Behind Latina Magazine’s 2006 Reggaeton Issue
This piece was first published in La Nueva Link’s Newsletter as part of its monthy column series La Esquina.
I remember being in my cubicle at work in Manhattan and calling my mom in Rio Piedras asking her to look up a name in the phone book — yes, the literal phone book. “L-l-a-n-d-e-l…Llandel Veguilla”, I spelled out in Spanish over the phone. “A ver, a ver…..Llandel Veguilla Malavé, Cayey. ¡Lo encontré!”, she happily exclaimed, even though she had no idea who this person was.
It was fall 2005, and I was working on my most significant assignment yet as a journalist, a little over a year after graduating college: a dozen-page reggaeton special for the March 2006 issue of Latina magazine, which would feature Daddy Yankee on the cover. I had been tasked with helping to identify and find reggaeton’s budding stars so we could book them for photoshoots and interviews for what would become one of the first extensive English-language magazine spreads of el género.
Like any other teenager in Puerto Rico in the 90s, I had grown up listening to Baby Rasta y Gringo, Chezina, Wisin y Yandel, and others. But now, in a post-“Gasolina” world in the mid-2000s, our homegrown stars were breaking big, fast. So much so that their home numbers still appeared in the phone book. I had no contacts in the industry, but as one of the youngest staffers at the magazine, I was the de facto arbiter of youth culture. Plus, I was bilingual, and lucky for my editors, I was actually familiar with this booming music and culture that was just taking off in the mainland. I was at the right place at the right time and the responsibility fell on me to do a lot of the groundwork for this historic package.
I might have been the lowest in the Latina totem pole, but I didn’t take this responsibility lightly, and my editors’ trusted my judgement and assigned me several of the pieces of this cover story special. Calle 13 had barely released a few singles but I got them in the issue (their first English-language interview, and I dare to say, magazine feature), and we were able to secure all of the important acts as well: Ivy Queen, Tego Calderón, Don Omar and yes, Wisin y Yandel (although I can’t remember if Yandel picked up his house phone.) When I approached artists and their teams, my Puerto Rican background and appreciation of the culture made all the difference. Trust was built.
It was stressful and exciting. Due to Don Omar’s erratic schedule (once a divo, always a divo), we couldn’t book a location, so we took his portrait inside a limo parked outside his Manhattan hotel. The group session of the “new generation” of rising stars of el género took place at a Dominican restaurant in Washington Heights, over dishes of tostones, bacon-wrapped shrimps, arroz and all. Another time, as I was interviewing Voltio in the street on a cold winter NYC morning, a pigeon shat on my white puffer jacket. I was mortified, but he very sweetly laughed it off saying “it’s a sign of good luck”.
I spent my Thanksgiving holidays transcribing interviews and filing stories. One night before one of the shoots, I stayed late in the office lamenting to our very gringa and very well-meaning photo editor, “I’m just an assistant!”. I didn’t want to fuck up.
Ultimately, It was the best bootcamp a journalist could ask for. Besides pitching and writing stories for the magazine and interviewing reggaetoneros, as a junior editor, I was also assistant to Betty Cortina, Latina’s Editor-in-Chief. That meant I was responsible for keeping her calendar, booking her meetings, filing her expenses, and general administrative support. It was a lot, but I got first-row access to how a magazine works, the demands and pressures of the EIC role, not just in the newsroom but also related to the business side, investors, and public relations. I got immeasurable lessons in leadership.
I feel lucky I started my journalism career at Latina magazine with strong women editors like Betty, Damarys Ocaña, Galina Espinoza, and Raquel Cepeda, who had cut their teeth in newspapers and magazines and had a very rigorous approach to the craft. From day 1, they taught me to keep my journalistic independence, especially in entertainment, and not give in to pressure from record labels, managers or compromise any editorial coverage due to advertisers’ demands or industry forces. It was always about storytelling and serving our audience. It was about putting together a magazine that made our community feel seen and proud. It was a privilege.
Reggaeton is now a global phenomenon, much to the chagrin of the music and media industries that dismissed it for decades. We have so much work to do as Latinxs in covering our diverse music movements, and we are still so underrepresented in mainstream news outlets.
Latina magazine has since folded, and the media is going through one of the worst crises in its history. More desperate than ever for ratings and clicks, Latin-centric media, which traditionally has been mostly in Spanish, continues to reduce entertainment coverage to chismes, platitudes and shallow non-journalistic pursuits at the mercy of corporate interests. Many journalists’ roles, especially in entertainment, have become obsolete or eliminated. Publications, already crippled, are barely surviving the pandemic.
I started my career at a moment when journalism still invested in young talent and there was care for the storytelling craft. When media business models hadn’t yet collapsed with the advent of digital and change in consumption habits, we worked hard and for little pay, but it was a noble pursuit.
I wonder how many magazine features, regardless of language, have ever existed about reggaeton. Fifteen years later, probably not many. How many newsrooms or editorial teams today have the resources to mentor young and nurture rising generations, produce quality, nuanced content? Who is documenting our culture? Is it relegated to user-generated posts on social media?
Just like journalists hold influential figures like politicians accountable, our role as culture and entertainment journalists is to analyze, criticize, and ask pop-culture figures.
As I look back on my career and contemplate our current state of affairs, I am left wondering: What is the future of music and culture journalism, where is our place?
