November 1, 2021 • 16 mins
In New York City, El General's success on stage and on the radio fuels a whole new generation of Panamanian singers.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on a flow. One of the captains told me, hey,
no really wants used to sing. I don't know what
you gotta do, but you gotta sing. I was angry
with my grandmother and I wrote La Chicas Cafe. That's
the song that made made everything international. If you asked me,
(00:23):
where Renato's from? Riobajo? Where Gabi from Rio Obajo? Where reggae?
So I'm from Rio Obajo, We're none the boom from
Rio Obajo. We used to hang a lot Obajo and
he used to work in this grocery store and he
(00:43):
used to, you know, like the guy the kids. Once
you finished shopping, they pack your stuff and put it
in the bag. So at night, especially on the weekends,
we used to go to this dance and I used
to sing, and me and him used to practice a
lot of combination in my mom's house because we live
very close, and we spent the whole day they're practicing
and just making fun out of it. And once I
(01:07):
go to sing and I'm on stage, and I call
him up on stage and he do his thing, and
he he tear it up like he would take his
shirt off and start wine on the girls. Then stopped
jumping on stage. Now we are talking about who were
the first one to make reggae in turn nationally huge
(01:30):
and big. That is at Gardo Armando Franco Lo, who
we know as Frankita, one night in Nights, was home
with two friends, Michael Ellis and Edgardo Franco, who had
(01:50):
come over to plead their case with her mother. Michael
and Frankito were practically family cousins, if not by blood,
then at least by how close their families were. All
three were Panamanian of Jamaican descent and living in New
York City, Brooklyn, to be exact. Michael and Frankito were
there because the following night, Frankito was going to have
his first big show at the Biltmore Ballroom, a venue
(02:13):
that was known for crowning dance hall artists who had
made it, and they wanted Exania to join them. Yeah,
we wanted man, she good it And I was like,
I never did a bill that do big. The tall
and wiry Frankito, along with Michael his producer, had recorded
a couple of songs that were starting to get played
in the clubs and on the radio. Xenia's mom had
(02:35):
said yes, but now On the night of the show,
Xenia had a bigger problem at the Biltmore Ballroom. They
would be sharing the stage with established stars in front
of a packed house with the audience just a few
feet away. I was a nervous wreck. I was a
nervous wreck, my sister, that you could do it, You
can do it. The main acts were Jamaican greats like
(02:58):
super Cat, but Exa and Frankito were there to sing
in Spanish, so when she came up to the mic,
she let off with her song Celambre. If the man
wants look at paget, put I put it, put I
put it, sing Platon, poppy, slaton, yamoud. I think if
(03:28):
you want a piece, then you gotta pay for it
without money, there's no love. She was known as labre
vida rude girl. The place went down. There was among
the Spanish reggae artists that night. Frankito was the main act.
When it was his turn to take the stage, the
normally shy Frankito came out in a military outfit, you know,
(03:52):
like a boss on stage. Frankito was a lien. Yeah,
he came out with his rounds. There that that was it.
That was his part. To play. This is a flow,
a journey to the roots of reggaeon. My name is
Lila Luciano, a CBS News correspondent born and raised in
(04:14):
Puerto Rico, the cradle of Regadon. You're listening to episode
five Anirai. To understand the moment, we first have to
go back in time a few years to the mid
nineteen eighties, when ill Hanirai moved from Panama to New
York City to live with his mom and go to college.
(04:37):
At first, the pace of the city was overwhelming. There
was no time for music, and it stayed that way
for a minute, but through Panamanian social circles, il Hanirai
started hanging out with Exania and Michael. At the time,
dance hall was taking over New York City. Different crews
were facing off against each other in musical battles. Exania, Michael,
(04:59):
and fran Gito jumped on the scene, and a lot
of areas that used to have like sessions like mom
session would be this crew go over here. I used
to run up session in my basement and everybody used
to have their lyrics. The three spent a lot of
time in Michael's apartment on Albany Avenue and Flatbush playing
(05:19):
around with rhythms and improvising versus. I had a dope
ass flows were lethal. Then you used to always have
me as a deadly killer. I just chill. That wasn't
ready for me. I used to come over with some craziness,
so they were like, hey, you're you're the killer man.
You're killer. She wasn't scared to do anything. He wasn't scared.
(05:43):
He go, let's battle this crew. Let's go over here.
Let's I'm knocked this crew down because they're coming up
too fast. No nonstages. He's also a Panamanian and grew
up in Brooklyn at the same time as Ill and
Rude Girl. Rude Girl. She was willing to talk about anything,
willing to do anything in the business as far as like,
(06:05):
you know, get people together and let's fight this power.
Let's get this music, you know, off the ground and
let's let's get it popping. After college, I found a
job and with the money from his first paychecks, bought
himself a mobile DJ system. He started to DJ and
perform at birthday parties, singing over instrumentals like Rnato has
(06:25):
shown him in Panama. He noticed something the crowds were
reacting more to the songs in Spanish, but reggae and
Espanol was a new emerging sound in New York. Labels
weren't exactly pouring money into it, and there weren't any
diabolo rojo's to get your mixtapes around. So Rude Girl
and Michael took matters into their own hands. First, they
(06:48):
got a few dub plates of their songs made at
Don Juan Studio. Dub Plates are the discs that record
companies produced as a test before pressing the mastered vinyls,
but in dance hall they were used as a way
of cutting special versions of songs for sound clashes, you know,
the musical battles. The Panamenians would cut double plates of
(07:09):
their early songs and take them to DJs at Panamanian
clubs in Brooklyn and some of the biggest clubs in
Manhattan like El Morocco and the Palladium. I got tried,
I go give it to the DJs. You have to
go yourself, walk, go to the clubs and go clubs
in my hat and hey play that. So that's how
we had to promote the music. Kid. We had to
(07:31):
do a lot of walking a lot of club in
and you know me. The DJs, they used to be
gods in the in the in the seventies and eighties,
they used to be the heads of the music in
the street DJ's right, you know, they play a record
in front of a crowd, they go crazy. Then the
radio DJ would be in the club and then he
would take it to the radio. And then you had callers, right,
they called up and say, oh my god, play that
(07:52):
record again. That's Robert Levs, a DJ and producer with
the hit making group C and C Music Factory. Those
were the days where that power was exercised. What made
it even cooler is that they just will break these
records and clubs. Today they don't do that, But back
then you could break a record in a club. Hand
(08:18):
doesn't give interviews anymore. We'll talk about that in a bit,
but we know his friend Nando Boom was instrumental Inhali
taking the next step. You see. Hani, before leaving Panama,
had gotten a taste of life on stage, the angelation,
the energy, and he had promised his friends back home
that he would try to make it in the New
(08:38):
York music scene. In Panama and now the Boom signed
a record deal. When he visited New York, he was
surprised to see Eli still hadn't He was like, you
were the one that got me into this. It wasn't
long before I was in Queen's standing in front of
the legendary VP Records. Michael Ellis took el to VP Records,
(09:00):
heard singing on on the instrumental and they was They
was loving it. So they said, Okay, this is something
different for us. This is reggy, this is what we love.
VP Records, by that point, was the world's largest reggae distributor.
They had worked with everybody, the best producers, the best artist, everybody.
VP was founded in Kingston, Jamaica by Randy and Patricia Chin,
(09:20):
a Chinese Jamaican couple who moved the business to New
York in the nineteen seventies. Here's miss pat Well. There
was an employee called Carl Miller. He made friend with
l General and the experimenting in making reggae turn it
into Spanish. Carl Miller had Eleni jump on a rhythm
(09:41):
from a little Lenny song about let's just call it
the source of a woman's power over men. Eleni turned
that around into the anthem Boom Boom. So the song
is PG thirteen by Today's Anderds. VP decided to call
(10:02):
it Putunt, presumably to avoid any issues with getting the
song on the airwaves, which it did in a big way,
hitting at number five on English language radio. Actually, no
contract or nothing was done, so you know the story,
you went and signed to a big company. We never
foresee that it was going to take off, and we
(10:24):
didn't foresee that this type of music would turn into
something like like what it has done in the Spanish community.
I guess that was the starting of that new type
of music, reggaeton. The success of the Pompong and Buena,
(10:45):
the second song recorded for VP Records, opened the floodgates
to the broader music industry. When Nal performed at the
Builtmore Ballroom, he overshadowed many of the Jamaican artists. It
was jet you for the careers of a whole new
generation of Panamanian singers. And and then I was everywhere everywhere.
(11:07):
He was singing in the clubs with the Jamaicans. People
was loving him more than the artists of the show
that night. So you know that you're a good artist
when people you know are coming to see you, and
there's a bigger artist on that same show. Rude Girl
gets a call the next day from Carl Miller and
soon there would be and killer ranks. And so that's
(11:31):
when I decided that I'm gonna go down and walk
down to VP Records and let these people hear what
I got. In Spanish, Hellio took his stage name or
the Thug from his moniker on the streets. It was
into a lot of stuff. He was into, you know, distributing.
We was into you know, shooting, you know, I mean
we we did. We did a little bit of everything.
(11:52):
My uncle was one of the biggest distributors in New York,
and I learned a lot from him. You know. He
just started calling me on Panama right and Malanta got
a shot when he walked into VP Records looking for
Carl Miller. Almost as a test, they had him jump
on a rhythm that was hot and the result was
(12:12):
Ghetto al Mom Like, I changed my life that day
when I walked into VP Records. VP Records changed my life.
Ehndal would continue to put out hits like and the
(12:34):
crossover dance song Robbie Robs Bourriqua Anthem, would see and
see music Factory. Remember this there now, the world tours,
the music awards, the money and the fame, he would
drop all of it. He quit and went back to church.
In a video for The Jehovah's Witnesses, the artists formerly
(12:57):
known as IL said his music was the work of Satan.
Damn it is a film fail. Robert cleavi Jays, who
collaborated with on Robbie Robs Bodrigua Anthem, also turned to
(13:17):
The Jehovah's Witnesses after a career producing for Mariah Carey
Whitney Houston and see and See Music Factory. He loves music,
you know, We've had conversations. He loves to make music,
and he loves what he did is just that um.
As a Jehovah's witness you know, we go by what
the Bible teaches us. And one of those this language,
you know, an outlook sexuality. I think what makes that
(13:40):
handed out unique with his style, his talent, but putting
words together. But he did boom boom, you know. And
Buddy Quatham is actually the other one, you know, get
his son, and so I think he still loves that part,
you know, of the form. I just think is. You know,
we had a little too much fun with the lyrics.
(14:00):
When he was just a kid, sold SODA's at the
concerts of the famous artists that came to Panama. He
had big dreams of becoming one of them. One of
these shows, he snugged into Celia Cruz's dressing room and
asked her to touch him for good luck. Celia first
scolded him for not having knocked, but then she did
(14:20):
touch him and gave him a piece of advice find
an original rhythm. Years later, the two recorded a song together.
You know, it's sad to see him go, but we
still remember him with gratitude because Hani's influence andre Geton
(14:43):
is undeniable, as is the undeniable power of this rhythm.
This beat became so ubiquitous and that it is almost
synonymous with the entire genre, and it's a source of
ongoing controversy. On the next episode of A Flow, The
(15:09):
Mystery of Them Bow. A Flow is a production of
Excel Content Studio in partnership with I Heart Radio's Michael
Toura podcast network. The show is hosted by me Lilia
Luciano and was created and produced by Danny's The Julius.
Production and sound designed by Dixo, Additional production by David Kinones,
(15:32):
original music by Truco Production, supervision by Alvaro Cess. Executive
producers for Excel Content Studio are Nondo Vila, Eagle and
Alejandro Ri. Executive producers for I Heart Media or connal
Burn and just Sell Bounces. For more podcasts from I Heart,
visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(15:53):
you listen to your favorite shows us as
Previously on a flow. One of the captains told me, hey,
no really wants used to sing. I don't know what
you gotta do, but you gotta sing. I was angry
with my grandmother and I wrote La Chicas Cafe. That's
the song that made made everything international. If you asked me,
(00:23):
where Renato's from? Riobajo? Where Gabi from Rio Obajo? Where reggae?
So I'm from Rio Obajo, We're none the boom from
Rio Obajo. We used to hang a lot Obajo and
he used to work in this grocery store and he
(00:43):
used to, you know, like the guy the kids. Once
you finished shopping, they pack your stuff and put it
in the bag. So at night, especially on the weekends,
we used to go to this dance and I used
to sing, and me and him used to practice a
lot of combination in my mom's house because we live
very close, and we spent the whole day they're practicing
and just making fun out of it. And once I
(01:07):
go to sing and I'm on stage, and I call
him up on stage and he do his thing, and
he he tear it up like he would take his
shirt off and start wine on the girls. Then stopped
jumping on stage. Now we are talking about who were
the first one to make reggae in turn nationally huge
(01:30):
and big. That is at Gardo Armando Franco Lo, who
we know as Frankita, one night in Nights, was home
with two friends, Michael Ellis and Edgardo Franco, who had
(01:50):
come over to plead their case with her mother. Michael
and Frankito were practically family cousins, if not by blood,
then at least by how close their families were. All
three were Panamanian of Jamaican descent and living in New
York City, Brooklyn, to be exact. Michael and Frankito were
there because the following night, Frankito was going to have
his first big show at the Biltmore Ballroom, a venue
(02:13):
that was known for crowning dance hall artists who had
made it, and they wanted Exania to join them. Yeah,
we wanted man, she good it And I was like,
I never did a bill that do big. The tall
and wiry Frankito, along with Michael his producer, had recorded
a couple of songs that were starting to get played
in the clubs and on the radio. Xenia's mom had
(02:35):
said yes, but now On the night of the show,
Xenia had a bigger problem at the Biltmore Ballroom. They
would be sharing the stage with established stars in front
of a packed house with the audience just a few
feet away. I was a nervous wreck. I was a
nervous wreck, my sister, that you could do it, You
can do it. The main acts were Jamaican greats like
(02:58):
super Cat, but Exa and Frankito were there to sing
in Spanish, so when she came up to the mic,
she let off with her song Celambre. If the man
wants look at paget, put I put it, put I
put it, sing Platon, poppy, slaton, yamoud. I think if
(03:28):
you want a piece, then you gotta pay for it
without money, there's no love. She was known as labre
vida rude girl. The place went down. There was among
the Spanish reggae artists that night. Frankito was the main act.
When it was his turn to take the stage, the
normally shy Frankito came out in a military outfit, you know,
(03:52):
like a boss on stage. Frankito was a lien. Yeah,
he came out with his rounds. There that that was it.
That was his part. To play. This is a flow,
a journey to the roots of reggaeon. My name is
Lila Luciano, a CBS News correspondent born and raised in
(04:14):
Puerto Rico, the cradle of Regadon. You're listening to episode
five Anirai. To understand the moment, we first have to
go back in time a few years to the mid
nineteen eighties, when ill Hanirai moved from Panama to New
York City to live with his mom and go to college.
(04:37):
At first, the pace of the city was overwhelming. There
was no time for music, and it stayed that way
for a minute, but through Panamanian social circles, il Hanirai
started hanging out with Exania and Michael. At the time,
dance hall was taking over New York City. Different crews
were facing off against each other in musical battles. Exania, Michael,
(04:59):
and fran Gito jumped on the scene, and a lot
of areas that used to have like sessions like mom
session would be this crew go over here. I used
to run up session in my basement and everybody used
to have their lyrics. The three spent a lot of
time in Michael's apartment on Albany Avenue and Flatbush playing
(05:19):
around with rhythms and improvising versus. I had a dope
ass flows were lethal. Then you used to always have
me as a deadly killer. I just chill. That wasn't
ready for me. I used to come over with some craziness,
so they were like, hey, you're you're the killer man.
You're killer. She wasn't scared to do anything. He wasn't scared.
(05:43):
He go, let's battle this crew. Let's go over here.
Let's I'm knocked this crew down because they're coming up
too fast. No nonstages. He's also a Panamanian and grew
up in Brooklyn at the same time as Ill and
Rude Girl. Rude Girl. She was willing to talk about anything,
willing to do anything in the business as far as like,
(06:05):
you know, get people together and let's fight this power.
Let's get this music, you know, off the ground and
let's let's get it popping. After college, I found a
job and with the money from his first paychecks, bought
himself a mobile DJ system. He started to DJ and
perform at birthday parties, singing over instrumentals like Rnato has
(06:25):
shown him in Panama. He noticed something the crowds were
reacting more to the songs in Spanish, but reggae and
Espanol was a new emerging sound in New York. Labels
weren't exactly pouring money into it, and there weren't any
diabolo rojo's to get your mixtapes around. So Rude Girl
and Michael took matters into their own hands. First, they
(06:48):
got a few dub plates of their songs made at
Don Juan Studio. Dub Plates are the discs that record
companies produced as a test before pressing the mastered vinyls,
but in dance hall they were used as a way
of cutting special versions of songs for sound clashes, you know,
the musical battles. The Panamenians would cut double plates of
(07:09):
their early songs and take them to DJs at Panamanian
clubs in Brooklyn and some of the biggest clubs in
Manhattan like El Morocco and the Palladium. I got tried,
I go give it to the DJs. You have to
go yourself, walk, go to the clubs and go clubs
in my hat and hey play that. So that's how
we had to promote the music. Kid. We had to
(07:31):
do a lot of walking a lot of club in
and you know me. The DJs, they used to be
gods in the in the in the seventies and eighties,
they used to be the heads of the music in
the street DJ's right, you know, they play a record
in front of a crowd, they go crazy. Then the
radio DJ would be in the club and then he
would take it to the radio. And then you had callers, right,
they called up and say, oh my god, play that
(07:52):
record again. That's Robert Levs, a DJ and producer with
the hit making group C and C Music Factory. Those
were the days where that power was exercised. What made
it even cooler is that they just will break these
records and clubs. Today they don't do that, But back
then you could break a record in a club. Hand
(08:18):
doesn't give interviews anymore. We'll talk about that in a bit,
but we know his friend Nando Boom was instrumental Inhali
taking the next step. You see. Hani, before leaving Panama,
had gotten a taste of life on stage, the angelation,
the energy, and he had promised his friends back home
that he would try to make it in the New
(08:38):
York music scene. In Panama and now the Boom signed
a record deal. When he visited New York, he was
surprised to see Eli still hadn't He was like, you
were the one that got me into this. It wasn't
long before I was in Queen's standing in front of
the legendary VP Records. Michael Ellis took el to VP Records,
(09:00):
heard singing on on the instrumental and they was They
was loving it. So they said, Okay, this is something
different for us. This is reggy, this is what we love.
VP Records, by that point, was the world's largest reggae distributor.
They had worked with everybody, the best producers, the best artist, everybody.
VP was founded in Kingston, Jamaica by Randy and Patricia Chin,
(09:20):
a Chinese Jamaican couple who moved the business to New
York in the nineteen seventies. Here's miss pat Well. There
was an employee called Carl Miller. He made friend with
l General and the experimenting in making reggae turn it
into Spanish. Carl Miller had Eleni jump on a rhythm
(09:41):
from a little Lenny song about let's just call it
the source of a woman's power over men. Eleni turned
that around into the anthem Boom Boom. So the song
is PG thirteen by Today's Anderds. VP decided to call
(10:02):
it Putunt, presumably to avoid any issues with getting the
song on the airwaves, which it did in a big way,
hitting at number five on English language radio. Actually, no
contract or nothing was done, so you know the story,
you went and signed to a big company. We never
foresee that it was going to take off, and we
(10:24):
didn't foresee that this type of music would turn into
something like like what it has done in the Spanish community.
I guess that was the starting of that new type
of music, reggaeton. The success of the Pompong and Buena,
(10:45):
the second song recorded for VP Records, opened the floodgates
to the broader music industry. When Nal performed at the
Builtmore Ballroom, he overshadowed many of the Jamaican artists. It
was jet you for the careers of a whole new
generation of Panamanian singers. And and then I was everywhere everywhere.
(11:07):
He was singing in the clubs with the Jamaicans. People
was loving him more than the artists of the show
that night. So you know that you're a good artist
when people you know are coming to see you, and
there's a bigger artist on that same show. Rude Girl
gets a call the next day from Carl Miller and
soon there would be and killer ranks. And so that's
(11:31):
when I decided that I'm gonna go down and walk
down to VP Records and let these people hear what
I got. In Spanish, Hellio took his stage name or
the Thug from his moniker on the streets. It was
into a lot of stuff. He was into, you know, distributing.
We was into you know, shooting, you know, I mean
we we did. We did a little bit of everything.
(11:52):
My uncle was one of the biggest distributors in New York,
and I learned a lot from him. You know. He
just started calling me on Panama right and Malanta got
a shot when he walked into VP Records looking for
Carl Miller. Almost as a test, they had him jump
on a rhythm that was hot and the result was
(12:12):
Ghetto al Mom Like, I changed my life that day
when I walked into VP Records. VP Records changed my life.
Ehndal would continue to put out hits like and the
(12:34):
crossover dance song Robbie Robs Bourriqua Anthem, would see and
see music Factory. Remember this there now, the world tours,
the music awards, the money and the fame, he would
drop all of it. He quit and went back to church.
In a video for The Jehovah's Witnesses, the artists formerly
(12:57):
known as IL said his music was the work of Satan.
Damn it is a film fail. Robert cleavi Jays, who
collaborated with on Robbie Robs Bodrigua Anthem, also turned to
(13:17):
The Jehovah's Witnesses after a career producing for Mariah Carey
Whitney Houston and see and See Music Factory. He loves music,
you know, We've had conversations. He loves to make music,
and he loves what he did is just that um.
As a Jehovah's witness you know, we go by what
the Bible teaches us. And one of those this language,
you know, an outlook sexuality. I think what makes that
(13:40):
handed out unique with his style, his talent, but putting
words together. But he did boom boom, you know. And
Buddy Quatham is actually the other one, you know, get
his son, and so I think he still loves that part,
you know, of the form. I just think is. You know,
we had a little too much fun with the lyrics.
(14:00):
When he was just a kid, sold SODA's at the
concerts of the famous artists that came to Panama. He
had big dreams of becoming one of them. One of
these shows, he snugged into Celia Cruz's dressing room and
asked her to touch him for good luck. Celia first
scolded him for not having knocked, but then she did
(14:20):
touch him and gave him a piece of advice find
an original rhythm. Years later, the two recorded a song together.
You know, it's sad to see him go, but we
still remember him with gratitude because Hani's influence andre Geton
(14:43):
is undeniable, as is the undeniable power of this rhythm.
This beat became so ubiquitous and that it is almost
synonymous with the entire genre, and it's a source of
ongoing controversy. On the next episode of A Flow, The
(15:09):
Mystery of Them Bow. A Flow is a production of
Excel Content Studio in partnership with I Heart Radio's Michael
Toura podcast network. The show is hosted by me Lilia
Luciano and was created and produced by Danny's The Julius.
Production and sound designed by Dixo, Additional production by David Kinones,
(15:32):
original music by Truco Production, supervision by Alvaro Cess. Executive
producers for Excel Content Studio are Nondo Vila, Eagle and
Alejandro Ri. Executive producers for I Heart Media or connal
Burn and just Sell Bounces. For more podcasts from I Heart,
visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(15:53):
you listen to your favorite shows us as
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