“The Nueva York Connection”: How New York City Became the Crossroad That Made Reggaeton Possible
Latino USA
My Cultura, Futuro and iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Reggaeton is full of myths and legends, but this story is true: El General arrived in Brooklyn in the mid-80s and began performing in the dancehall scene, which was booming. He began working with Jamaican producers who were recording and promoting Panamanian artists. Around the same time, a Spanish-language hip-hop revolution was also taking place, as mixtapes flew back and forth between NYC and Puerto Rico.
New York became the crossroad that made Reggaeton possible.
Listen to a special episode from our own Futuro Studios hit show LOUD: The History of Reggaeton hosted by Ivy Queen.
Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Futuro |
| 0:02.4 | I'm Jonathan Goldstein |
| 0:08.0 | and on the new season of heavyweight |
| 0:10.0 | And so I pointed the gun at him |
| 0:12.9 | And said this isn't a joke |
| 0:14.3 | A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old |
| 0:17.7 | And a centenarian |
| 0:19.7 | Rediscovers a Love lost 80 years ago. How can a hundred and one year |
| 0:25.5 | old woman fall in love again? Listen to heavyweight on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever |
| 0:34.8 | you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the on-purpose podcast. |
| 0:40.7 | Recently, I had a conversation with the one and only Madonna. |
| 0:44.8 | When I was broke and I had no friends, nowhere to live, I was held up at gunpoint. |
| 0:50.0 | I was robbed. |
| 0:51.0 | Always horrendous things happened to me. |
| 0:52.7 | I had such an unhappy childhood that whatever happened to me in New York |
| 0:56.5 | is better than what my life was, so I'm not going back. |
| 1:00.4 | Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. |
| 1:07.7 | People called them murderers. |
| 1:09.8 | Ten years later, they were gods. |
| 1:12.4 | Today, no one knows their names. |
| 1:15.1 | A group of maverick surgeons who took on the medical establishment |
| 1:18.1 | who risked everything to invent open-heart surgery. |
... |
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