The whiteness and whitening of the reggaetón music genre

The “Caribbean” can be considered as a highly diverse and full of richness that is giving birth to an eclectic and ever evolving creative force which is recognised all over the world. (Pressreader.com, 2019)

JLO, Shakira, Natti Natasha, Becky G, Annita, Daddy Yankee, Wisin, Yandel, Ricky Martin, Farruko, Maluma, Rauw Alejandro, Bad Bunny, J. Balvin, Chris Jeday, Anuel AA, Selena Gomez, Karol G, Alex Sensation, Nicky Jam, Enrique Iglesias, Cardi B, MC Fioti ( he might be categorised as a Samba singer) , Camilla Cabello, Mike Towers etc…are all white. I mean White!!! 

I cannot spend time on each singer here but I felt utterly offended by one in particular

Rosalia, this young white girl is not even from the Caribbean or Latin America but is “Spanish” !( Alonso, 2019)

I am not saying that you have to be Caribbean or South American to be part of Latin Music but as a white European girl she has all the benefits and necessary tools to live a good life because of her whiteness from the time she was born. 

In her video music with Ozuna, she actually does act like a black girl, desperately trying to push her mouth out to get the big lips effect of a black person and act like the ghetto girl that she is NOT, of course. 

I am utterly disgusted by this type of behaviour and worse, this makes me reflect on the way in which we are quick to value black men and their work but in return we, black women, get rejected and laughed at. 

A black girl will have to struggle more without ever being invited to the table. One option might be to appear on music videos for free in the hope of networking with the right individuals.

Although I did a few posts about Mr. Williams about some of his projects which I rated very positively, I realise that no matter what we do and how hard we work or how beautiful we can be, black men are not valuing us and this is unfairly insane! 

By the way, according to The Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) “86% of all Black music creators agree that there are barriers to progression. This number rises to 89% for Black women and 91% for Black creators who are disabled”. (Uk, n.d.p13)

They add that, in the UK only “White music creators earned more than Black creators for their work within the industry pre-covid” (Uk, n.d.p13)

In the USA it is not brighter, the only music category that is dominated by women is R&B with “67%” being female artists versus “57%” being male. (Statista, n.d.) 

Sorry but not sorry to be tough on this one because Pharrell Williams has capitalised on the early 2000, a period which has seen numerous videos portraying black women as easy, promiscuous, uneducated and stupidly submissive. check it out for yourself though, I added a list of music videos that you can view: 

Finally, who do you think he has chosen for wife, a light skin girl so what is he trying to tell us (black women). 

Speak soon beautiful, 

Frederique