Freestyle!!! w/ Louie Vega, Jellybean Benitez, Shannon, Lisa Lisa and Judy Torres
May 13, 2016
Capitale Theater, New York City
photo by Drew Gurian
Allegedly my grandfather had a cocaine business throughout the 1970s and 80s that I imagine was rather successful. I'd like to believe this rumor because it's exciting to think about, however I come from a big Puerto Rican family that is really into slagging one another off.
I recall lavish Christmases at his alphabet city apartment. The lower east side in 1985 was a real great time and place to be a kid. As a visitor from the New Jersey suburbs, things like buying candy and fireworks at the bodegas made you feel like a big man. In what is now considered the East Village, on the first floor of her apartment building there was a club at which he threw some real Boricua bangers.
At these parties my aunt and uncles and the older people would bump what we now know as classic 1970s salsa music: the pulsing Latin influenced dance sounds of Willie Colón, Hector Lavoe, Fania All Stars, music I leaned to love and seek out later in life due to my early exposure to it. It was my super hip older cousins who put me on this other New York City Latin music. In 7th grade I fell secretly in love with the candy-pop melodies and the swirly, hypnotic synthesizers of Latin Freestyle. I clearly feel a personal connection to Latin freestyle as it was developing. I can't say that for any other genre. Being Puerto Rican in the 1980s it's very likely your soundtrack was salsa music and it's under appreciated kid sister Latin Freestyle.
I can understand if you have never heard of Latin Freestyle. This is a style of music that came out of New York City and Miami in the mid 1980's, that combined the Hispanic New York youth culture (see: the Spanish verses in "Dreamboy/Dreamgirl" by Nice and Wild) with the architecture of hip hop breakbeats which were just arriving at the golden age of hip hop (see the rhymes on"One Way Love" by TKA). The songs were about love and heartbreak. I recall it was particularly popular with the tough Puerto Rican teenagers of the city who needed something sweet to play for their girlfriends. Wikipedia describes the most common theme to be "heartbreak in the city". That's accurate as I'm hard pressed to think of a contrary example in terms of subject matter (please enlighten me if I'm wrong on this point).
The term Latin freestyle can be confusing. There is no real "freestyling" as we would commonly use in the hip-hop vernacular. In hip-hop, to freestyle means to invent rhymes off the top of your head usually intended to impress other MC's or the opposite sex. Latin Freestyle in contrast is a fully studio music and when performed live doesn't tend to deviate from the recordings.
The history of dance music and New York City nightlife is well documented. Clubs like Devil's Nest and Funhouse are storied for the marks they left in the development of Latin Freestyle. Strangely, it has not made a serious, mainstream comeback given our collective yearning for all things 80s and 90s retro, yet it has a huge cult following, at least in New York.
Songs that are nearly unknown to people under thirty were smash hits when I was a kid. I recall "Temptation" by Corina was on heavy MTV rotation and the 900-number call-in music video station "The Box" played TKA's "Louder Than Love" over and over as I snidely pretended not to love it behind my Metallica shirt.
This stuff is incredibly catchy, from the use of early samplers that now sound retro across from that steady ringing cowbell, to the endless breakbeat mixes for the dance floor. This music was not entirely different than New Order's records from the same time. Freestyle seemed to tap into a collective unconsciousness, which was fueled by the emerging samplers and 808's used throughout the pop landscape at that time.
A few weeks ago I was invited to check out a Latin Freestyle event thrown by Red Bull Music Academy titled "Freestyle!!!' at the former Capitale bank building on Bowery. As I mentioned in previous dispatch on Diamanda Galás, Red Bull Music Academy has been curating a bunch of diverse "must see shows". I have to assume that serious music nuts run this program.
Wall to wall Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, white girls, girls with big butts, guys with pleated pants and fades, baggy denim pants, cologne. In an interview in Jezebel, I read that freestyle legend Little Louie Vega had said, "All these kids were dressing a certain way--it was like a mixture of Goth and baggy pants". The show had that thing we love about New York City- people of all colors and social classes coming together to lose themselves in rhythm.
There was this giant clown head in the middle of the dance floor, which housed the DJ, and a sort of carnival décor that I later learned was a shoutout to the infamous club Funhouse which is one of the birthing spots of freestyle music.
When I got there it was a mix of early 80's hip hop and dance classics like "Planet Rock" and "The Message" setting the tone. It was very cool to see Shannon do "Let The Music Play" live in front of me. It makes you wish she didn't spend her set reminding the crowd several times that she was first and listed her achievements from the 1980s. Shannon- we know all that and we love you for it. Let the music play as it were. It sucks I missed Judy Torres and her classic "Come Into My Arms".
"Shannon" photo by Drew Gurian
The hits played all night. I showed up alone and didn't talk to many people. I found myself Dean Martin drunk, and recall a girl asking if I was a journalist being that I was taking notes. I quipped that I was merely writing a blog post but was hoping to graduate to journalism some day. My joke didn't go over. I think she may have just wanted to dance which I was too shy to do in front of all these funky ass party people.
I read that this is the first show the DJs Little Louie Vega and Jellybean Benitez have done together in a decade and they were tearing it up. The crowd knew all the words and bugged out to extended dance mixes. Everything you would want to hear. Some of my personal favorites were there like the insanely catchy "Fascinated" by Company B, the sensitive robot freak-out on Noel's Silent Morning" (the remix of which sends me into a trance) and oddly "Running" by Information Society (a surprising record produced by Arthur Baker). I couldn't tell you who played what.
"Jellybean Benitez and Little Louie Vega" photo by Drew Gurian
I've been thinking about Latin Freestyle on and off my whole life. A few times a year I get the fever to hear "Change on Me" by Cynthia and lose myself in the crystalline sound of her voice which is accompanied by the sort of Latin breakbeat that can teleport you from the local Dominican bodega to somewhere deep in space.
Below is a Spotify playlist I assembled of some of my favorite Freestyle tracks.
I will probably add more tracks when the moment strikes me.