The Noise Gets Loud

When DJ Negro opened up The Noise nightclub in San Juan, nobody imagined it would become the home of a new underground sound and movement that would take over the island.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Previously on a flow. So many things happening that were traumatized.
I saw people die, I saw people hanged. I saw
a lot of drugs. You have to know how to
survive to beat the street. How did I beat the street?
I made something that today is heard around the world.

(00:25):
I found a place and I opened the Noise Boom.
When Felice Rodriguez or Deja Negro opened the nightclub The Noise,
a few blocks away from his house in the Labraya
neighborhood of ald San Juan, he did it out of revenge,
as simple as that. But neither he nor anyone else

(00:47):
for that matter, imagine the impact that decision would have,
because The Noise would end up being much more than
just a little nightclub. It was kind of like Studio
fifty four in that the noise became gendery in Puerto
Rico's underground scene. It was like the Warehouse in Chicago
where a new sound was born, like Motown in that

(01:08):
it created new artists, like Soul Train where new dances
took cold, and kind of like the pag Jam in
Miami because it was the space for young people who
were not allowed in anywhere else. But unlike all those
iconic places. The noise did it all, making it the
first home of Puerto Rican underground. M This is a flow,

(01:34):
a journey to the roots of Redon. My name is
Lilla Luciano. I'm a CBS News correspondent born and raised
in Puerto Rico, the cradle of Redon. You're listening to
episode eight. The noise gets loud. The Ganato opened the

(01:54):
doors to the noise in. It wasn't easy. He didn't
have a lot of money or any the permits. But
with a little black paint, some fluorescent lights and a
sound system, he opened for business. From day one. It
was a Hito remembers it like it was yesterday. Okay, okay.

(02:14):
When you entered, you'd hear a song that said he
made see Lamriue. Then the next one you would hear
them bow damn bodam bow damn bow with that beat
that is so alive, and you see everyone against the walls,
grinding hard. All the girls will be wearing baggy pants

(02:43):
with three colors. At the time, there was a fat
where they all had like signs on their chests with
a map of Africa with different colors. We thought we
were more Jamaican than the Jamaicans. It was this dark
club and it will be able one and you can
literally hear the base and the drums coming out of

(03:06):
that little club. This is Ivie Queen, the godmother of
cred On, talking about that smokey and sweaty little club
that everyone wanted to get into. Ladle or the distinctive
that this club has. What's going on? What's going on?

(03:32):
There was the sound system, some lights more or less
and that was it. Oh and a bar. It was
nothing fancy. It was nothing glamorous or anything like that.
That's dj Alam, a producer who has worked for years
with stars like Ivy Queen. And I love it because

(03:55):
when I started going, it was like I felt understood
and all of us who were there, we were on
the same waveleft if they're the people who went through
the noise were not accepted elsewhere. If you wanted to
go to a nightclub, you couldn't get in because of
the way you were dressed. You were from the underworld,

(04:17):
you were a tug, you were a thief, you were
from the other side of town. I'm telling you because
it happened to me. They wouldn't let me in the
hundreds of young kids who would go to the Noise
every weekend to listen and dance to reggae and rap
music in the only place where you could at the time,
shared that feeling of togetherness. It was like being part
of an exclusive club of a secret movement of the

(04:40):
underground and the Noise. Everything began in the Noise, the nightclub.
That's d J Adam again. No, they don't know. We
were giving a chance to play rap music, reggae music
and dance hall music at the club. But then reggae
dance hall in Spanish also comes in the One from Panama.

(05:02):
When the One from Panama drops, everybody was crazy about them.
Everybody was crazy. That's where underground music was born. Because
they can do it, why can't we? Well, we're going
to do it too, and that's where underground began. It's
always difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when a movement

(05:25):
begins because there's so many people involved, each one pulling
their own weight. But for DJ Nego, this is when
the sound known as Puerto Rican Underground was born. And
they said, O me and so that the noise, in
the beginning of the noise, what's hot is Boom Boom,

(05:46):
Nando Boom is coming with the fermore More. There are
countless Panamanian singers, like a lot of singers. I have
DJ Eric as the DJ and the up so I
tell dij Eric dij Eric, I'd like to bring Nando Boom,
the one who sings Infermo More. But I can't get him.

(06:07):
I don't know how to get him. So we're going
to have these kids sing a song similar to Infermo
Lem and we're going to play it here and we'll
make it famous and see what happens. So basically a
Nando Boom cover in Spanish. Yes, we were going to
imitate Nando Boom with similar lyrics and we were going

(06:28):
to make him famous here at the club. Well said
and done. We recorded some young cats called kid Power
Posse with the song that Went Blood and we started

(06:49):
playing it night after night after nine, three and four
times a night, three and four times a night, three
and four times a night. When I took the kids
to the club, not everyone in line fit. I was like, oh,
I like this. The Geno's idea was simple, make a
song merging Panamanian dance hall and Spanish rap from Puerto

(07:10):
Rico then build up that song by playing it at
the noise until it was so hot people were buying
it on the mixtapes that were also sold at the club.
It worked like a charm, you see, was lit. But
at the club only the guys danced and Panamanian reggae
got people all sexy and grinding, but it lacked that

(07:30):
home cooking. The mix of the two sounds was irresistible. Well, well,
they accepted Vehicle, they accepted Brui MC, they accepted Reuben DJ,
and they accepted Lisa M. Now I'm giving them something
new with a little reggae to make you dance at night.
Because remember Vico you used to listen to it was

(07:53):
not reggae. So I played reggae at the club. I
am giving them something that they're dancing too. And now
they can play in a car. And it wasn't only
ahead with the audience. Artists love the sound too. So
what happens Another kid comes by and says, look, I
want to sing. To give me a chance, So I said,

(08:14):
come to the club before I opened and we can
record something. And that's how Big Boy came out with
a song. Don't I just said? We played that night
after night, then waiting for the next song, and it
was the same recipe. We had to play it every

(08:36):
day so that it caught on. They were imitations. Remember
don't that tongue was from the Cuddy Ranks song Wait
the Man, so it was a copy of that. They
did their own lyrics, but it was more or less
the same. Funny thing is that for me growing up,
I never heard the songs in English. For me, the

(08:56):
original ones were in Spanish. So later on when I
did hear him in English, I thought, oh, they're copying
these songs in Spanish. Little did I know. Alarmed by

(09:20):
the amount of people and sound coming out of the noise,
it didn't take city officials long to close down the
club with the excuse that it didn't have permits. It
was actually a blessing in disguise because the place was
too small and DJ Negro had a different idea of
brewing in his head. Instead of just recording the artists,
he was going to have them sing live in open

(09:41):
mic performances in front of a packed audience. In other words,
he was going to launch Puerto Rican artists. Follow This
is where Filo was born. The rapper flow. Just so
you know Flo was a friend of mine. He was
a barber next to the house where I lived. We
were neighbors. It turns out Follow sang will cutting hair,

(10:02):
and he had his fans in the hood. So one
day Didja Nego asked them to sing one of his songs,
just to see what's what, and he sings, groups damn Follow,
that song is groovy. Let's record it, prorom. We recorded it,

(10:26):
and that same night we started playing it at the
club at the club. At the club, and that's how
Follow was born. And when I brought follow man, that
line was all the way down to the crossings and
where Michael from Michael Emanuel was born, where Ranking Stone
was born, where we saw g was born. Did Nego's
method for sifting out the good from the bad was

(10:47):
straight up daunting. There was no place to hide. Well. Look,
they had to come and tell me I sing, Oh,
you sing, well, come back at seven to night. If
I like your song, it would get played that same
night at the club. If I didn't like your song,

(11:09):
you didn't get played at the club. I gave you
the microphone, sing over the track. If I like it,
we're going to record it. But it was at the
moment live. It wasn't a recording studio. It was in
the club. Grab the mic and start singing. Don't trip up,
don't trip up, because I'm not going to stop. The
take was from start to finish. When it was done,

(11:29):
let's go play. In the Search for New Talent, Da
Negdo discovered a young girl who would end up becoming
a legend in history, but during her first audition, she
was nervous as hell. I went to the first audition
and I finally went to the neg was like a
guivey quinn. I was like yeah, and he was okay.

(11:50):
Thing to me like I have to really prove myself.
I'm one of those who turns around, turns my back
on you when you sing to me, like, let's see
what I can do with your voice. Unlike the seventh song,
I said, you were singing really good. You have an

(12:10):
amazing voice, but none of your songs reach me. She says,
I have a song that I offered to someone else.
Do you want to be in the group singing to
me because so far you're not in the group, And
then she sings no. Wow. I was like, Wow, that's

(12:32):
the song that will make you a hit. If you
want to be in the group, that's the song you
have to sing. And she sung good just like that,
And that was when hit and they welcome me as
the first Lady of the Noise. With Evie Queen in

(12:53):
the group, the Noise looked like one of those movies
with all the superheroes in it. And that only held
the club legend to grow and grow. This is rapid
Li Siam. You've heard her songs. That was our house.
That was where we rehearsed, where we did the shows.
You understand me. Where we felt like artists because we

(13:16):
were singing in a club full of people you understand,
so cool, and we all went there. If you wanted
to see baby and Gringo, you went to the noise.
If you wanted to run into follow on your way
to the bathroom, you went there. If you wanted to
see vehicles, see with the drink in the corner, you
went to the noise. And there was another thing these

(13:40):
sorry a noise nightclub. For me. It's also extremely important
because of the dancing, because what is underground or read
on without being able to dance. It's like salsa or
meringue or electronic music. They're made to dance too, and
like those genres, Underground also had its own for reticular

(14:00):
way of dancing. How can I explain it? A lot
of grinding, hands on the floor, button the crotch all
the way down. Okay, if you went there, you were
going to sweat, to dance, to drink and have a
really good time at the bar. You got a sex
on the beach, if you know, you know, I even

(14:23):
danced to the commercial's mommy. They opened the doors and
I wouldn't stop dancing. He was like Breo, but it
was another type of dance. We were still grinding, but
I don't know. The steps were a little different, and
you really dance, You dance because you make different steps,
different moves together. Ironically, as Underground came out of the
shadows and onto the airwaves and the biggest concert halls,

(14:45):
the noise suffered. The negro did what he had to
do to keep the club open. Remembers the Jay Nelson,
a Grammy nominated producer and one of the DJs at
the second. The noise and then it even if he
did not have the government permits to sell alcohol, he
would sell you alcohol and put a guard at the door.

(15:07):
So if the police came, they would hide the alcohol.
Nego in that business, which is what he always did,
makes him the father al Papa because he gave the
singers the opportunity to sing on his stage at his club.
Djeto worked there. Dj Eric worked there, Joe worked there.

(15:27):
But he is the owner of the club. You play
at my club if I feel like it, you understand me.
So that's why I say that makes him a very
important figure. He was the first guy to record Vico
see you know, so if we're defining things, well, that
makes him, on paper more important. Let me tell you

(15:52):
an anecdote that happened here in the club, in the noise.
I was already putting out artists. I was creating new
artists from Puerto Rico, but the Panamanians were still the
hottest in the club. So what happens. There was a
very ugly, very ugly bruhaha at the club, a shooting
outside the club. I asked DJ Eric, did Eric, how
were you going to get people to come back Negato?

(16:14):
He says, I don't know. This is ruined. What does
Pojo Pan look like? Poto Pan was a Panamanian singer,
and Eric tells me, damn negoo. I don't know what
pochr Pan looks like. Neither do I, and I say Eric,
If you and I, who are the ones who buy
the records, don't know what Pocho Pan looks like, nobody
here is going to know what Pocho Pan looks like.

(16:37):
You know it. YouTube didn't exist, There were no social
networks of any kind. Nothing existed. I tell Eric, give
me the songs by Pocho Pan. I took him to
two friends of mine in my wish white good looking
kids learned these songs. I tell them, I played it
really cool and announced that I was bringing Pocho Pan.

(17:00):
Nightclub was packed for Porto Pang, but it wasn't Porto Pang.
I carried that story close to my heart because it
really saved me. A small club where a movement was
born and stars were made. That was the noise, and
all the clubs stayed open for sixteen years and had
four homes along the way. In the second noise, one

(17:23):
of those artists took to the stage to begin his
journey to the top of the reggaeton world. On the
closing night of the club, I had all the artists,
Michael Amanuel follow We saw g ranking Stone. I had
everyone ready to sing that night. Plaiero comes by DJ

(17:45):
Pla who's a friend of mine. Blaio tells me two
days the last night, I have a new artist I've
been bringing up. Let him sing a song since it's
the last night. What did you think when he got
on the stage. Sorry, when he sat on stage, I said, hey, look,
people are digging it. You know cool. But I didn't

(18:06):
give it that much attention because I had a schedule
and at three in the morning, I had to have
everyone out of the club and I had a long
list of artists. Plaierro asked me to have these kids
skip in front of my other artists. So I told
Pro tell him to sing only one song and get off.
He didn't sing one. He sang too, he sang three.
We had to cut him off and that was a

(18:30):
young On the next episode of A Flow, we meet
Djao and Lambiente. Mosicacon come on the Playerro, who takes
us back to his groundbreaking mixtape and relives the drive

(18:53):
by shooting that changed the future of the movement. Him
will be Don't want Mundo. L Flow is a production
of Excel Content Studio in partnership with I Heart Radio's
Michael toa podcast network. The show is hosted by me
Lila Luciano and was created and produced by Vitnis d Julis.

(19:15):
Production and sound design by Diso, additional production by David Knones,
Mirnao and Natalia. Story editing by Nourria Net, original music
by Truco Production, supervision by Albaros Spies. Executive producers for
Excel Content Studio are Nanda Villa, Exact Lee and Alejandro Rive.

(19:35):
Executive producers for I Heart Media or Conald Burne and
just Sell bands Is. For more podcasts from my Heart,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
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