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Latin American Culture Essay

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Jared Wong Professor Figueredo SPAN 2200 Commercial Culture: How the Hip-Hop Industry Influenced Latin American Hip-Hop As the music industry has become commercialized on an international level, people have argued that music culture has become somewhat homogeneous worldwide. America is often seen as the center of this commercial expansion; this can be seen in the case of music, as American artists have recently been achieving mainstream success with international audiences. Artists from the US are now able to tour internationally, and are well-received across the world. This paper analyzes the effects of this commercialization in Latin America, specifically in the context of hip-hop. Latin America has traditionally had its own unique musical style, but as a region it has not been immune to the influence and spread of commercialized hip-hop. The extent to which this movement has influenced Latin America is not always …show more content…

Despite the fact that their commercial-release records still seem to retain their values, the fact that Orishas left Cuba to achieve success seems to directly conflict with some of their musical themes (Songs like “A Lo Cubano” and “Hay Un Son” are primarily about representing Cuban culture and identity) (Ramsdell). “Hay Un Son” was released in 2007 on their album Antidiotico, but “A Lo Cubano” was the title track from the album A Lo Cubano released in 1999—this was their first album released under a label. The time difference between the two songs, however, seems to show that Orishas’s sense of cultural pride was not lost throughout their commercial career, and remained strong throughout. As mentioned in the earlier comparison between Amenaza’s “No Te Atrevas” and Orishas’s “Atencion”, their strongly rebellious tone might have been tempered, but this is likely a result of Orishas trying to maintain the necessary balance between entertainment and

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