December 3, 2025 • 36 mins
Two Jamaican musicians are making a bold claim. They say they invented the now-ubiquitous reggaeton beat on a specific track in 1989. They're suing some of the genre's biggest stars for billions in royalties.
But we found someone who’s telling a very different origin story. Hold onto your headphones as we dive into the mystery behind one of the most influential beats in modern music.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I know you've heard this beat before. It's everywhere, and
don't lie. It makes you want to dance. This rhythm
boom ka boom boom, kame boom, boom kame boom come
is the heartbeat of reggaeton, one of the most successful
musical genres on the planet right now. Artists like Bad Bunny,
Carol G and Daddy Yankee have sold billions of records
(00:25):
can play to packed stadiums worldwide. But where did the
reggaetone beat come from? And what makes it so infectious?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It gets people moving. There's something really fundamental to it
that makes us want to move, and I think as
a result, it's not too surprising that it has been
a huge part of dance music and music that people
dance to for gosh, probably centuries, maybe millennia, right, we
don't really know.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
That's Wayne Marshall, a musicologist and co editor of a
book all about reggaeton. A rhythm has fund to mental
and primal and danceable as the reggaeton beat feels like
it's been around forever and maybe it has. Variations on
the reggaeton beat can be traced back to Western African
drumming traditions that go back hundreds, if not thousands of years.
(01:16):
But now two Jamaican musicians are making a bold claim
that they invented the reggaetone beat on a specific track
they recorded in nineteen eighty nine, and more importantly, they
claim that they own this beat. The Jamaican musicians have
filed a copyright infringement lawsuit naming every major reggaetone artist
(01:37):
and they're asking for billions in royalties. But who really
invented the reggaetone beat? The Jamaicans have made their claims,
but we found someone who's telling a very different origin story.
Down in Mexico lives a man who claims that he
created this world changing beat a full decade before the Jamaicans.
(01:59):
Hold onto your headphone as we dive into the mystery
behind one of the most influential beats in modern music.
Welcome to very special episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm
your host Saren Burnett and this is a fundamental magical element.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Welcome back to very special episodes. She's Dana, Hey, he's Zaren.
I'm Jason and I'll tell you I have absolutely no
rhythm if footage of me dancing were to get out,
that would be the end of this podcast. But I
say this because as this episode was coming together, we'd
hear early cuts, like I would just be here vibing
(02:43):
in my seat. I think I'm embarrassing myself right now,
just on the screen, but you can't not.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
One thing that really is embarrassing about me is I
just have famously terrible taste in music, and my husband
has been trying to broaden my horizon, and so I
do appreciate that this episode brings up some interesting history
about music, which I feel like is the thing that
I need to give me more interest in any subject.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I loved also the whole history of the diaspora getting
disconnected and then reconnected through beat. It's just such thing
as something is so fundamental, obviously but so essential. I
thought that was just an awesome aspect of the story.
And You're right, Jason, this one had me chair dancing.
Like when I was listening to early Cuts, I was
like definitely bopping around. The history of pop music is
filled with stories of musicians borrowing material from other artists.
(03:33):
Remember Ice Ice Baby, when that earworm hit the radio
in nineteen ninety, everyone and their mother knew that Vanilla
Ice ripped off the baseline from under pressure by Queen
and David Bowie, but Vanilla real name Robert van Winkle,
tried to deny it. He actually went on TV and said,
their baseline goes ding ding ding di da ding ding
(03:56):
ding ding ding di da ding ding, but ours goes
ding ding ding dicka ding ding dut ding ding ding
diga ding ding Come on, Robert, No one bought it.
That's why Queen and Bowie now have writing credits on
Ice Ice Baby, and why their estates have collected millions
in royalties. Of course, cases of musical copycatting aren't always
(04:17):
so cut and dried. For example, in twenty thirteen, Marvin
Gaye's family sued Pharrell Williams and Robin Thick over their
hit song Blurred Lines, claiming it was a direct ripoff
of Marvin's nineteen seventy seven classic Got to Give It Up.
No one thought Marvin's family had a chance. This wasn't
Ice Ice Baby, There was no obvious theft. If Pharrell
(04:41):
and Robin Thick were guilty of anything, it was stealing
Marvin's vibe. But you can't copyright a vibe can you
to the shock of the music world. A jury awarded
Marvin's family seven million dollars. When expert witnesses broke down
the two songs and compared them instrument by instrument, note
by note, there were enough similarities to convince twelve people
(05:04):
that Pharrell and Robin Thick were more than inspired by Marvin.
They stole this sound, which brings us to twenty twenty one.
That's when two Jamaican musicians filed a lawsuit that doesn't
just target one song for a million dollars, but could
potentially take out a whole genre of music and rake
(05:25):
in billions in royalties. Back in nineteen eighty nine, a
Jamaican dancehall duo known as Steely and Cleevie recorded a
hugely influential track called fish Market. Let's hear a clip.
(05:49):
Remember that beat boom ka boom cup, boom ka boom cup,
boom ka boom cup. That's the heartbeat of our story.
In the late eighties, Jamaican producers in DJ's freely sampled
and remixed each other's beats into new songs. It was
part of Jamaica's vibrant sound system culture. In nineteen ninety one,
of those fish Market remixes blew up. The Jamaican artist
(06:13):
Shaba Ranks released a track called dem Bo, wrapping over
the fish Market beat in his distinctive Jamaican patois demo.
The song exploded on the dancehall reggae scene, and the
(06:36):
infectious rhythm got a name dem Bo. There's no doubt
that the popularity of the dembo rhythm in the nineteen
nineties inspired a rising generation of Latino producers and artists,
especially in New York and Puerto Rico, and gave birth
to an entirely new musical style, reggaetne.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Reggaeton has made no secret of its relationship to reggae.
The two first and foremost in lozes on the sound
are hip hop and reggae, especially dance hall reggae. I mean,
that's why it's called reggaetone. And I think one of
the reasons why that dance all reggae beat resonated so
powerfully for people in Puerto Rico was that it also
sounded like Puerto Rican music. It sounded like Caribbean music.
(07:16):
It had the same underlying rhythms that people had been
dancing to in salsa.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
There's no denying that the reggaetone beat as we know
it today is almost identical to dembo. But how much
of Reggaetone's DNA can really be traced back to Phish
Market and does that make it a legal case for ownership.
In twenty twenty four, a federal judge in California said
Steely and Cleevie's case had enough merits to go to trial.
(07:42):
The lawsuit accuses more than one hundred and sixty reggaetone
artists of quote mathematically copying the Fish Market beat and
illegally using it in thousands of songs.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
When I first heard about the lawsuit three years ago,
now I was both surprised surprised. You know, I had
been waiting for this shoe to drop for a long
long time. It's been interesting to watch.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Want to know what else is interesting about this case?
The judge, Andre Borotte Junior, is the son of Haitian
immigrants and grew up vibing to Caribbean music. He even
worked as a party DJ in college. This dude might
be banging his gavel to the beat. Ultimately, a jury
will hear arguments from both sides and decide if the
(08:26):
entire genre of reggaetone owes Steely and cleviey billions of dollars.
But what's been missing from those arguments is the fact
that the entire lawsuit hinges on the claim the assumption
really that the reggaeton beat originated in Jamaica. Musicologists like
Wayne Marshall think it goes way back.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
The earliest reference I can think of, although even then
it's hard to date it exactly. But you know, Robert
Ferris Thompson says it was known as the call to
dance back in Congo and Bila Almachino. So if people,
you know, hundreds of years ago were thinking of this
as that type of beat, and not that much has changed.
And I think even apart from the question of the
reggae reggaetone dispute, just the question of you know, when
(09:09):
did drummers start to play that beat is an interesting one.
I think is an unresolved one and is one that
would be fun to continue to sort of push out.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
And trag down.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Every beat has a backstory, and there's a good chance
that reggaetone has more than one origin. Next, we're going
to meet a drummer who has a very different story
to tell about the invention of the world conquering reggaetone beat.
It didn't happen in Jamaica or in Puerto Rico, but
in Brooklyn. Nineteen eighty, a nineteen year old drummer named
(09:44):
Elvis Rose walked into a recording studio in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Elvis was from Saint Vincent, a small island in the Caribbean.
His friends called him Akiki. Akiki had no idea he'd
be recording anything that day. He was up practically the
whole night before, practicing the drums, the habit he picked
up in the Army band. Here's Akiki.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
So I was practicing ahs and ohs, you know, always
and ohs. And I didn't know what I was practicing for.
I mean, I used to have to practice to play,
you know, in the military band with him guys. But
I was practicing somewhat that. I mean, I never knew
what was going to happen.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
By the time Akiki woke up the next day, it
was late in the afternoon. He decided to go see
his friend Wan, another percussionist. Wan was loading some congas
in his truck and said he was on his way
over to Straker's Music record store and recording studio in
Crown Heights. Akiki decided to tag along.
Speaker 6 (10:40):
If it reached five minutes after he had already gone.
He was putting his congress in the van to go
to the studio, so he said, let you go in
the studio. They didn't know the audition.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
When Akiki walked into Straker's studio, he saw a waiting
room full of drummers, older, more experienced drummers.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
And guy I was very young. I mean I would
like think I was nineteen at that time, and these
guys were like big men, right. But it was already
like kind of watching me because I was very aggressive.
Like I said, I was practicing a lot, and I
could have read I could have read a drum pass
and everything.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Akiki knew one of the producers at Strakers a talented
young arranger named Frankie McIntosh. When Frankie saw Akiki in
the studio, he assumed he was there for the audition,
so Frankie told to hop on the drums.
Speaker 6 (11:34):
I didn't know there was an audition for drummers, you know,
So while when Frankie said, let Elvis play for us.
That's me, right. So the producer said, no, he's a
little boy, you know. I mean, I have the professional
them out day and guy, he didn't really know me,
so but he and Frankie went back and forth for
a little while. I didn't have a drumstick, so there
(11:54):
was some drumstick in the studio. So by the time
he held me play like brother, you know, he said wow,
and you were like completely surprised, and he said, you
know what, let he play right. So the other drummers,
whether they were better on me or not, they didn't
never get a chant because every time straight hold me play,
(12:14):
that was it like it was like a destiny thing.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
It was this time to be that's right. Akiki believes
he was destined to be behind the drums in Straker's
studio that day because he was about to change the
course of music history. All that practicing wasn't for nothing.
It was preparing him for this moment. Akiki had been
playing music his whole life, starting on Saint Vincent.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
I grew up on a hill in a village called Belmont.
It's really like a musical village. They have like the
traditional musicians where we used to call the Boom Jump band.
And then like on weekends, the guys, the elder guys
would get together and they would play during grom and
play music.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
You know.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
It was like a natural form of improvisation. So I
grew up around that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Aikiki started playing drums in Calypso bands when he was
barely a teenager. When they played gigs out in the country,
the crowd would stand outside. They'd only come in if
the music made them dance.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
They wouldn't come inside until the band played one or
two songs, and if the band could make them move.
They are russianside, so then my objective was just to
make them. As a drummer had to make people move,
So that was always ingrained inside of me that when
you play, you got to make the people that move.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
When Akiki moved to Brooklyn in the late nineteen seventies,
the borough was home to a vibrant West Indian community.
People from all over the English speaking Caribbean settled in
neighborhoods like Flatbush, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, creating the
area known as Little Caribbean. Every Labor Day weekend, Brooklyn
still hosts one of the biggest Caribbean carnival parades in
(14:02):
the country. Dancers in elaborate feathered costumes filled the streets
up and down Eastern Parkway, and driving it all are
the pulsing rhythms of calypso and soca. Maybe we should
pause here for a quick music lesson. Soca is a
style of music from Trinidad that means soul of calypso.
(14:22):
You've probably heard some calypso songs before, maybe some Harry Belafonte.
But where Calypso had a slower tempo and is focused
on the singer, Soca is fast and mostly instrumental. The
whole point of soca is to get people dancing. By
the time a Kiki walked into Straker's Records in nineteen eighty,
(14:42):
soca was the sound of Brooklyn. Not only was soca
an established musical genre, but it had an established beat.
Every drummer in Brooklyn played soca the same way. Musicologist
Wayne Marshall calls it four on the floor, four pulsing
quarter notes played on the kick. The beat was popularized
(15:03):
in the disco era by drummer Earl Young from Philadelphia, and.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It's an interesting story because ear All young in his way,
a sort of singular drummer who comes up with this
beat that becomes absolutely ubiquitous and influential. Right, it becomes
the disco beat by nineteen seventy five, And so you
start to hear a four on the floor kick drum,
you know, turning up in all kinds of dance music
across the Caribbean and dance music across Africa. I mean,
(15:28):
you name it, you find it.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
The four on the floor beat was the heartbeat of
Soca too, that is until A Kiki came along. If
there's one thing to know about Akiki is that he
hates playing the same thing twice. Improvisation is in his blood.
Speaker 6 (15:45):
Like I said, from a you, I alwady like to
play what you feel, you know, So I was already like,
you know, I don't like to be repetitive. So you
play something and then yeah, so much thing the more
you practice, Yeah, so many things in your head that
you want to play.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Akiki says he was never a fan of the straight
four on the floor beat that all the other Soca
drummers played.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Like I said, I already liked to play something, you know,
be creative. I never really liked that dunping, don't It
was kind of lazy. You know, if you listen to that,
it doesn't really make you move.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
So let's go back to the day in nineteen eighty
when Akiki sat behind the drum set at Straker's Records.
After a Kiki nailed the audition that he didn't know about,
it was time to record some songs. Frankie McIntosh, the
arranger and producer, was running the recording session. As Frankie
counted into the first song, something came over Akiki. He
(16:44):
can't explain what it was. Maybe it was all the
practicing he'd done the night before, hours and hours of
improvising new beats and patterns, or maybe it was just
the excitement of being there in Straker's Records, nineteen year
old kid playing for one of the biggest recording studios
in Brooklyn. When the band started playing, what came out
of A Kiki's drum set wasn't dumb ping, dumb ping,
(17:07):
but something completely new.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
I can't really tell you where I heard a beat,
You can't never really heard it. It just came out
of my head and it was like it actually changed
the whole Tractoria deity of the Soca music, and basically
the beat is more magically more it makes you want
to move.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
A Kiki has a name for his new rhythmic creation.
He calls it the Fundamental Magical Element.
Speaker 6 (17:36):
Well, that's the only name I can come up with,
because it's where it's fundamental in the terms of like,
you know, it's a basic beat.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Right.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
When it's a basic it's a beat that is, you know,
you could use in any kind of general music. And
the magical part of it is that it makes you
want to move. But it doesn't matter where you're from
what either from the Chiban or you're from Europe or
you it just makes.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
You want to move. Only a mad musical genius would
come up with a name like Fundamental Magical Element. It
says it all. And Akiki's right, there is something undeniably
infectious about this beat. Here's Akiki playing the Fundamental Magical
Element on a track called Boogie Woman. Try not to
(18:22):
nod your head and wiggle in your seat. I dare you.
The power of the Fundamental Magical Element is not in question.
What might be questionable is what Akiki claims next.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Right, So I just played something that was more lively.
It was much more lively and more aggressive in terms
of riddom, and no, it's become one of the most
popular ridom on the planet.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Did you catch that? Akiki believes that the drum beat
he improvised in Straker's studio in nineteen eighty wasn't just
a one off thing. Akiki is confident that his original creation,
the fundamental magical element, not only became the new sound
of soka, but eventually it became the most important new
beat in the world. It became reggaeton. How do you
(19:26):
trace the origins of a beat, especially one as fundamental and,
if we're being honest, as simple as reggaeton when you
strip it down, it's all about that boom ka boom cup,
boom ka boom cup, boom ka boom cup. While Akiki
was doing his thing in Brooklyn in the early nineteen eighties,
there were other musicians halfway around the world playing with
(19:48):
the same infectious rhythm. Here's a guy named Jeff Luana
from Congo playing a type of dance music called soku,
not soka. Soku. Boom kaboomah, boom kaboom. Come there it
is again our favorite beat. Keep in mind this was
(20:11):
recorded by French speaking Africans in nineteen eighty one, just
a year after Akiki says he came up with the
fundamental magical element. Could Jeff Luana have copied Akiki's sound
that fast? Wayne Marshall doesn't think so.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I find it hard to believe that this band from
Congo would have done this in nineteen eighty one based
on having heard a record made in Brooklyn in nineteen
eighty or eighty one.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Like a, when musicologists like Wayne listen to these beats,
they don't see a clear progression from one musician to another.
Drummer A played it first, then drummer Bee copied it,
et cetera. Instead, they see musicians from all over the
world drawing from the same ancient well of rhythm and
dance known as African traditional music.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Do a lot of African music, both traditional and popular,
rhythm forms a heavy bass. It's so much the foundation
of it, and that rhythm is tied to dance. I mean,
in traditional African cultures, the idea of music and dance
being separate. They don't see it that way. That's md
a Western concept. But these things are tied together, and
so you have heavy rhythmic, syncopated music, and that just
(21:21):
lends itself to dance. It's made to dance too.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
That's Ray Allen, another musicologist we called up Ray because
he wrote a book with none other than Frankie McIntosh. Frankie,
if you remember, was the Soka arranger who recorded Akiki
at Straker's Records. Frankie is such a legend in Brooklyn's
Caribbean music scene that his nickname is the Maestro. Frankie
(21:46):
and Akiki are still friends. They've stayed in touch over
all these years, but they've never talked about Akiki's claim
that he invented a brand new beat in nineteen eighty.
Frankie says that when he arranged Soka tracks Drakers, he
wrote out all the parts brass, keyboards, bass, everything except
for the drum parts.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
Here's Frankie, Yeah, that'd be more impropositional. I never wrote
drum pads for dramas.
Speaker 8 (22:15):
I didn't want to cause any and crumbruns hinder the
spontaneity or what they heard, so I just let the drummers.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Play what they thoughts.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
You know.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
Putnam but Aikki, as you mentioned, he had a style
of his own and he brought a lot to the
music in the area of drums.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Frankie oversaw thousands of recording sessions at Strakers. He doesn't
recall the day in nineteen eighty when Akiki says the
musical gods moved him to create the fundamental magical element.
Frankie doesn't doubt that Akiki came up with something innovative
and cool, but he's not willing to say that Akiki's
per some drumming style qualifies as something brand new musically.
Speaker 7 (23:05):
The top top, top top venom that was after Africa.
I mean, that's I would say, much older than Nikiki,
of course. I mean every drama who plays Calypso plays
some version of that, some interpretation, some variation of that ralthom.
We find it in Puerto Rico, we find in Brazil,
(23:26):
find in New Orleans, we find in Trinidad, Caribbean islands.
And it's important to note that it's found primarily where
you had displaced Africans, there were slaves or you know,
and somehow that beat stayed alive, I mean, still lives today,
and I think that's important.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I mean, and then just happened. Ray Allen, the musicologist
has studied the history of Afro Caribbean music. He says
that syncopated rhythms similar to Akiki's Fundamental Magical Element are
found throughout African diaspora communities created by the Transatlantic slave
trade Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, Puerto Rico. And it's nearly impossible
(24:10):
to trace who influenced who.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
A lot of stuff kind of happens naturally organically. Somebody
hears somebody and they take it and they play something
like it, or maybe it, you know, they'll do a
variation on it. But of course part of the African
and Afro guy's or tradition is to improvise, is to
try to take something, to make it a little bit different,
make it your own, you know. So that's going on.
But at the heart of it, a lot of the
rhythms and the basic forms are they're deep in the culture,
(24:35):
and I'm very reluctant to say that someone really invented
something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Akiki understands what Frankie and Ray are saying about the
long history of Afro Caribbean rhythms, but he still thinks
that his beat, the Fundamental Magical Element, qualifies as something
original and influential.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
I didn't really copy it from any other priece, and
it could be honestly tell you that I didn't hear
it before. But like if they say, well, then it
came from Africa, you know, two thousand years ago, eight
hundred years ago.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
You know.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I mean, I can't know that, you know. But but
to bring it into where the regaton came from, it
came from the Soka beat that I played.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Here's where things get interesting, and here's where it ties
back to the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Steelee and Kleevie.
In that billion dollar suit, two Jamaican musicians claim to
have invented a beat that was sampled without credit by
hundreds of reggaeton artists. But what if Steele and Kleevie
(25:38):
borrowed their beat from somebody else. According to Akiki, that's
exactly what happened. Akiki claims that his fundamental magical element
fundamentally changed soca drumming. After nineteen eighty one, Akiki is
boom ka boom, boom ka boom became the new sound
of soca. Wayne Marshall, here's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
When I listened to these recordings that Akiki was making
in the early nineteen eighties in Brooklyn. I do hear
that shift to the drum kit and I hear you
know what becomes this this dominant beat starting to emerge.
There there are tracks like Boogie Woman, I Believe and
YouTube Fast, both of them going back to nineteen eighty one,
(26:35):
which to me, you know, very clearly have that kick, snare, boom,
get boom, get boom, get boom, get boom, get boom gay.
You know, based on these records, these definitely seem like
some of the first Soca style records that are you know,
really doing this pattern on the drum kit and on
the kick and the snare in particular.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Okay, okay, So maybe Akiki did create a new Soca beat,
But what does Soka have to do with Jamaican dance reggae?
Even if Akiki's fundamental magical element was all over Brooklyn
and Trinidad, would Steely and Kleevey have ever heard it
in Jamaica. Akiki has a theory about that too. He
(27:13):
says that a band named Byron Lee and the Dragonaires
brought Soka to Jamaica in the mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
There's this guy in Jamaica called Byron Lee, and he
plays Soca music right, So Byrone would do play over
the Soka hits.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
And anytime he.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
Put down a Soca music using the beast that I created, people.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Dance once again. Wayne Marshall thinks that Akiki might actually
be onto something. Byron Lee and the Dragonaires were big
in Jamaica and they definitely predate Steelee and Kleevie. Here's
a Soca track by byron Lee and the Dragonaires called
Tiny Whiney, which would have played all over Jamaica in
nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Five years before Fish Market. You've got it there in
Jamaica by Byron Lee, so you know no doubt Steely
and Cleevey had heard it. Therefore, when you first hear
that arrangement showing up in Jamaica, it's not by reggae artists,
it's by Soca artists and Soca influenced artists. Right.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Wow, that's pretty cool. The idea that Soca may have
been the first musical style to introduce the boom kaboom
cup beat to Jamaica, and therefore Soca could qualify as
an earlier rhythmic foundation for reggaetne. But now we're back
to playing that old game, trying to connect drummer A
to drummer B and somehow prove a direct line of
musical influence. Let's not forget what Frankie McIntosh said. This
(28:48):
rhythm belongs to everyone in the African diaspora. It survived
the trauma of slavery and became part of a shared
cultural heritage. Can anyone own the drum beat of an
entire people? And let's be real, this isn't a court
of law, this is a podcast. Will leave the quote
burden of proof to a bunch of overpaid lawyers, twelve
(29:11):
jurors and a surprisingly cool judge. Slash DJ were storytellers,
and we think that if you're trying to tell the
whole twisting story of the long evolution of the reggaeton beat,
that one of the chapters should definitely be named Akiki's
fundamental magical element.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
You know, I do think that there's some glory there though,
and there are some untold stories there and unappreciated contributions there.
The fact that this beat, which is now so ubiquitous
in the twenty first century, especially just as a simple
kicksnare pattern. The fact that that might first really come
to the four in such a pronounced manner in Trinidadi
and Soca, never mind Saint Vincenian Soca, right, and you know,
(29:52):
people from lesser known islands than Jamaica, that does seem
like it should be part of the story, you know,
if that's the case.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Akiki was a professional musician for years. He toured with
some really big bands and got a taste of fame,
but ultimately the lifestyle wasn't for him, so he started
teaching music instead.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
I don't know if I find that teaching was feeling
me more than actually plain you know, because when you
go and place people telling you how good you are,
and you know, and the girls then want to come
with you and all of that, and I mean that's
a good thing, you know, but it's usually an ego thing,
you know. It was more something for your ego. It
(30:37):
builds the ego, you know, people say how good you
are and listen and that, and you know, but then
when you teach and you transform a child life, it's
more fulfilling to me, right than somebody tell you how
great you are.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Today Akiki's life is about as far from the bright
lights of the music industry as possible. He lives in
Ziehua the Nejo, Mexico, a quiet beach town on the
Pacific coast. A few years ago, he unexpectedly landed in
Mexico after losing his mother.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
So you know, that put me down in a slum,
you know, a kind of depression. But the thing is
the first time the people saw me play in Mexico,
and what they were like, did you come from another planet?
Where did you come from?
Speaker 4 (31:24):
You know, I mean?
Speaker 6 (31:25):
And then you know, Zee what the new is a
small tongue, right, So everybody wanted to meet to teach
the children. And that's how that's start, you know. And
then I love teaching again. So they asked me to
teach the children, teach them this, and I started to
do in that, and you know, we had a success.
Then the government gave me a bunch of landow to
(31:45):
build a school and all of that, and you know,
one thing lead to the next, so I'm still here.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Akiki has changed lives in Ziho. Some of his students,
who all come from poor families, have earned spot to
the prestigious bellas artists in Mexico City, which is like
the Juilliard of Mexico. He's taught blind kids to play
the piano, as well as children with severe autism. They
all love a Giki and he loves them too. Now,
(32:16):
could Akiki use a few billion dollars? Sure, he'd use
it to build a real music school on the land
the Mexican government gave him, and he'd teach all of
his students for free. Heck, he doesn't really charge them
very much as it is. But instead of filing a lawsuit,
Akiki's going to keep spreading the magic of music in Mexico.
And something tells us he still knows how to make
(32:39):
people move, all right, Zaren.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Last year, you brought us another courtroom thriller, The Case
of the Two Nancy drews. Oh yeah, we figured out
who actually created Nancy Drew and we're back with another
one this season. Tell us about how you and Dave
came together on this one.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Well, he did all the heavy lifting and brought this
amazing case, and I was just there for the courtroom drama.
I love the idea of stealing kleeviey, being like we
want to get paid for our beat. I just like
I loved that. And then any story that features Shaba
Ranks is doing something right in my mind. So this
one happened courtroom drama. And then obviously the judge was
just so incredible as a character I loved like a
(33:21):
former DJ it gets to be the judge of this case.
I mean, how perfect is that? So this one, I
think just pretty much had to took care of itself
and all I had to do is just make sure
I pronounced everything correctly.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
So my very special moment has to be the ending
catching up with Aikiki today and in Mexico, like what
happened to part gets in there and I think was
very satisfying, even though I kind of wish you'd gotten
you know, billions of dollars too, that would have been nice.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
The moment where the people in Mexico in the small
town are like, did you come from another planet? I
just loved this. It's coming together. This one had so
many great moments of cultural connections. That one is so
pure hearted. I just love the idea of these people
being blown away being can you teach our kid to
do that? This is amazing what you're doing? What about you, Dana?
Speaker 4 (34:03):
I think the very special moment for me is me
listening to it and trying not to dance and embarrass myself.
It moves through you.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You can't resist, oh completely. But dancing should never be embarrassing.
Even like if you're the person at the wedding everyone's
like you need to maybe sit one out. You're still
not embarrassing, you know.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
I beg to differ. You have not seen me dance
and it is, in fact embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Is it like a Lane from Seinfeldt levels of embarrassing?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Like do you have the at least a Lane has,
Like there's like some arm court function. I just feel
like all of my limbs sort of take on a
life of their own. I need to work on it.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Saren, is this going to be a presumed innocent season
three or a courtroom thriller at the box office?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I think courtroom thriller, but with real touching moments away
from the courtroom. So like casting this one, I went
through and I was having a lot of fun with this,
Like for a Kiki aka Elvis Rose, the drummer at
the heart of this, the man with the fundamental magical element.
I wanted Caleb McLaughlin from Stranger Things. I thought he
just has a great And then for the Jamaican dancehall
duo Steely and Cleevee, I went out on a limbit
(35:06):
this one. I went John Boyega and le Keith Stanfield
just having fun with it, just let the two of
them just do their thing. Basically, both of them are
fun actors. I think together they try to like live
in that with each other. And for the judge, Andre
Barrotte Junior, I went with Daniel Klulia from get Out
and from Nope. I thought he's just a fantastic choice.
I mean, he's got both the gravitas his eyes, but
(35:27):
he also can be fun and I would believe him
as a DJ. I'm like that guy could be a
DJ and a judge. And for Wayne Marshall Musicologist the DJ,
I went with Jeffrey Wright. I thought that he would
be like the right level of like, oh yes, I
believe he's a musicologist. He's got like the elbow patches
on his blazer. And then for producer at Straker's the
Frankie McIntosh, I went with Brian Tyree Henry. I'm not
(35:47):
sure if you guys watched Atlanta, but paper Boy from
Atlanta I thought he would be just amazing at that one.
So there you go. There's my casting.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
The shows hosted by zarn Burnett, Danish Wartz, and Jason English.
Today's episode was written by Dave Rouse. Our senior producer
is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound designed by Jonathan Washington,
Mixing and mastering by Beheid Fraser. Original music by Alis
(36:18):
McCoy and Jonathan Washington. Research and fact checking by Austin Thompson,
Zaren Burnett and Dave Roos. Show logo by Lucy Quintonia.
Social clips by Yarberry. Media Executive producer is Jason English.
Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
I know you've heard this beat before. It's everywhere, and
don't lie. It makes you want to dance. This rhythm
boom ka boom boom, kame boom, boom kame boom come
is the heartbeat of reggaeton, one of the most successful
musical genres on the planet right now. Artists like Bad Bunny,
Carol G and Daddy Yankee have sold billions of records
(00:25):
can play to packed stadiums worldwide. But where did the
reggaetone beat come from? And what makes it so infectious?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It gets people moving. There's something really fundamental to it
that makes us want to move, and I think as
a result, it's not too surprising that it has been
a huge part of dance music and music that people
dance to for gosh, probably centuries, maybe millennia, right, we
don't really know.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
That's Wayne Marshall, a musicologist and co editor of a
book all about reggaeton. A rhythm has fund to mental
and primal and danceable as the reggaeton beat feels like
it's been around forever and maybe it has. Variations on
the reggaeton beat can be traced back to Western African
drumming traditions that go back hundreds, if not thousands of years.
(01:16):
But now two Jamaican musicians are making a bold claim
that they invented the reggaetone beat on a specific track
they recorded in nineteen eighty nine, and more importantly, they
claim that they own this beat. The Jamaican musicians have
filed a copyright infringement lawsuit naming every major reggaetone artist
(01:37):
and they're asking for billions in royalties. But who really
invented the reggaetone beat? The Jamaicans have made their claims,
but we found someone who's telling a very different origin story.
Down in Mexico lives a man who claims that he
created this world changing beat a full decade before the Jamaicans.
(01:59):
Hold onto your headphone as we dive into the mystery
behind one of the most influential beats in modern music.
Welcome to very special episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm
your host Saren Burnett and this is a fundamental magical element.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Welcome back to very special episodes. She's Dana, Hey, he's Zaren.
I'm Jason and I'll tell you I have absolutely no
rhythm if footage of me dancing were to get out,
that would be the end of this podcast. But I
say this because as this episode was coming together, we'd
hear early cuts, like I would just be here vibing
(02:43):
in my seat. I think I'm embarrassing myself right now,
just on the screen, but you can't not.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
One thing that really is embarrassing about me is I
just have famously terrible taste in music, and my husband
has been trying to broaden my horizon, and so I
do appreciate that this episode brings up some interesting history
about music, which I feel like is the thing that
I need to give me more interest in any subject.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I loved also the whole history of the diaspora getting
disconnected and then reconnected through beat. It's just such thing
as something is so fundamental, obviously but so essential. I
thought that was just an awesome aspect of the story.
And You're right, Jason, this one had me chair dancing.
Like when I was listening to early Cuts, I was
like definitely bopping around. The history of pop music is
filled with stories of musicians borrowing material from other artists.
(03:33):
Remember Ice Ice Baby, when that earworm hit the radio
in nineteen ninety, everyone and their mother knew that Vanilla
Ice ripped off the baseline from under pressure by Queen
and David Bowie, but Vanilla real name Robert van Winkle,
tried to deny it. He actually went on TV and said,
their baseline goes ding ding ding di da ding ding
(03:56):
ding ding ding di da ding ding, but ours goes
ding ding ding dicka ding ding dut ding ding ding
diga ding ding Come on, Robert, No one bought it.
That's why Queen and Bowie now have writing credits on
Ice Ice Baby, and why their estates have collected millions
in royalties. Of course, cases of musical copycatting aren't always
(04:17):
so cut and dried. For example, in twenty thirteen, Marvin
Gaye's family sued Pharrell Williams and Robin Thick over their
hit song Blurred Lines, claiming it was a direct ripoff
of Marvin's nineteen seventy seven classic Got to Give It Up.
No one thought Marvin's family had a chance. This wasn't
Ice Ice Baby, There was no obvious theft. If Pharrell
(04:41):
and Robin Thick were guilty of anything, it was stealing
Marvin's vibe. But you can't copyright a vibe can you
to the shock of the music world. A jury awarded
Marvin's family seven million dollars. When expert witnesses broke down
the two songs and compared them instrument by instrument, note
by note, there were enough similarities to convince twelve people
(05:04):
that Pharrell and Robin Thick were more than inspired by Marvin.
They stole this sound, which brings us to twenty twenty one.
That's when two Jamaican musicians filed a lawsuit that doesn't
just target one song for a million dollars, but could
potentially take out a whole genre of music and rake
(05:25):
in billions in royalties. Back in nineteen eighty nine, a
Jamaican dancehall duo known as Steely and Cleevie recorded a
hugely influential track called fish Market. Let's hear a clip.
(05:49):
Remember that beat boom ka boom cup, boom ka boom cup,
boom ka boom cup. That's the heartbeat of our story.
In the late eighties, Jamaican producers in DJ's freely sampled
and remixed each other's beats into new songs. It was
part of Jamaica's vibrant sound system culture. In nineteen ninety one,
of those fish Market remixes blew up. The Jamaican artist
(06:13):
Shaba Ranks released a track called dem Bo, wrapping over
the fish Market beat in his distinctive Jamaican patois demo.
The song exploded on the dancehall reggae scene, and the
(06:36):
infectious rhythm got a name dem Bo. There's no doubt
that the popularity of the dembo rhythm in the nineteen
nineties inspired a rising generation of Latino producers and artists,
especially in New York and Puerto Rico, and gave birth
to an entirely new musical style, reggaetne.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Reggaeton has made no secret of its relationship to reggae.
The two first and foremost in lozes on the sound
are hip hop and reggae, especially dance hall reggae. I mean,
that's why it's called reggaetone. And I think one of
the reasons why that dance all reggae beat resonated so
powerfully for people in Puerto Rico was that it also
sounded like Puerto Rican music. It sounded like Caribbean music.
(07:16):
It had the same underlying rhythms that people had been
dancing to in salsa.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
There's no denying that the reggaetone beat as we know
it today is almost identical to dembo. But how much
of Reggaetone's DNA can really be traced back to Phish
Market and does that make it a legal case for ownership.
In twenty twenty four, a federal judge in California said
Steely and Cleevie's case had enough merits to go to trial.
(07:42):
The lawsuit accuses more than one hundred and sixty reggaetone
artists of quote mathematically copying the Fish Market beat and
illegally using it in thousands of songs.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
When I first heard about the lawsuit three years ago,
now I was both surprised surprised. You know, I had
been waiting for this shoe to drop for a long
long time. It's been interesting to watch.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Want to know what else is interesting about this case?
The judge, Andre Borotte Junior, is the son of Haitian
immigrants and grew up vibing to Caribbean music. He even
worked as a party DJ in college. This dude might
be banging his gavel to the beat. Ultimately, a jury
will hear arguments from both sides and decide if the
(08:26):
entire genre of reggaetone owes Steely and cleviey billions of dollars.
But what's been missing from those arguments is the fact
that the entire lawsuit hinges on the claim the assumption
really that the reggaeton beat originated in Jamaica. Musicologists like
Wayne Marshall think it goes way back.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
The earliest reference I can think of, although even then
it's hard to date it exactly. But you know, Robert
Ferris Thompson says it was known as the call to
dance back in Congo and Bila Almachino. So if people,
you know, hundreds of years ago were thinking of this
as that type of beat, and not that much has changed.
And I think even apart from the question of the
reggae reggaetone dispute, just the question of you know, when
(09:09):
did drummers start to play that beat is an interesting one.
I think is an unresolved one and is one that
would be fun to continue to sort of push out.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
And trag down.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Every beat has a backstory, and there's a good chance
that reggaetone has more than one origin. Next, we're going
to meet a drummer who has a very different story
to tell about the invention of the world conquering reggaetone beat.
It didn't happen in Jamaica or in Puerto Rico, but
in Brooklyn. Nineteen eighty, a nineteen year old drummer named
(09:44):
Elvis Rose walked into a recording studio in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Elvis was from Saint Vincent, a small island in the Caribbean.
His friends called him Akiki. Akiki had no idea he'd
be recording anything that day. He was up practically the
whole night before, practicing the drums, the habit he picked
up in the Army band. Here's Akiki.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
So I was practicing ahs and ohs, you know, always
and ohs. And I didn't know what I was practicing for.
I mean, I used to have to practice to play,
you know, in the military band with him guys. But
I was practicing somewhat that. I mean, I never knew
what was going to happen.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
By the time Akiki woke up the next day, it
was late in the afternoon. He decided to go see
his friend Wan, another percussionist. Wan was loading some congas
in his truck and said he was on his way
over to Straker's Music record store and recording studio in
Crown Heights. Akiki decided to tag along.
Speaker 6 (10:40):
If it reached five minutes after he had already gone.
He was putting his congress in the van to go
to the studio, so he said, let you go in
the studio. They didn't know the audition.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
When Akiki walked into Straker's studio, he saw a waiting
room full of drummers, older, more experienced drummers.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
And guy I was very young. I mean I would
like think I was nineteen at that time, and these
guys were like big men, right. But it was already
like kind of watching me because I was very aggressive.
Like I said, I was practicing a lot, and I
could have read I could have read a drum pass
and everything.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Akiki knew one of the producers at Strakers a talented
young arranger named Frankie McIntosh. When Frankie saw Akiki in
the studio, he assumed he was there for the audition,
so Frankie told to hop on the drums.
Speaker 6 (11:34):
I didn't know there was an audition for drummers, you know,
So while when Frankie said, let Elvis play for us.
That's me, right. So the producer said, no, he's a
little boy, you know. I mean, I have the professional
them out day and guy, he didn't really know me,
so but he and Frankie went back and forth for
a little while. I didn't have a drumstick, so there
(11:54):
was some drumstick in the studio. So by the time
he held me play like brother, you know, he said wow,
and you were like completely surprised, and he said, you
know what, let he play right. So the other drummers,
whether they were better on me or not, they didn't
never get a chant because every time straight hold me play,
(12:14):
that was it like it was like a destiny thing.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
It was this time to be that's right. Akiki believes
he was destined to be behind the drums in Straker's
studio that day because he was about to change the
course of music history. All that practicing wasn't for nothing.
It was preparing him for this moment. Akiki had been
playing music his whole life, starting on Saint Vincent.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
I grew up on a hill in a village called Belmont.
It's really like a musical village. They have like the
traditional musicians where we used to call the Boom Jump band.
And then like on weekends, the guys, the elder guys
would get together and they would play during grom and
play music.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
You know.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
It was like a natural form of improvisation. So I
grew up around that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Aikiki started playing drums in Calypso bands when he was
barely a teenager. When they played gigs out in the country,
the crowd would stand outside. They'd only come in if
the music made them dance.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
They wouldn't come inside until the band played one or
two songs, and if the band could make them move.
They are russianside, so then my objective was just to
make them. As a drummer had to make people move,
So that was always ingrained inside of me that when
you play, you got to make the people that move.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
When Akiki moved to Brooklyn in the late nineteen seventies,
the borough was home to a vibrant West Indian community.
People from all over the English speaking Caribbean settled in
neighborhoods like Flatbush, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, creating the
area known as Little Caribbean. Every Labor Day weekend, Brooklyn
still hosts one of the biggest Caribbean carnival parades in
(14:02):
the country. Dancers in elaborate feathered costumes filled the streets
up and down Eastern Parkway, and driving it all are
the pulsing rhythms of calypso and soca. Maybe we should
pause here for a quick music lesson. Soca is a
style of music from Trinidad that means soul of calypso.
(14:22):
You've probably heard some calypso songs before, maybe some Harry Belafonte.
But where Calypso had a slower tempo and is focused
on the singer, Soca is fast and mostly instrumental. The
whole point of soca is to get people dancing. By
the time a Kiki walked into Straker's Records in nineteen eighty,
(14:42):
soca was the sound of Brooklyn. Not only was soca
an established musical genre, but it had an established beat.
Every drummer in Brooklyn played soca the same way. Musicologist
Wayne Marshall calls it four on the floor, four pulsing
quarter notes played on the kick. The beat was popularized
(15:03):
in the disco era by drummer Earl Young from Philadelphia, and.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It's an interesting story because ear All young in his way,
a sort of singular drummer who comes up with this
beat that becomes absolutely ubiquitous and influential. Right, it becomes
the disco beat by nineteen seventy five, And so you
start to hear a four on the floor kick drum,
you know, turning up in all kinds of dance music
across the Caribbean and dance music across Africa. I mean,
(15:28):
you name it, you find it.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
The four on the floor beat was the heartbeat of
Soca too, that is until A Kiki came along. If
there's one thing to know about Akiki is that he
hates playing the same thing twice. Improvisation is in his blood.
Speaker 6 (15:45):
Like I said, from a you, I alwady like to
play what you feel, you know, So I was already like,
you know, I don't like to be repetitive. So you
play something and then yeah, so much thing the more
you practice, Yeah, so many things in your head that
you want to play.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Akiki says he was never a fan of the straight
four on the floor beat that all the other Soca
drummers played.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Like I said, I already liked to play something, you know,
be creative. I never really liked that dunping, don't It
was kind of lazy. You know, if you listen to that,
it doesn't really make you move.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
So let's go back to the day in nineteen eighty
when Akiki sat behind the drum set at Straker's Records.
After a Kiki nailed the audition that he didn't know about,
it was time to record some songs. Frankie McIntosh, the
arranger and producer, was running the recording session. As Frankie
counted into the first song, something came over Akiki. He
(16:44):
can't explain what it was. Maybe it was all the
practicing he'd done the night before, hours and hours of
improvising new beats and patterns, or maybe it was just
the excitement of being there in Straker's Records, nineteen year
old kid playing for one of the biggest recording studios
in Brooklyn. When the band started playing, what came out
of A Kiki's drum set wasn't dumb ping, dumb ping,
(17:07):
but something completely new.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
I can't really tell you where I heard a beat,
You can't never really heard it. It just came out
of my head and it was like it actually changed
the whole Tractoria deity of the Soca music, and basically
the beat is more magically more it makes you want
to move.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
A Kiki has a name for his new rhythmic creation.
He calls it the Fundamental Magical Element.
Speaker 6 (17:36):
Well, that's the only name I can come up with,
because it's where it's fundamental in the terms of like,
you know, it's a basic beat.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Right.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
When it's a basic it's a beat that is, you know,
you could use in any kind of general music. And
the magical part of it is that it makes you
want to move. But it doesn't matter where you're from
what either from the Chiban or you're from Europe or
you it just makes.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
You want to move. Only a mad musical genius would
come up with a name like Fundamental Magical Element. It
says it all. And Akiki's right, there is something undeniably
infectious about this beat. Here's Akiki playing the Fundamental Magical
Element on a track called Boogie Woman. Try not to
(18:22):
nod your head and wiggle in your seat. I dare you.
The power of the Fundamental Magical Element is not in question.
What might be questionable is what Akiki claims next.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Right, So I just played something that was more lively.
It was much more lively and more aggressive in terms
of riddom, and no, it's become one of the most
popular ridom on the planet.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Did you catch that? Akiki believes that the drum beat
he improvised in Straker's studio in nineteen eighty wasn't just
a one off thing. Akiki is confident that his original creation,
the fundamental magical element, not only became the new sound
of soka, but eventually it became the most important new
beat in the world. It became reggaeton. How do you
(19:26):
trace the origins of a beat, especially one as fundamental and,
if we're being honest, as simple as reggaeton when you
strip it down, it's all about that boom ka boom cup,
boom ka boom cup, boom ka boom cup. While Akiki
was doing his thing in Brooklyn in the early nineteen eighties,
there were other musicians halfway around the world playing with
(19:48):
the same infectious rhythm. Here's a guy named Jeff Luana
from Congo playing a type of dance music called soku,
not soka. Soku. Boom kaboomah, boom kaboom. Come there it
is again our favorite beat. Keep in mind this was
(20:11):
recorded by French speaking Africans in nineteen eighty one, just
a year after Akiki says he came up with the
fundamental magical element. Could Jeff Luana have copied Akiki's sound
that fast? Wayne Marshall doesn't think so.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I find it hard to believe that this band from
Congo would have done this in nineteen eighty one based
on having heard a record made in Brooklyn in nineteen
eighty or eighty one.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Like a, when musicologists like Wayne listen to these beats,
they don't see a clear progression from one musician to another.
Drummer A played it first, then drummer Bee copied it,
et cetera. Instead, they see musicians from all over the
world drawing from the same ancient well of rhythm and
dance known as African traditional music.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Do a lot of African music, both traditional and popular,
rhythm forms a heavy bass. It's so much the foundation
of it, and that rhythm is tied to dance. I mean,
in traditional African cultures, the idea of music and dance
being separate. They don't see it that way. That's md
a Western concept. But these things are tied together, and
so you have heavy rhythmic, syncopated music, and that just
(21:21):
lends itself to dance. It's made to dance too.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
That's Ray Allen, another musicologist we called up Ray because
he wrote a book with none other than Frankie McIntosh. Frankie,
if you remember, was the Soka arranger who recorded Akiki
at Straker's Records. Frankie is such a legend in Brooklyn's
Caribbean music scene that his nickname is the Maestro. Frankie
(21:46):
and Akiki are still friends. They've stayed in touch over
all these years, but they've never talked about Akiki's claim
that he invented a brand new beat in nineteen eighty.
Frankie says that when he arranged Soka tracks Drakers, he
wrote out all the parts brass, keyboards, bass, everything except
for the drum parts.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
Here's Frankie, Yeah, that'd be more impropositional. I never wrote
drum pads for dramas.
Speaker 8 (22:15):
I didn't want to cause any and crumbruns hinder the
spontaneity or what they heard, so I just let the drummers.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Play what they thoughts.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
You know.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
Putnam but Aikki, as you mentioned, he had a style
of his own and he brought a lot to the
music in the area of drums.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Frankie oversaw thousands of recording sessions at Strakers. He doesn't
recall the day in nineteen eighty when Akiki says the
musical gods moved him to create the fundamental magical element.
Frankie doesn't doubt that Akiki came up with something innovative
and cool, but he's not willing to say that Akiki's
per some drumming style qualifies as something brand new musically.
Speaker 7 (23:05):
The top top, top top venom that was after Africa.
I mean, that's I would say, much older than Nikiki,
of course. I mean every drama who plays Calypso plays
some version of that, some interpretation, some variation of that ralthom.
We find it in Puerto Rico, we find in Brazil,
(23:26):
find in New Orleans, we find in Trinidad, Caribbean islands.
And it's important to note that it's found primarily where
you had displaced Africans, there were slaves or you know,
and somehow that beat stayed alive, I mean, still lives today,
and I think that's important.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I mean, and then just happened. Ray Allen, the musicologist
has studied the history of Afro Caribbean music. He says
that syncopated rhythms similar to Akiki's Fundamental Magical Element are
found throughout African diaspora communities created by the Transatlantic slave
trade Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, Puerto Rico. And it's nearly impossible
(24:10):
to trace who influenced who.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
A lot of stuff kind of happens naturally organically. Somebody
hears somebody and they take it and they play something
like it, or maybe it, you know, they'll do a
variation on it. But of course part of the African
and Afro guy's or tradition is to improvise, is to
try to take something, to make it a little bit different,
make it your own, you know. So that's going on.
But at the heart of it, a lot of the
rhythms and the basic forms are they're deep in the culture,
(24:35):
and I'm very reluctant to say that someone really invented
something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Akiki understands what Frankie and Ray are saying about the
long history of Afro Caribbean rhythms, but he still thinks
that his beat, the Fundamental Magical Element, qualifies as something
original and influential.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
I didn't really copy it from any other priece, and
it could be honestly tell you that I didn't hear
it before. But like if they say, well, then it
came from Africa, you know, two thousand years ago, eight
hundred years ago.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
You know.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I mean, I can't know that, you know. But but
to bring it into where the regaton came from, it
came from the Soka beat that I played.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Here's where things get interesting, and here's where it ties
back to the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Steelee and Kleevie.
In that billion dollar suit, two Jamaican musicians claim to
have invented a beat that was sampled without credit by
hundreds of reggaeton artists. But what if Steele and Kleevie
(25:38):
borrowed their beat from somebody else. According to Akiki, that's
exactly what happened. Akiki claims that his fundamental magical element
fundamentally changed soca drumming. After nineteen eighty one, Akiki is
boom ka boom, boom ka boom became the new sound
of soca. Wayne Marshall, here's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
When I listened to these recordings that Akiki was making
in the early nineteen eighties in Brooklyn. I do hear
that shift to the drum kit and I hear you
know what becomes this this dominant beat starting to emerge.
There there are tracks like Boogie Woman, I Believe and
YouTube Fast, both of them going back to nineteen eighty one,
(26:35):
which to me, you know, very clearly have that kick, snare, boom,
get boom, get boom, get boom, get boom, get boom gay.
You know, based on these records, these definitely seem like
some of the first Soca style records that are you know,
really doing this pattern on the drum kit and on
the kick and the snare in particular.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Okay, okay, So maybe Akiki did create a new Soca beat,
But what does Soka have to do with Jamaican dance reggae?
Even if Akiki's fundamental magical element was all over Brooklyn
and Trinidad, would Steely and Kleevey have ever heard it
in Jamaica. Akiki has a theory about that too. He
(27:13):
says that a band named Byron Lee and the Dragonaires
brought Soka to Jamaica in the mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
There's this guy in Jamaica called Byron Lee, and he
plays Soca music right, So Byrone would do play over
the Soka hits.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
And anytime he.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
Put down a Soca music using the beast that I created, people.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Dance once again. Wayne Marshall thinks that Akiki might actually
be onto something. Byron Lee and the Dragonaires were big
in Jamaica and they definitely predate Steelee and Kleevie. Here's
a Soca track by byron Lee and the Dragonaires called
Tiny Whiney, which would have played all over Jamaica in
nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Five years before Fish Market. You've got it there in
Jamaica by Byron Lee, so you know no doubt Steely
and Cleevey had heard it. Therefore, when you first hear
that arrangement showing up in Jamaica, it's not by reggae artists,
it's by Soca artists and Soca influenced artists. Right.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Wow, that's pretty cool. The idea that Soca may have
been the first musical style to introduce the boom kaboom
cup beat to Jamaica, and therefore Soca could qualify as
an earlier rhythmic foundation for reggaetne. But now we're back
to playing that old game, trying to connect drummer A
to drummer B and somehow prove a direct line of
musical influence. Let's not forget what Frankie McIntosh said. This
(28:48):
rhythm belongs to everyone in the African diaspora. It survived
the trauma of slavery and became part of a shared
cultural heritage. Can anyone own the drum beat of an
entire people? And let's be real, this isn't a court
of law, this is a podcast. Will leave the quote
burden of proof to a bunch of overpaid lawyers, twelve
(29:11):
jurors and a surprisingly cool judge. Slash DJ were storytellers,
and we think that if you're trying to tell the
whole twisting story of the long evolution of the reggaeton beat,
that one of the chapters should definitely be named Akiki's
fundamental magical element.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
You know, I do think that there's some glory there though,
and there are some untold stories there and unappreciated contributions there.
The fact that this beat, which is now so ubiquitous
in the twenty first century, especially just as a simple
kicksnare pattern. The fact that that might first really come
to the four in such a pronounced manner in Trinidadi
and Soca, never mind Saint Vincenian Soca, right, and you know,
(29:52):
people from lesser known islands than Jamaica, that does seem
like it should be part of the story, you know,
if that's the case.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Akiki was a professional musician for years. He toured with
some really big bands and got a taste of fame,
but ultimately the lifestyle wasn't for him, so he started
teaching music instead.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
I don't know if I find that teaching was feeling
me more than actually plain you know, because when you
go and place people telling you how good you are,
and you know, and the girls then want to come
with you and all of that, and I mean that's
a good thing, you know, but it's usually an ego thing,
you know. It was more something for your ego. It
(30:37):
builds the ego, you know, people say how good you
are and listen and that, and you know, but then
when you teach and you transform a child life, it's
more fulfilling to me, right than somebody tell you how
great you are.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Today Akiki's life is about as far from the bright
lights of the music industry as possible. He lives in
Ziehua the Nejo, Mexico, a quiet beach town on the
Pacific coast. A few years ago, he unexpectedly landed in
Mexico after losing his mother.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
So you know, that put me down in a slum,
you know, a kind of depression. But the thing is
the first time the people saw me play in Mexico,
and what they were like, did you come from another planet?
Where did you come from?
Speaker 4 (31:24):
You know, I mean?
Speaker 6 (31:25):
And then you know, Zee what the new is a
small tongue, right, So everybody wanted to meet to teach
the children. And that's how that's start, you know. And
then I love teaching again. So they asked me to
teach the children, teach them this, and I started to
do in that, and you know, we had a success.
Then the government gave me a bunch of landow to
(31:45):
build a school and all of that, and you know,
one thing lead to the next, so I'm still here.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Akiki has changed lives in Ziho. Some of his students,
who all come from poor families, have earned spot to
the prestigious bellas artists in Mexico City, which is like
the Juilliard of Mexico. He's taught blind kids to play
the piano, as well as children with severe autism. They
all love a Giki and he loves them too. Now,
(32:16):
could Akiki use a few billion dollars? Sure, he'd use
it to build a real music school on the land
the Mexican government gave him, and he'd teach all of
his students for free. Heck, he doesn't really charge them
very much as it is. But instead of filing a lawsuit,
Akiki's going to keep spreading the magic of music in Mexico.
And something tells us he still knows how to make
(32:39):
people move, all right, Zaren.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Last year, you brought us another courtroom thriller, The Case
of the Two Nancy drews. Oh yeah, we figured out
who actually created Nancy Drew and we're back with another
one this season. Tell us about how you and Dave
came together on this one.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Well, he did all the heavy lifting and brought this
amazing case, and I was just there for the courtroom drama.
I love the idea of stealing kleeviey, being like we
want to get paid for our beat. I just like
I loved that. And then any story that features Shaba
Ranks is doing something right in my mind. So this
one happened courtroom drama. And then obviously the judge was
just so incredible as a character I loved like a
(33:21):
former DJ it gets to be the judge of this case.
I mean, how perfect is that? So this one, I
think just pretty much had to took care of itself
and all I had to do is just make sure
I pronounced everything correctly.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
So my very special moment has to be the ending
catching up with Aikiki today and in Mexico, like what
happened to part gets in there and I think was
very satisfying, even though I kind of wish you'd gotten
you know, billions of dollars too, that would have been nice.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
The moment where the people in Mexico in the small
town are like, did you come from another planet? I
just loved this. It's coming together. This one had so
many great moments of cultural connections. That one is so
pure hearted. I just love the idea of these people
being blown away being can you teach our kid to
do that? This is amazing what you're doing? What about you, Dana?
Speaker 4 (34:03):
I think the very special moment for me is me
listening to it and trying not to dance and embarrass myself.
It moves through you.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You can't resist, oh completely. But dancing should never be embarrassing.
Even like if you're the person at the wedding everyone's
like you need to maybe sit one out. You're still
not embarrassing, you know.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
I beg to differ. You have not seen me dance
and it is, in fact embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Is it like a Lane from Seinfeldt levels of embarrassing?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Like do you have the at least a Lane has,
Like there's like some arm court function. I just feel
like all of my limbs sort of take on a
life of their own. I need to work on it.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Saren, is this going to be a presumed innocent season
three or a courtroom thriller at the box office?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I think courtroom thriller, but with real touching moments away
from the courtroom. So like casting this one, I went
through and I was having a lot of fun with this,
Like for a Kiki aka Elvis Rose, the drummer at
the heart of this, the man with the fundamental magical element.
I wanted Caleb McLaughlin from Stranger Things. I thought he
just has a great And then for the Jamaican dancehall
duo Steely and Cleevee, I went out on a limbit
(35:06):
this one. I went John Boyega and le Keith Stanfield
just having fun with it, just let the two of
them just do their thing. Basically, both of them are
fun actors. I think together they try to like live
in that with each other. And for the judge, Andre
Barrotte Junior, I went with Daniel Klulia from get Out
and from Nope. I thought he's just a fantastic choice.
I mean, he's got both the gravitas his eyes, but
(35:27):
he also can be fun and I would believe him
as a DJ. I'm like that guy could be a
DJ and a judge. And for Wayne Marshall Musicologist the DJ,
I went with Jeffrey Wright. I thought that he would
be like the right level of like, oh yes, I
believe he's a musicologist. He's got like the elbow patches
on his blazer. And then for producer at Straker's the
Frankie McIntosh, I went with Brian Tyree Henry. I'm not
(35:47):
sure if you guys watched Atlanta, but paper Boy from
Atlanta I thought he would be just amazing at that one.
So there you go. There's my casting.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
The shows hosted by zarn Burnett, Danish Wartz, and Jason English.
Today's episode was written by Dave Rouse. Our senior producer
is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound designed by Jonathan Washington,
Mixing and mastering by Beheid Fraser. Original music by Alis
(36:18):
McCoy and Jonathan Washington. Research and fact checking by Austin Thompson,
Zaren Burnett and Dave Roos. Show logo by Lucy Quintonia.
Social clips by Yarberry. Media Executive producer is Jason English.
Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Dana Schwartz
Jason English
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