Image by Chris Panicker
No matter how much you know about reggaeton, it’s likely that you are familiar with that unmistakable two-bar loop: boom ch-boom-chick. That sound is colloquially known as a dembow riddim, one of the most recognizable rhythmic patterns of a genre that has reshaped all of pop music in the last decade.
That loop is now the cornerstone of a landmark copyright lawsuit filed by the estates of Jamaican producers Cleveland “Clevie” Browne and Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson, who argue that some of reggaeton’s biggest stars have infringed on the copyright to their song “Fish Market.” The massive suit includes over 1,800 songs by reggaeton titans like Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, and Daddy Yankee, plus cameos from some unexpected guests (see: Jason Derulo).
Plaintiffs Clevie and Steely are seeking remuneration for a series of songs that not only sample “Fish Market,” but that interpolate or copy its rhythmic pattern and any of the derivative works that came after “Fish Market.” If they win, artists would no longer be able to use one of reggaeton’s well-known rhythmic foundations without licensing it first. Producers and labels with enough resources would likely shell out money to cover sampling costs, but younger and newer artists may have to rely on other riddims—or come up with something new altogether, diminishing the centrality of the genre’s signature rhythmic patterns and changing the sound of reggaeton as we know it.
The reggaeton internet—along with scholars and critics—has been waiting for this shoe to drop. It’s no secret that there has been tension between the Puerto Rican, Panamanian, and Jamaican diasporas around cultural ownership of reggaeton since the genre’s inception three decades ago. Critics have publicly questioned why and how Jamaicans have been sidelined from reggaeton’s commercial success. Many of us have demanded nuanced critical conversations about traditions of borrowing in Afro-diasporic music cultures, about the Latin music industry’s anti-Blackness, and about how many of the most visible and commercially successful reggaeton artists are white or lighter-skinned. The Steely and Clevie case is finally bringing these conversations to the fore in a very public—and long overdue—way.
Can you actually copyright a rhythm?
In a word? Maybe.
The Fish Market case is the latest chapter in a series of legal battles around the definition of music in copyright law over the last decade. In 2018, a judge ordered Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke to pay Marvin Gaye’s estate over $5 million in damages (and 50 percent of future royalties) for copying Gaye’s 1977 track “Got to Give It Up” in their 2013 song “Blurred Lines.” Experts feared that the decision could set a precedent that made the “feel” or “groove” of a song subject to copyright—a major expansion of what is considered original and protectable, and a fact that could potentially stifle composers’ creativity.
The Fish Market suit could expand those definitions even further. In the U.S., most copyright cases focus on melodies, hooks, or lyrics to determine infringement, reflecting the ways that the law relies on what is musically notatable in a classical Western tradition. The Copyright Act of 1909 required songwriters to submit sheet music—known as “deposit copies”—to register copyright. The 1973 revision to that law allowed them to register copyright with a recording, but in the last decade, deposit copies have assumed renewed relevance, as ideas of what can be musically copyrighted are legally contested.
However, the Steely and Clevie case is not based on melody, but on rhythm. The role of rhythm in music copyright has been tested far less in the courts, in part because it’s less commonly notated using sheet music. “If someone wants to express a really complex rhythm, they’re probably not going to sit down and say, ‘Let me get out a blank sheet.’ They’re going to clap their hands,” explains Dr. Olufunmilayo Arewa, a law professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School of George Mason University. Arewa notes that Afro-diasporic music “can’t be notated very well using the conventions that were established during the classical music era, where it was mostly notating melodies and chords, but not really much notation about rhythm.” That means U.S. copyright law has struggled to grasp the creativity embedded in rhythmic musical traditions.
Many legal scholars see this as a Eurocentric bias rooted in the law—and one that has prevented Black artists from making successful infringement claims around rhythm. “The reality is that African-based musics have a very distinctive timbre, and they tend to be rhythmically complex in ways that I think aren’t often appreciated by courts,” says Arewa. In a 2018 article for the Harvard Law Review, scholar Joseph Fishman echoed that sentiment, writing, “A melodic emphasis in music copyright reflects European aesthetic norms that don’t represent much of modern music making, especially within genres pioneered by Black artists. Defining the musical work in terms of melody has discounted and discriminated against wide swaths of these artists’ creativity.”
That’s why the legal implications of the Steely and Clevie case are so huge: A ruling in favor of Steely and Clevie could make it much easier to copyright rhythms overall. It could make the music industry adjust common practices around royalty splits, insurance costs, and even the composition of songs. For example, four years after the “Blurred Lines” case, The New York Times ran a story diving into the case’s effect on songwriters. The story revealed that they were facing “heightened scrutiny of their work while it is still in progress, as record companies and music publishers sometimes vet new songs for echoes of past works.” And as more names started to be added to a song’s credits, royalties were being split across a higher number of composers, which ended up diminishing individual earnings.
How the “Fish Market” instrumental—and its gazillion reworks—became a pillar of reggaeton
First, a basic chronology: In 1989, producers Steely and Clevie wrote and recorded the song “Fish Market,” an instrumental B-side of Gregory Peck’s “Poco Man Jam.” The following year, producer Bobby “Digital” Dixon used elements of that instrumental for Shabba Ranks’ “Dem Bow,” a now-iconic anti-imperialist (and homophobic) dancehall anthem that exploded in the global dancehall and reggae scene. As the court filing explains, the instrumental of “Dem Bow” is an alternative mix of “Fish Market,” based on the same underlying backing track (importantly, Steely and Clevie co-own the copyrights to “Dem Bow.”)
But the recording that resonated with so many reggaeton artists was neither “Fish Market” nor “Dem Bow.” In 1990, Jamaican and Panamanian collaborators, based in New York’s renowned reggae dancehall studio HC&F, created a new version of “Dem Bow.” That track, crafted by Jamaican producer Dennis “the Menace” Thompson, captures the rhythmic feel of the original “Fish Market” recording, but added digital timbales, among other flourishes.
The Dennis the Menace rework was initially imagined as an instrumental for Panamanian reggae en español icon Nando Boom. But it ended up being released as a sex jam called “Pounder,” sung by New York-based Jamaican deejays Bobo General and Sleepy Wonder. On the B-side of “Pounder,” which was released in 1990, was a dubby, instrumental version of the song, known as “Pounder Dub Mix II.” It is this instrumental that resonated with Panamanian and Puerto Rican creators in the mid-’90s, motivating them to reimagine their own takes on the riddim—by creating Spanish-language versions of tracks, or cutting and pasting the riddim with other drum loops or basslines, and letting street rappers spit over the beats. Eventually, all these experiments would consolidate into what we now know as reggaeton.
So, what does this all mean for the lawsuit?
Steely and Clevie argue that because “Dem Bow,” “Pounder,” and “Pounder Dub Mix II” derive original elements of “Fish Market,” any unauthorized interpolation, copying, or sampling of those derivative works constitutes infringement. In other words, Steely and Clevie consider the boom-ch-boom-chick pattern, as played on kick and snare drums, as their intellectual property. Marshall says this claim represents the heart of the case—and the serpentine history of Caribbean music culture, which shares so many legacies of rhythm left behind by enslaved Africans.
Many reggaeton producers and artists gravitated to the dembow riddim because it sounds familiar and traditional, given that it’s present in other Caribbean genres. “That basic beat appears in many other musical traditions—and hence, listeners familiar with those would have been primed for a modernized, Jamaican take on this time-honored, cherished rhythm. The same beat—steady quarter note pulse plus 3+3+2 cross-rhythms—was known as the habanera during the 19th century and across the 20th, and it’s called that because of how central it is to various Cuban styles from the contradanza on up,” says Marshall. He notes that the same rhythms appear in Argentine tango and milonga, and that it’s especially prominent in the montuno sections of son, mambo, and salsa songs. “These same rhythms can also be heard in such traditional musics as some of the songs used in Orisha worship (Regla de Ocha) as well as in Puerto Rican bomba and plena. You can hear the bassline in bachata songs tracing out the habanera,” he continues. And lastly—but perhaps most importantly—the same rhythm appears in Haitian konpa, in zouk from Martinique and Guadeloupe, and in soca from Trinidad and St. Vincent. “These last few are especially important because they also offer a precedent—or ‘prior art’ in legalese—for playing the habanera with kick and snare drums in precisely the same way that Steely and Clevie would arrange for ‘Fish Market.’”
The history of reggaeton is circuitous. Like many other DJ-based music cultures, borrowing, remixing, and interpolation has been foundational to the genre’s development—a reality made even more complex by generations of migration and displacement across the Caribbean. But the American legal system isn’t set up to make sense of that complexity. In spite of that shared musical history, this lawsuit is also meaningful for a much more urgent ethical reason: How has the music industry failed Jamaican artists’ claims for credit and financial compensation for their work? And how does this case reflect racial hierarchies that have existed in the Caribbean for centuries?
When will Black pioneers get their due?
In the popular imagination, reggaeton has been framed as a “Latin music” genre. As Dr. Petra Rivera-Rideau, Associate Professor of American Studies at Wellesley College and author of Remixing Reggaetón: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico has written, the music industry relies on discrete classification schemes that market genres like reggaeton to a “‘Latino’ audience understood to be distinct from both ‘Black’ and ‘white’ audiences.” That logic not only distances “Latin music” from Blackness, it also reinforces the myth that Latinidad is a race, rather than an imagined ethnic category.
While Latin American and Caribbean racial ideologies fall on a spectrum rather than the black/white binary prevalent in the United States, the region’s racial hierarchies still discriminate against darker-skinned individuals. The reggaeton market of today exemplifies that hierarchy in action: The artists topping charts and breaking commercial records—from Bad Bunny to Rauw Alejandro to J Balvin—are typically white or lighter-skinned, even if they have Black family members or Black ancestry.
It’s no secret that racial hierarchies like these have helped determine how much access artists have to resources—and the development of a thriving market overall. In spite of its global popularity, the reggae and dancehall industry has not enjoyed the same level of commercial success as reggaeton. In addition to racial and resource-based inequities, much of the reggae industry evolved outside of the system of copyright law. Jamaica did not establish copyright for music recordings until 1993. Marshall says reggae and dancehall’s culture of versioning and remixing was able to flourish in a landscape without legal restrictions on copyright, but that it ultimately disadvantaged Jamaican artists who are now operating in “an international market.”
On the flip side, reggaeton has transformed into a multimillion-dollar enterprise since its commercial ascent in the mid-2000s. In 2023, the RIAA reported that Latin music revenue had surpassed $1 billion for the second year in a row—much of that growth fueled by reggaeton. Reggaeton artists are enjoying the fruits of a thriving industry, but many Jamaican creators, like Steely and Clevie, have not benefited from the genre’s profitability, in spite of their contributions.
“In the context of African diasporic music, I think racial hierarchies have played a role in who’s been able to borrow without giving credit or compensation,” explains Dr. Arewa. “There’s been a tendency to treat certain kinds of public domain, whether it may or may not be.” Arewa says that Afro-diasporic music has been a “huge source of innovation” in popular music in the 20th and 21st centuries, but there has been a tendency for music industry personnel to take from those traditions. “That’s a reflection of a social context of people who are marginalized and people whose creativity is both diminished and treated as being freely appropriable.”
Where do we go from here?
The outcome of the Steely and Clevie is still unclear, as the discovery stage of the suit will last until March 2025. Arewa speculates that the composition claims may be harder for the Jamaican plaintiffs to prove, given the few precedents for rhythm-based copyright cases, and the law’s general ambiguity around rhythm as original and protectable intellectual property. The sampling claims will be easier to verify, since they rely on a sound recording.
Reggaeton is a genre shaped by Black creativity across the Caribbean—from Panama to Jamaica to Puerto Rico to the Dominican Republic and beyond. Sharing, remixing, and sampling may be central to our music cultures, but those traditions become far more complex in the context of the music industry. Artists are already forced to fight for scarce resources to make a living from their art, and a predatory system plagued by anti-Black racism only exacerbates the inequity.
While the future of the Steely and Clevie case is uncertain, it does reflect a monumental debate in the story of reggaeton’s rise: the reality that Jamaican artists have often failed to receive credit for their contributions to the genre. That is an injustice that the reggaeton industry must reckon with, no matter how the suit unfolds. Perhaps more importantly, beyond the scope of this individual case, the reggaeton and Latin music industry must contend with the colorism and anti-Blackness that it reproduces in its awards shows, media outlets, and festival bookings. Only that kind of upheaval will bring us closer to real justice.
Temazos y palos of the MonthAKRIILA / TAICHU: “POPPER!”
It was only a matter of time before South American queens of internet glitch AKRIILA and TAICHU joined forces. The two singers are known for drawing from Extremely Online genres like hyperpop, plugg, and neoperreo, while cutting and pasting digital detritus from Lolita, anime, and Y2K aesthetics in their visuals. That may sound like overload, but both artists know just how to titrate the maximalism down to the perfect dose. On “POPPER!”, the pair stunt over an explosive beat that mutates through sirens, hard rock riffs, a dembow riddim, and record scratches. Come for the dirty production, stay for the lyrics about taking poppers and killing all the uglies with your bestie.
Lua de Santana / $kyhook: “GiNGA”
Lua de Santana’s songs produce the kind of brain-frying bombshell moments that heroines of pop experimentalism like Arca and Björk are known for—only with much more ass shaking. At least, that’s how I felt when I listened to the Brazilian Spanish artist’s recent GINGA EP for the first time, which prompted me to get out of bed, put my hands on my knees, and throw it back in my bedroom mirror. The title track is one of many highlights: A menacing minor chord twitches under thumping percussion, as Lua slips between funk-style shouted vocals in both Portuguese and Spanish. A violin screeches through the production in the last 30 seconds, all the tension threatening to shatter into a thousand pieces. Check the video for a stunning synthesis of flamenco, Malambo, and Brazilian dance, set in the Spanish village of Tembleque. Then peep the lead single “PiRi PiRi” for another funk-fueled mind-melt.
Asimov: “Verbena”
Along with Costa Rica’s Adiós Cometa, Asimov has become one of Central America’s shoegaze/dream pop bands of the moment (earlier this year, the two groups collaborated on a song from Adiós Cometa’s LP Nuestras Manos Son Incendios, along with Argentine ambient stargazer Lumtz). Asimov’s recent single “Verbena” captures what it’s like to long for the simple past as you enter young adulthood and realize just how much bullshit life is going to throw at you. Lead singer Pilar Ángel’s listless voice sweeps over meadows of reverb and distortion, beams of light splintering from each note. Maybe it’s because of the various forms of impending doom this planet is facing, but lately, I’ve had trouble finding a better outlet than shoegaze and dream pop to contend with all the precarity. “Verbena” is perfect fodder for that kind of gloom: When you have no idea what comes next, wishing for a time when it felt like you did is a balm.
Letón Pé: “¿Cuándo Se Va’Ir El Calor?”
If you’re anything like me, you’ve also been waiting for it to stop feeling like soup as soon as you step outside in New York City. Whether you’re in Washington Heights, Santo Domingo, or somewhere else equally susceptible to the effects of a warming planet, Letón Pé is here to commiserate. Her new song “¿Cuándo Se Va’Ir El Calor?” blends the eminent catchiness of dembow with the glamour of ’90s dance radio, synthesizing thumping drum kicks with lush piano house flourishes. She sings directly to those who suffer most in this oppressive summer heat: Thick-thighed, blowout-loving girlies, this one’s for you.
Jup do Bairro: “mulher do fim do mundo”
Jup do Bairro has been a staple of the São Paulo queer underground since 2007, collaborating with behemoths like Linn da Quebrada and BADSISTA. Her latest EP, in.corpo.ração, continues some of the themes she explored on CORPO SEM JUÍZO, her 2020 album about queer sexuality, body politics, and Blackness. “mulher do fim do mundo” is actually a cover of an original song by Elza Soares, an icon of Brazilian samba. Jup do Bairro’s version preserves some of the live instrumentation, like the eerie oboe tendrils that curl throughout the track. But with crashing cymbals and a sputtering funk foundation, do Bairro makes it all her own. It’s punishing, mesmerizing, and sounds exactly like a woman grappling with her role as an artist at the end of the world.
Vale / YENDRY: “Escándalo”
Vale’s “Escándalo” chronicles a romance so intoxicating, so physically extractive, that its lovers are moved to surrender their corporeal forms completely. “Gotean los deseos de los labios y la boca,” sings featured guest YENDRY; this love is so tantalizing, it means desire leaks from her lips. Steady hand clapping and ticking clocks punctuate the production, as if to signal a countdown until the paramours end up tangled in their bedsheets.
Solo Fernández: “EL RESPLANDOR $$$”
Over the last few years, Dominican rockers S0lo Fernández have quietly become the heroes of Santo Domingo’s indie scene. The trio has helped put on other local acts with their annual Solo Fest, nourishing a whole new generation of bands that had evolved after the ’80s rock heyday, led by titans like Luis Días. The Dominican Republic isn’t known for indie rock, but Solo Fernández is almost single handedly changing that, securing successful tours across Mexico and Latin America. “EL RESPLANDOR $$$,” from their recent full-length LAS COSAS QUE NUNCA ME DIJE, contains the sweeping sensibility you might find in an early the War on Drugs song. Don’t let the dreaminess fool you, though: There’s an anti-capitalist bent to all the brilliance, as lead singer Gian Rojas decries a culture obsessed with chasing after money and fake “plastic dreams.”
Girl Ultra: “bruce willisss”
Bruce Willis might not seem like a go-to subject for a toxic relationship anthem, but trust that Girl Ultra can make even the most non sequitur of pop culture references work. The Mexico City stunner released her latest EP in July, a crystalline collection of club-pop tracks that sparkles through glints of drum’n’bass, tech-house, and beyond. On “bruce willisss,” Girl Ultra lands somewhere between lamenting and pining after a lover who she just can’t quit. Her voice bottles all the tension she’s internalized, as she muses on just how easy and tempting it is to destroy their relationship once again.
Angélica Garcia: “Juanita”
“Juanita” will speak directly to all the tropigoths and brujas who’ve been haunted by a supernatural presence in their lives. In the song, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Angélica Garcia wrestles with a spirit who seems to call on her from within, urging her to remember all the grief she experienced in a past life. The chugging electro-cumbia production is uncanny, spooky synths flashing through the track as Garcia’s voice vibrates with unease. It’s as if the spirit is trying to crawl its way out of her mouth, ready to take total control.
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Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
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Publish date : 2024-09-25 04:07:00
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