The birth of reggaeton
In the 1980s, singer and DJ, Leonardo Renato Aulder took dancehall music from Jamaica and adapted it to his Spanish speaking Panamanian audience to create a new style of music.
Singer and DJ, Leonardo Renato Aulder, got together with friends, including El General, to pioneer a movement in the 1980s which they called βreggae in Spanishβ.
It later became known as reggaeton.
Many people think this globally popular music β with its legendary stars like Bad Bunny, Ivy Queen and Daddy Yankee - started in Puerto Rico, but theyβre wrong.
Renato, as heβs known, took dancehall music from Jamaica and adapted it to his Spanish speaking Panamanian audience to create a new style of music, which spread in clubs and on the buses.
He tells Jane Chambers how he did it.
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(Photo: Renato performing in Costa Rica. Credit: Leonardo Renato Aulder)
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