Renegade Latino

At Premio Lo Nuestro, along with performances by Wisin Y Yandel and a hell of a lot of other great artists, was a performance by Don Omar and Victor Manuelle. This video showcases how Don Omar actually can sing and not just rap and his versatility as a musician and artist.

Victor Manuelle has been involved with reggaeton for a while now. He shows up at reggaeton concerts, has done songs with Hector y Tito, and it looks like he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. The majority of his work has been good, but I think his career could gain from this involvement with a more youth oriented genre. Plus, if he really does personally like it then everyone’s a winner.

As for Don Omar, he’s been my favorite reggaeton artist since the beginning. I was going make my first song of the week a video of Dile, but I couldn’t find one with good enough quality. So it might not have made SOTW, but it made it as my ringtone. His style of reggaeton is less rap-like and stays closer to a romantic style of music with smoother rhythms and, what I feel, are lyrics one can more easily relate to. He seems to not compete that much with other reggaeton acts, like Rakim Y KenY, Tito, Hector, or Daddy Yankee because he’s in a different niche. As a business major, I would say he’s been able to differentiate his product and so these other artists are more substitutes than rivals.

Not to put down these other artists because the WyY album Los Vaqueros was awesome. It makes me wanna get up and fight someone - a quality I like in music. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. Reggaeton is just getting started and artists are out there making names for themselves and creating their own styles in the process. As the genre matures I’m sure there’s going to be a sub-genre with more Don Omar style songs, one with the rowdy, adrenaline pumping style of Wisin Y Yandel or Daddy Yankee, and maybe one for the more eclectic style of Tego Calderon. Either way there’s a lot more to come and I’m looking forward to all of it.