Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Reggaeton: The Sound That Conquered The World’ on Peacock, Where Daddy Yankee Helps Trace The History Of The Genre That Crowned Him King

In the four-part Peacock docuseries Reggaeton: The Sound That Conquered the World , director and executive producer Omar Acosta ( The Chief Who Walked the Sea ) and exec producer and star Daddy Yankee follow the propulsive hit genre all the way down to its roots, which travel from Panama and the dancehall traditions of Jamaica to Puerto Rico, New York City, and back again. The interview list is rife with reggaeton heavy hitters, with Yankee, Bad Bunny, Nicky Jam, Ivy Queen, Vico C, Karol G, Shaggy, Myke Towers, Feid, Rauw Alejandro, and DJ Negro all appearing, plus many others, and a ton of archival footage helps tell the story of how Puerto Rico defined the genre’s insistent rhythms. “We kept putting our flavor on it,” says Master Joe in Reggaeton , “until we had our own sound.”

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Opening Shot: “They said reggaeton was gonna die a million times,” explains Daddy Yankee over the opening credits of the docuseries. “Nobody thought we were gonna make it.” He’s about to rock a sold-out arena in a custom Adidas x Gucci tracksuit.

The Gist: Reggaeton wasn’t always stadium-sized. Today its beat travels wide, and it’s typical for major pop stars and reggaetoneros like Daddy Yankee to hop on each other’s tracks. But the music had to come from somewhere, and Reggaeton: The Sound that Conquered the World sets to defining a genre and style that truly rose organically. Ingredients included the energy of salsa music, an African influence coming from percussion and drums, dancehall and reggae sounds from Jamaica, and particularly, the synthesis between the rise of hip-hop in New York and its exchange with the city’s Puerto Rican community. In Reggaeton , Daddy Yankee is interviewed alongside DJ Playero, who in the 1990s helped propagate the rise of the genre in San Juan’s DIY club spaces, crafting beats that supported raps en español .

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The interviews in Reggaeton tell the story in a conversational way, but they aren’t lengthy. Instead they appear as part of a mix, chopped up with archival footage and integrated reenactments that project the look and feel of 1990s house parties. History lessons also drop in periodically via onscreen text, and the docuseries makes a determined case to connect reggaeton’s rise to political movements against poverty and gang violence in Puerto Rico’s public housing communities. When pioneering reggaeton artist Ivy Queen says the music came from the barrios, she is describing how marginalized people found representation in its irrepressible beat.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Reggaeton director Omar Acosta also helmed Mixtape , which Decider’s Benjamin H. Smith called “one of the best hip hop documentaries of all time.” And Netflix has gotten in the reggaeton game with El Ganador , the autobiographical series starring Nicky Jam as himself, and Neon , a comedy about music biz hopefuls in Miami exec produced by Daddy Yankee.

Our Take: From the jump, Reggaeton: The Sound that Conquered the World sets up as a chatty oral history, a format that really suits the docuseries, since it seems to have interviewed nearly every key influencer on reggaeton, going all the way back to the genre’s earliest beginnings in the sweaty and music-filled parties of Puerto Rico. But it’s got the beat to go with those bullet point-style drop-ins from notables like Maicol & Manuel, Lunay, Don Chezina, and Baby Rasta. Reggaeton also brings in salsa veteran Andy Montañez, who taps out the shared sweet spot of the genres’ rhythms on his knees. It pinpoints exactly how and when rap in Spanish began to transform into reggaeton, and which reggae and dancehall songs became change agents in the hands of San Juan’s party DJs. And of reggaeton’s legendary use of the “dem bow” beat, Ivy Queen makes the simplest observation of how the genre thrived: “those drums make the world dance, bro.”

Reggaeton’s continued hit status has fueled other recent superstar-fueled documentaries – like The Boy From Medellin , an admiring profile of J Balvin, or Bad Bunny & Reggaeton . But there’s plenty of room for Reggaeton: The Sound that Conquered the World , too, because it combines its celebration of the music’s ebullience and resilience with its larger role as a unifying cultural force. “This comes from the hood, the barrios, the projects.” And the sense of pride that defines the bulk of its interviews is a counterweight on the political forces and music industry moves that would wish to dismiss the genre as a fad.

Sex and Skin: Well, lots of anecdotes about the marquesina parties in early 1990s Puerto Rico, which were proving grounds for the sound that became reggaeton. All it took was heat, barrels of homemade hooch, a microphone and sound system, and “80 people in there, all crammed.”

Parting Shot: “This is where I was forced to grow up. Here in Villa Kennedy. 100 percent.” As the docuseries sets up its next episode, Daddy Yankee revisits a traumatic time from his younger days in one of San Juan’s residenciales público.

Sleeper Star: Reggaeton really stirs up the genre’s primordial ooze with a host of incredible old footage, like performances of bomba and plena music on Puerto Rican television in the 1970s and live footage of Vico C, DJ Negro, and dancehall artists that looks ripped straight from VHS.

Most Pilot-y Line: Hip-hop and salsa each helped influence the sound of reggaeton. But the visual cues those genres provided were also hugely influential on a kid like Daddy Yankee, growing up in Puerto Rico. “I saw the way he moved and danced, his chains,” Yankee says of rap legend Big Daddy Kane. “Little by little I learned the importance of putting on a show.”

It was the same with the local salsa musicians who played gigs up there. “They came back from New York and they had that swagger. As kids we saw what they projected. And we had two images, rap and salsa, that we were combining.”

Our Call: Stream It! Reggaeton: The Sound that Conquered the World is an entertaining, fast-paced docuseries that fills in the genre’s important backstory with participation from those who were there at the beginning, plus a whole lot of rhythm.

Johnny Loftus ( @glennganges ) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.

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