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ENTITY · PLACE / NEIGHBOURHOOD

Panama City, Panama

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Where Jamaican dancehall first became Spanish. The Afro-Caribbean neighbourhoods descended from West Indian canal labour kept the link to Kingston alive for generations, and from the late 1970s Panama City deejays were versioning Jamaican rhythms in Spanish -- the practice that produced El General, Nando Boom, Chicho Man and Renato, and that the city's Museo del Reggae en Español now documents.

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At a glance

Confidence
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Sources
Remezcla, "Tu Pum Pum: Panamanian Artists Helped Birth Reggaeton, Then the Industry Left Them Behind"; Afropop Worldwide; the archive's existing Panama records (seed 194).
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Connections

In stories

Story · Well supportedWho owns the riddim?

A rhythm built in a Kingston studio in 1989 travelled to Panama, through New York, into San Juan, and became the pulse of the biggest Spanish-language pop music on earth. A Los Angeles court is now preparing to put the question of who owns it to a jury.

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Compiled and researched by The Jamaica Music Atlas music desk. The sources that informed it are credited above.

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