Interview with Tego Calderon

T = Tego Calderon
S = James G. Spady

S: What kinds of music were you hearing early on?  Were you hearing Merengue at home?

T: Nah, no Merengue.  In Puerto Rico, Merengue wasn’t that big. It became big at a certain time but in my house my father was listening to Jazz and Salsa. And I grew up listening to Salsa.

S: Who were the Salsa musicians you used to hear?

T: It's Ismael Rivera. He was the king in my house. Like Elvis was to White America. That's the way Ismael Rivera was in my house. He has influenced me as a human being and as a musician. I respect him a lot and now I keep carrying his tradition and his legacy. Everywhere I go I talk about him. And his family loves me because of the respect I show their dad. They show me a lot of love. I know all the family. They show me a lot of love. They're really protective of his legacy. They don't like a lot of people to do his music.

S: They don't mind you doing it?

T: But with me they don't mind because they love me.

S: But why do you think they give you that kind of love, that respect? Why do you feel that is happening?

T: I don't know. Maybe it's because they know that when I talk, I talk from the heart. It's not nothing that I'm making up. It's just that I love him. I love his music. I respect him a lot. I understand him. We're very similar. That's why, you know, all of these elder musicians show love. It's weird but all of them show me love and respect even though I'm playing this kind of music.

S: Tego, what do you call the kind of music you perform? People have different names for it. What do you call it?

T: They call me the Reggaeton artist but I'm not a Reggaeton artist. I'm a musician. I consider myself a Musician. I don't consider myself a Reggaeton artist. I do all kinds of music. I love Salsa, Blues, Rap, Reggae. I like all kinds of music. I like Rock.

S: So how did the title "King of Reggaeton" come about?

T: Reggaeton comes from the word Reggae. What we do is some kind of Dancehall. Jamaican Dancehall.

S: What they call Ragamufficn in France?

T: Yeah, that Raggamuffin, it's the same thing but they gave it the Reggaeton name. We were doing a kind of Ragamuffin but we were doing it to Spanish songs. It didn’t have a name at first then they started calling it "Underground." They started calling it like that. Then they stated calling it "Perreo Hip Hop," like Doggy Style, because of the way that we danced to it. Then they called it Reggaeton.

TO CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW, GET YOUR COPY OF "THA GLOBAL CIPHA: HIP HOP CULTURE AND CONSCIOUSNESS"….

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