The Fathers of Reggaetón

Who invented reggaetón and when?

If you're thinking it was Daddy Yankee or Don Omar and "five years ago," think again.

In the 1920s, skilled Jamaican immigrants arrived in Panamá looking for work on the Panama Canal. These former African slaves brought with them their food, their religion and their beats – as well as ties to their island homeland and its pop music. A generation later, in the late 1970s, Panamanian rude boys were still keeping those roots alive by trying covers of popular English-language dancehall tracks in Spanish. A decade later, these covers morphed and spread to other countries in Central and South America thanks to innovative Panamanian artists like Pocho Pan, Chicho Man and Nando Boom.

Pocho Pan would flip Chaka Demus & The Pliers' now-classic Murder She Wrote on Pantalón Caliente while Chicho Man kicked melodic raps over Muevela, a banger made out of machine-gun snares and subterranean bass. On the vocal side, Nando Boom showed off his tongue-twisting, Barrington Levy-influenced flow on the romantic Enfermo de Amor, stepping up his game even further when he began writing his own lyrics. Soon enough, dance floors from Boquete to the Bronx were packed with dancers grooving to "Mi Amor, Solo Pienso en Ti ," and "Mi Resistencia."

But it was the toothy Edgardo A. Franco, better known as El General, who took over Spanish-language radio throughout Latin America – and the U.S. – with his hip-shaking reggae en Español. Franco, the son of Jamaican and Trinidadian immigrants, was a master of explicit wordplay – his rhymes had mothers squirming and daughters grinding. A commercial success, the charismatic El General, often decked out in gaudy military gear, was named best Latin rap artist by Billboard magazine five years in a row, scoring major hits with the frantic Rica Y Apretadita, the relatively mellow yet still dirty Tu Pum Pum, and the flirty Muevelo. Eventually, the lanky MC won over a multitude of listeners in Puerto Rico, a nation with its own bustling reggae movement, and home of emerging rap superstar Armando Lozada Cruz, better known as Vico C.

With songs by Nando Boom, El General, Vico C and Jamaican dancehall mainstays like Shabba Ranks blasting from cars and clubs, it was only a matter of time before Puerto Rican DJs would blend each style and create one of their own. Today, Puerto Rican reggaetoneros have a firm grip on the mainstream, but artists like Tego Calderón are quick to give credit where it is due: "[W]e started doing reggaetón … because El General and Nando Boom were hitting hard."