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Why is Daddy Yankee endorsing John McCain?

ED MORALES | E-mail Ed Morales at sonidoslatinos@edmorales.net.

September 21, 2008

There was a backlash a few weeks ago when reggaetón megastar Daddy Yankee announced he was endorsing Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Back in June, such Latin music luminaries as Don Omar, Voltio, Alejandro Sanz, Lila Downs and Lin-Manuel Miranda enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama. Wasn't Daddy a rapper from an urban barrio and weren't most of his fans from similar Democratic strongholds?

Blogs and social network sites exploded in condemnation of the Puerto Rican "king of reggaetón." Last week, Bronx rapper Fat Joe Cartagena challenged him to a debate on the issues. "Daddy Yankee is a sellout," he told MTV News.

Some have speculated that Yankee was out to gain publicity for his film, "Talento de Barrio," to be released Oct. 10. But the accompanying soundtrack has been at the top of the Billboard Latin Albums chart since its August release.

Could it be that Yankee and McCain simply clicked upon meeting in 2006 when named by Time magazine as two of the world's most influential men?

"Talento de Barrio" (Machete Music/Universal), though much less ambitious than his previous release, is a mostly brilliant piece of urban tropical pop, with Yankee reaching new tongue-twisting heights as his production team squeezes out frenetic beats and as much melody and harmony as possible from a jumble of synthesizers and vocoders. A couple of the songs, "Llamado de Emergencia" and "De la Paz y de la Guerra," even hint at broadly popular formats like Carlos Vives' pop-cumbia and Juan Luis Guerra-style merengue.

But the lyrical content of the songs may provide the best clue yet to the Yankee-McCain alliance. They narrate the subject matter of the movie: the challenges of aspiring to be a rap star in a violent environment."Because of the shadow of death/Everything that I've seen/Has made me stronger," proclaims Yankee on the title track. Sounds a little like, "I'm a maverick, fight with me!" The sentiment sets the stage for the movie's plot, a gangster classic, in which our hero battles with street rivals but meets a girl who makes him want to change his ways.

Like his massive hit "Gasolina," much of "Talento de Barrio" is devoted to sex. Such songs as "Temblor" and "Pa-Kum-Ba!!" extol the virtues of the "perrea," a kind of vertical lapdance practiced in reggaetón clubs. "Pose," the current hit single, has the narrator cajoling his girlfriend to pose for a Webcam.

Maybe it's not so strange that, in their joint appearance in Arizona, McCain praised Daddy Yankee for being the father of three children, the first having been born when Daddy was about 17. After all, McCain's running

mate knows a thing or two about teen parenthood.

The trailer for "Talento de Barrio" promises much gunplay, backed by the insistent rhythms of "Somos de Calle." You could say that Daddy Yankee is in synch with the National Rifle Association's position refusing to ban assault weapons. Too bad there are no moose to be hunted in Puerto Rico.

Of course, if "Gasolina" were to be taken literally, and the girls just want more and more of it, McCain could take it as a rallying cry for offshore drilling, a reggaetón anthem for energy independence.

E-mail Ed Morales at sonidoslatinos@edmorales.net.