Reggaeton (Perreo)

Reggaeton's dance culture is inseparable from the music's two-country origin story. The genre began in Panama City in the early 1980s, where descendants of West Indian canal workers created reggae en espanol; MCs including Leonardo Renato Aulder and El General translated Jamaican dancehall into Spanish, with Renato's 1985 El D.E.N.I. addressing discrimination faced by Black English-speaking Panamanians. Through the 1990s that sound converged with Spanish-language hip-hop in Puerto Rico as underground, incubated at DJ Negro's club The Noise, where Ivy Queen and Daddy Yankee developed the style and lyrics addressed racism and life in the caserios. Perreo, the grounded, hip-rolling, largely back-to-front couple dance, became the scene's signature movement, and both the music and the dance were targeted during Puerto Rican anti-crime crackdowns in the 1990s, which only strengthened the form's standing as music of resistance. Daddy Yankee's Gasolina in 2004 carried the genre worldwide. Contemporary perreo has been substantially reclaimed by women and queer dancers, a shift that has reframed who leads the dance and on whose terms.