Latin hip hop is hip hop music that is recorded by artists in the United States of Hispanic and Latino descent, along with Spanish-speaking countries in the Caribbean, North America, Central America, South America, and Spain.
Luis Armando Lozada Cruz, known by his stage name Vico C, is an American rapper, singer and record producer. Regarded as the founding father of reggaeton, Vico C has played an influential role in the development of Latin American hip hop and urban music.
The Music of Puerto Rico has evolved as a heterogeneous and dynamic product of diverse cultural resources. The most conspicuous musical sources of Puerto Rico have primarily included African, Taino Indigenous, and European influences. Puerto Rican music culture today comprises a wide and rich variety of genres, ranging from essentially native genres such as bomba, jíbaro, seis, danza, and plena to more recent hybrid genres such as salsa, Latin trap and reggaeton. Broadly conceived, the realm of "Puerto Rican music" should naturally comprise the music culture of the millions of people of Puerto Rican descent who have lived in the United States, especially in New York City. Their music, from salsa to the boleros of Rafael Hernández, cannot be separated from the music culture of Puerto Rico itself.
Reggaeton is a modern style of popular and electronic music that originated in Panama during the late 1980s, and which rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s through a plethora of Puerto Rican musicians. It has evolved from dancehall, with elements of hip hop, Latin American, and Caribbean music. Vocals include toasting/rapping and singing, typically in Spanish.
Tegui Calderón Rosario is a Puerto Rican rapper, singer and actor. He began his musical career in 1996 and was supported by the famous Puerto Rican rapper Eddie Dee, who invited him on his second studio album, El Terrorista de la Lírica, released in 2000. Calderón reached international success in 2003 with his first album, El Abayarde, which sold 300,000 copies worldwide and was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award. His importance in reggaeton music led him to participate in Eddie Dee's 12 Discípulos album in 2004. He released three more studio albums between 2006 and 2015, varying in styles, focusing more in hip hop and African music rather than reggaeton in The Underdog/El Subestimado (2006) and El Abayarde Contraataca (2007). His fourth studio album, El Que Sabe, Sabe, released in 2015, won a Latin Grammy Award for Best Urban Music Album.
Pinoy hip hop or Filipino hip-hop is a style of hip hop music performed by musicians of Filipino descent, especially Filipino-Americans.
The Nuyorican movement is a cultural and intellectual movement involving poets, writers, musicians and artists who are Puerto Rican or of Puerto Rican descent, who live in or near New York City, and either call themselves or are known as Nuyoricans. It originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in neighborhoods such as Loisaida, East Harlem, Williamsburg, and the South Bronx as a means to validate Puerto Rican experience in the United States, particularly for poor and working-class people who suffered from marginalization, ostracism, and discrimination.
The Cold Crush Brothers are an American hip hop group that formed in 1978 in the Bronx, New York City. They were especially known for their memorable routines which included harmonies, melodies and stage-stomping performances. The Cold Crush Brothers still perform in the United States as of 2023. "A snapshot from hip-hop's 50th summer: A live mixtape"..
John "Mr. Magic" Rivas, was a Puerto Rican hip hop radio DJ.
Oswald Priest, better known as Mad Lion, is a dancehall, ragga musician and rapper. He frequently collaborates with fellow hip hop artist KRS-One. His awards include the 1994 Source Award as Reggae Artist of the Year, and the 1995 Source Award as Reggae Hip-Hop Artist of the Year.
Bachatón is a fusion genre of reggaeton from Panama and Puerto Rico as well as bachata from the Dominican Republic. Bachaton combines bachata melodies and reggaeton style beats, lyrics, rapping, and disc jockeying. The word "bachatón" is a portmanteau of "bachata" and "reggaeton". "Bachatón" was coined and widely accepted in 2005. It is a subgenre of reggaeton and bachata.
Luis Cedeño, more commonly known as DJ Disco Wiz is an American DJ.
Hip-hop or hip hop, formerly known as disco rap, is a genre of popular music, that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s primarily from African American, Afro-Latin, and Afro-Caribbean musical aesthetics practiced by youth in the South Bronx. Hip-hop music originated as an anti-drug and anti-violence social movement led by the Afrika Bambaataa and the Universal Zulu Nation. The genre is characterized by stylized rhythmic sounds—often built around disco grooves, electronic drum beats, and rapping, a percussive vocal delivery of rhymed poetic speech as consciousness-raising expression. The music developed as part of the broader hip-hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, breakdancing, and graffiti art or writing. Knowledge is sometimes described as a fifth element, underscoring its role in shaping the values and promoting empowerment and consciousness-raising through music. In 1999, emcee KRS-One, often referred to as "The Teacher," elaborated on this framework in a Harvard lecture, identifying additional elements that extend beyond the basic four. These include self-expression, street fashion, street language, street knowledge, and street entrepreneurialism, which remain integral to hip-hop's musical expression, entertainment business, and sound production. Girls’ double-dutch was also recognized as a key stylistic component of breakdancing, according to KRS. While often used to refer solely to rapping and rap music, "hip-hop" more properly denotes the practice(s) of the entire subculture. The term hip-hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping may not be the focus of hip-hop music. The genre also centers DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.
Juan Flores was a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and director of Latino Studies at New York University. He was considered a leading pioneer, scholar, and expert in Latin American and Nuyorican culture, often working with his wife Miriam Jiménez Román.
Frank Javiel Malave, better known by his stage name Frankie Cutlass, is an American Grammy nominated and award winning DJ, record producer, songwriter, and remixer from East Harlem, New York City. He was a member of the Funkmaster Flex's DJ collective The Flip Squad.
Joseph R. Guerrido, better known by his stage name Produkt, is a Puerto Rican rapper and songwriter, born in Bronx, New York. He founded his label, Legacy Records Inc., in 2006. Since then, he has released two free mixtapes. He is the first rapper ever to be nominated for more than 3 single-year Underground Music Awards in the UMA's 11-year history.
Urbano music or Latin urban is a transnational umbrella category including many different genres and styles. As an umbrella term it includes a wide and diverse set of genres and styles such as dancehall, dembow, urban champeta, funk carioca, Latin hip hop and reggaeton. The commercial breakthrough of this music took place in 2017 with artists from Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Puerto Rico, the United States, Venezuela and even non-Spanish-speaking nations, such as Brazil, where Portuguese is spoken.
