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“…the reggaeton people…teef reggae music from we an call it reggaeton…we knew they were gonna be culture vultures”
—Buju Banton
“Vengo de África; vengo de Puertorro”
—Rafa Pabön, “Vida respira”
“The stone had skidded arc'd and bloomed into islands”
—Kamau Brathwaite, “Calypso”
and if the music be born
of the slave ship’s rot
I am a child of that music
and if the music be born of people
once capital
I am a child of that music
and if the Caribbean
be one archipelago
I am a child of that music
and if the music stay nigratin’
from island to island
I am a child of that music
and if the Patois be too thick
for me to decipher
I am a child of that music
and if the Spanish be too quick
for me to decipher
I am a child of that music
and if the sugarcane runoff
buzzes into a dembow
I am a child of that music
and if the dembow be all
I hear over a crowd
I am a child of that music
and if the dembow me hipnotiza
draws me into a head nod
or a sway or a perreo
I am a child of that music
and if the dembow be so loud
I am asked to turn it down
I am a child of that music
and if the dembow rattles my bones
into a percussion
I am a child of that music
and if each percussive blow
be a wave hitting Kingston
I am a child of that music
and if each percussive blow
be a wave hitting Ponce
I am a child of that music
and if each wave carry me
like a stone skidding across the sea
I am a child of that music and
I am a child of that music am
a child of that music am
a child of that music
every pebble’s splash
charting the way back
a new island arcing and blooming
in a sea we made our home
