Reggae en Español

Reggae en Español
Stylistic origins	Reggae, dancehall
Cultural origins	Panama
Typical instruments	Drums • Bass guitar • Guitar • Organ dancehall Drum machine • Sampler • Synthesizer • Organ
Regional scenes
Panama, Jamaica
Other topics
Music of Panama, Music of Jamaica

Reggae en Español (in English, Spanish Reggae) is reggae and dancehall music recorded in the Spanish language by artists of Latin American origin. It originated in the mid-1970s in Panama. Reggae en Español goes by several names: In Panama it is called La Plena.

Currently, Reggae en Español contains three main subgenres: reggae 110, reggae bultrón, and romantic flow. In addition, and although technically they would not fall into the category of Reggae en Español because their beats are not directly derived from Jamaican dancehall rhythms, Reggae en Español also includes two music fusions: reggae soca and dancehall.

Reggae as a musical genre has its origins in Jamaica, and it became popular throughout the 1970s in the black-immigrant communities of the other British West Indies, North America, and Great Britain. Jamaican reggae was embraced in the Spanish-speaking world first in Panama by the descendants of black workers that immigrated to the Isthmus during the construction of the Panama Railroad (mid-19th century), the railways for the banana companies (late 19th century), and the Panama Canal (early 20th century). Prior to the period of construction of the Panama Canal (1904–1915), most of the communities in Panama were of Jamaican descent, but with the construction of the canal these communities grew in diversity with immigrants from other parts of the Caribbean such as Barbados, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Trinidad, Dominica, French and British Guyana and other Caribbean Islands.

In 1977, a Guyanese immigrant who went by the nickname "Guyana", along with a local DJ known as "Wassabanga" introduced for first time the reggae rhythms in Panama with lyrics in Spanish. Wassabanga's music along with later interpreters such as Rastanini and Calito Soul, were perhaps the first remarkable cases of Reggae en Español, at a time when many Panamanians were already developing a musical and spiritual bond with the Mecca of reggae music (Kingston, Jamaica), a bond catalyzed mainly by the call to arms issued by the music of Bob Marley.

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Wikipedia