMAO at "Gasolina" being about energy independence. Oh, that's a good one.

[MegInPA]

But his music is so reminiscent of ABBA.

[TrooAmerican]

yeah, just like it to mccain - any hippocritical message he can use to fraud more voters into voting for him. ABBA... didnt he say in response to lighthearted criticizm about him liking Dancing queen that "his taste in music stopped right around the time he got shot down".... but the odd thing is, that song didnt come out till long after he was back in the states cheating on his wife.

[JLThom]

I love how everything goes back to this man's inprisonment. A constant reminder that he was a POA. On Leno, wasn't that his response to the number of mansions question? "I remember when I was a prisoner and I didn't have a house, or kitchen table....blah, blah, blah." I would feel sort of heartless when I belittle his time as a prisoner if I weren't reminded of it every moment. WE GET IT!!!