> > By Kalle? Gee, I hope so.
>
> Not your words in the past.
That is what I have said all along. I believe it was you, or another with "music" in their name, who insisted that a reggaetón station would have to / want to expand its listening base outward to non-Hispanics. Obviously, this is not going to happen with a Spanish / Spanglish station, no matter whether Eminem and Diddy and N.O.R.E and so on do reggaetón flavored English songs (like Bow Wow released last week).
Reggaetón, as a format on radio, includes some crossovers, such as Hispanic appeal hip hop or Spanish pop. But it is a format that is 80% or so bassed on Spanish language reggaetón. Because of that, it has zero ethnic crossover appeal.
>
>
> > But, as I 'ave said before, it will only take a portion of
>
> > the Hispanic listeners, not the rest. And the remainder of
>
> > Kalle will be the folks who came form the Spanish language
>
> > side.
>
> You selectively change your statements, you must be a blast
> on conference calls. Maybe you should join the spin masters
> in New Orleans, they don't seem to know their past
> statements either.
I have always been very clear that reggaetón appeals to Spanish dominant or bilingual Hispanics. No other group will want to attend that party.
Many Hispanics who fit this group have been settlers listening to B-96. (A "settler" is one who settles on something because there is nothing better). They will likely change their listening choices to balance more Kalle and less other stations. remeber, the average `12-34 listens to 3 to 4 stations in any given week. So B-96 will not necessarily lose all the spanish leaning Hispancics, just some TSL.
>
> > Reggaetón is mainstream among Hispanics already. A large
> > number of Hispanics who will listen to Kalle are not
> english
> > dominant, and do not know Bow Wof from MC Hammer. This is
> an
> > Hispanic format, and requires some proficiency in Spanish
> to
> > use.
>
> Perhaps one day you'll tell us something we don't know.
I spent some time trying to make this point before Viva became Kalle. It seemed that most folks thought that a reggaetón station would not work without moving out of the Hispanic core, which is not true.
>
> As I've said to you time and time again, IN ENGLISH. The
> format as you know it will be bastardized and what will be
> called REGGAETON will be hip hop with latin rhythm for the
> sake of mainstreaming and sales. It's what is happening and
> it's why the name REGGAETON is getting exposure due to the
> RAPPERS teaming up with Hispanic Rappers thus bastardizing
> it to a point where people will think REGGAETON is nothing
> more than RAP music with a latin/hip hop beat.
Since reggaetón is the progression of English rap and Hip Hop in a fusion with Caribbean influences. If you listen to early Spanish rap from the 80's and then sample stuff through the 90's as it became reggaetón, you can see it has been in a constant state of evolution and there is no constant.
There is no need to "mainstream" something that is THE pop music in Spanish today, from Chile to San Francisco. And there is no sales "problem" with the format among Hispanic buyers, since it is so mainstream. There are already many subsets of reggaetón, and there is plenty of Spanish hip hop, but the main focus of listener interest is reggaetón.
reggaetón artists do NOT consider themselves rappers, by the way. Those with a historic perspective see that they are giving to a new generation the same spontaneous music form that the soneos in salsa or the controversias in Puerto Rican folk music gave two prior generations.
>
> In order for the numbers to reach critical mass the white
> folks (female 18-34) in Chicago will have to switch more
> often to it, same in other major markets where the format
> exists.
Not for the Spanish stations. This is my point. No non-Hispanic is going to listen to a Spanish langauge station.
> Knowing that, labels are teaming up as well as
> artists - teaming up to make their hip hop latin oriented
> and labeling it Reggaeton.
The movement in the hip hop world is due to the realization tha the rhthmic variation of reggaeton has appeal to non-Hispanics when the music is done in English.
However, the deals being done, like Diddy with Emilio estefan, are intended to enhance the production values of reggatón for Hispanics... music which was as often as not self-produced and done in someone's garage studio in the past. Since more than half the CD sales in Latin music are now reggaetón (in Spanish) this is a big market... US Hispanic music sales are greater than the total sales in all of Latin America!
The movement in English to use reggaetón to evolve hip hop is an entirely different phenomenon, and has little to do with Spanish reggaetón stations.... although a few of these English songs will get play, just as some hip hop does today.
> With that occuring more and more
> MAINSTREAM HIP HOP ARTISTS ARE GETTING PLAYED because the
> radio stations see the numbers growing and it's not just
> with Hispanics. While it may be a point to a point and half
> ONLY, it's a point to a point and a half TAKEN AWAY FROM B96
> and it's females 18-34 in the tens of thousands of week
> listening less to B96 and more to the "REGGAETON" station.
More and more mainstream hop artists are not getting played. Kalle plays only about 8% to 10% English hip hop of any kind. the percentages will vary, since the music itself varies. But the fomrat is 80% reggaetón.
Even stations that started playing more hip hop and less reggaetón, like KXOL in LA, are now reducing the English material and concentrating on Spanish reggaetón.
>
> Granted, calling it Reggaeton [at this point] is like
> calling WNUA Smooth Jazz a smooth jazz station [it's the
> furthest thing from Smooth Jazz] but it's what works in the
> MARKETING of the station so don't rock the boat. Change the
> format don't change the format name, bizarre.
Clear Channel calls the format Hurban. UVR calls it reggaetón. Advertisers in the Hispanic world call it reggaetón. Whatever the marketing name, it is today's Spanish CHR. And like any CHR format, the mix of ingredients changes over time.
In any case, Hispanic listeners do not know what CHR is (and there is no Spanish term for it), do not know what "urban" or "hurban" means... they come for the mix and blend. And, right now, it is 80% reggaetón, positioned in Chicago as "reggaetón y más."
>
> The format known as REGGAETON will become mainstreamed
> because of the HIP HOPPERS and the term as you and I know it
> will be meaningless just as LITE FM is and just as SMOOTH
> JAZZ is.
When Diddy starts singing in Spanish, let me know.
