For Daddy Yankee, it's all in the energy - Reggaeton News

By Jordan Levin Miami Herald

September 17, 2007

Reggaeton may be losing some of its gasolina, but the man responsible for its biggest hit can keep it pumping on pure energy and charisma. Daddy Yankee's concert only filled about half the AmericanAirlines Arena Friday night, but he moved them into a hip- and arm-waving communal frenzy with enough energy for a full house. Whether he can keep doing that without more megahits or musical variety remains to be seen.

Reggaeton audiences used to be all hormonal-heavy teens and twenty-somethings, high on a gritty, sexed-up, all-ours underground vibe. What counted was less the song than flow and grinding-as-one crowd energy. Yankee's audience Friday night was a pop star crowd -- families with kids, couples, groups of teen and preteen girls, shining with promotional handout glow sticks and ready for hits and spectacle. Yankee delivered, entering on a helicopter to thunderous shouts of ''Jefe!'' (Boss), and later flying over the crowd suspended just on a harness and rigging, which took guts -- especially when he was accidentally lowered into the hysterical crowd.

Yankee's latest album, El Cartel: The Big Boss, was far more musically adventurous than his previous recordings, but hasn't produced a hit close to Gasolina or Lo Que Pasó, Pasó (What Happened, Happened).

In concert, Yankee kept it basic: a DJ, back-up rapper, and phalanx of booty-shaking dancers. There was no attempt to mirror the musical invention on El Cartel.

Despite the aerial tricks, a gleaming wall of lights and video projections, the production felt like the same street reggaeton show amped up in brightness but not concept or depth. Would have been nice to see the dancers do something besides the usual hip-hop styled line-up, or have a bass, some percussion, or back-up singers along with the DJ. Musically and sonically, one song sounded very much like the other.

Lacking that variety, Yankee has to carry the whole show on pure energy. Impressively enough, he did.

The first section was old school party down and grind-ya-harder-mami reggaeton, but it took a while for the audience to catch the groove. It wasn't till Yankee got them moving: chopping arms along with him in Machete, conducting crowd choreography for cellphones in El Cellular that turned the arena into a sea of wildly waving lights, that their energy began to match his.

As Yankee rose on a platform above the stage, he rapped at tongue-blistering, unintelligible speed, a tour de force of vocal rhythm. The crowd loved that, and they loved Corazones (Hearts), where he pays tribute to his audience, and Coraza Divina (Divine Direction), where he proclaims his faith in God and in himself. That's when Yankee's passion showed.

But it was the megahits, Rompe, Gasolina, Lo Que Pasó that lit the crowd up, dancing, singing, moving as one.