A tough question led one woman to create the first Puerto Rican reggaeton archive
Radio Ambulante is NPR's Spanish-language longform podcast that tells uniquely Latin American stories.
For Patricia Velázquez, reggaeton isn't just a musical genre — it's a time machine.
The song "Gata Celosa'' always has a way of transporting her back to her abuela's home when she would watch music videos on TV. Growing up in Puerto Rico, the music became the soundtrack to her life — until one question shifted everything.
"How can you be a feminist and listen to reggaeton?" a fellow college student asked Velázquez one day. Velázquez considers herself to be 100% a feminist. The more she learned about feminism in college, the more it resonated with what she believed.
She had previouslyheard about the critiques of the genre being and objectifying women. But up to that point, she had never questioned whether feminism and reggaeton could coexist in her life. This questionhistorical impact.
