Puerto Rico's Tego Calderon appeared to be doing his best recently during a tour swing through Southern California to live up to his reputation as the rebellious rapper of reggaeton.
He did so by snubbing the media - as if he didn't care in the least about participating in publicity efforts or even in countering speculation that a three- year lapse since his latest album of new material signals a career in decline.
Calderon first bypassed Spanish-language TV reporters by failing to show up backstage for anticipated interviews during a major multi-act reggaeton show at the Forum. Then he gave equal time to the English-language media, walking away from a TV crew poised to put him live on Fox and UPN for their 11 o'clock news shows.
So it was almost anti-climactic when a reporter arrived for a scheduled 5 p.m. interview the next day and the rapper himself unceremoniously answered the door of his modest airport hotel suite.
The champion of the underdog eased his slight frame into an armchair for a 45-minute interview that revealed a thoughtful, articulate and likable artist with deeply held principles informing his often challenging, sometimes angry music. He sported a shirt with an outline of the Americas, a beaded Santeria bracelet and a stylish cap like those worn by Depression- era newsboys. Asked about his reputation for being difficult, the 34-year-old singer with the bushy Afro and the gap-toothed smile answered with a hoarse laugh.
"A lot of people have created that image around me mostly because of my style of conducting business and my way of defending what's mine, who I am and what I believe," he said in Spanish with a thick Puerto Rican accent. "I say whatever I want to say, and I don't go by the normal rules of business. But if you respect me, I respect you."
He has gotten respect from English-speaking hip-hop acts, having done guest stints on tracks by 50 Cent and Wyclef Jean and on a remix of Fat Joe's "Lean Back." But the singer's insistence on doing things his way has come at a price.
He has turned down multimillion-dollar offers to sign with a major label in order to keep control of his music on his own imprint, Jiggiri Records, distributed worldwide by Atlantic. (His next studio album is due in the spring.) And earlier this year, he publicly rejected an offer to appear in ads for rapper P. Diddy's clothing line, Sean Paul, because of reports that the firm has used Central American sweatshops.
From the start, Calderon has played the part of the reluctant celebrity. With his roots in late '80s Latino hip-hop, he didn't even like reggaeton when it first appeared on the Puerto Rican underground scene in the 1990s. He criticized the nascent style as a boring rip-off of Jamaican dance-hall music with Spanish lyrics.
He didn't like it, that is, until he tried dancing it. He got hooked at a club named Hollywood in Old San Juan.
"The dance just captivated me; it's so sensual," he said, referring to the music's provocative move called el perreo, or doggy dance. "I danced the whole night and thought, 'No wonder this is so popular. I gotta do reggaeton."' His first reggaeton song was aptly called "Cosa Buena" (Good Thing), from 2001.
Calderon's music has appeared on numerous compilations, but he has released only one studio album in his 15-year career, 2003's "El Abayarde," a title taken from his nickname, a term used in Puerto Rico to identify a type of stinging ant and particularly mischievous kids. The more recently released "El Enemy de los Guasibiri" is a compilation of older numbers previously released on mix tapes and albums with other artists.
Produced by Elias de Leon, "Abayarde" yielded several hits in reggaeton's standard party mold, such as "Pa' Que Retozen," "Guasa, Guasa" and "Dominicana." But it's critically admired for its unusual use of authentic Afro-Borinquen rhythms and its challenging themes dealing with racism, political corruption and religion.
The album contains what Calderon considers the best song he has ever written, "Loiza." Named after his hometown, a predominantly black enclave outside San Juan, the song uses distinctive Puerto Rican rhythms to underscore its searing indictment of the town's "shameful history" of racism as a black ghetto for the descendants of African slaves.
"You changed your chains for handcuffs," writes Calderon, who told the Village Voice earlier this year that he had spent two years in jail for weapon and assault crimes before he found fame.
The song is meant to denounce the status of blacks as "second-class Latinos," Calderon says, an issue that is rarely discussed openly in Latin America. Even his fellow Afro-Latinos don't want to hear about it, the songwriter says.
"It's my most profound song, but it's not the public's favorite," he says with a tone of resignation. "Young people are just not interested. I don't even think they understand what I'm talking about.
"They just want to dance and be content. That's the problem with blacks in our countries. We're immune to being mistreated."
As a genre, reggaeton needs to keep addressing real issues that people face in their families, neighborhoods and workplaces, says the artist, an admirer of the late Afro-Puerto Rican salsa star Ismael Rivera. Like salsa, it runs the danger of losing its base audience as it gets more successful and more disconnected from its hardscrabble urban roots.
Calderon's future hinges heavily on the success of his upcoming album. Some say the gap between releases has hurt him.
As for predictions of his own downfall, Calderon invokes his new CD's title and warns he shouldn't be underestimated.
"All eyes are on me now with the new record," he says. "People are doubting. 'Tego is finished. Tego is gone.' Everybody wants to be where I have been. That's how it is: Step aside so I can take your place, as the song says, "Quitate tu pa ponerme yo. ..." ("But I'm not going to give them the pleasure. ...")
By Agustin Gurza
Los Angeles Times
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