Publications

Tropical Mix: Afro-Latino Space and Notch's Reggaetón

Rivera, Petra R.

DPDF 2007 Black Atlantic Studies Fellow Petra Rivera examines how reggaeton artist Notch incorporates oratorical, visual, and musical cues in his music video, “Que te pica,” to establish connections between Latino and Caribbean communities in the United States that typically have been disavowed by hegemonic racial categories that distinguish between them. While Notch's music disrupts these particular racial hierarchies, he also maintains heteronormative patriarchal relations in his video. Rivera proposes the analytic, Afro-Latino space, to account for the ways that reggaeton as a musical genre, and Notch more specifically, unsettle certain distinctions between blackness and Latinidad, while simultaneously relying on stereotypes of black hypermasculinity.

Published: Routledge, 2011

On the web: Tropical Mix: Afro-Latino Space and Notch's Reggaetón

Citation: Rivera, Petra R., "Tropical Mix: Afro-Latino Space and Notch's Reggaetón," in Popular Music & Society, ed. Burns, Gary. (Routledge, 2011), http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/rpms/2011/00000034/00000002/art00005, 34(2), 221-235.