EVERY GENRE PROJECT - August 4 - Mambo urbano

Genre of the Day - Mambo urbano 🇩🇴

Album of the Day - El dueño del flow (The Flow Master) by Omega (2009)

To harness potential overlaps between the traditional music that courses through families and cities like shared blood and the fresh sounds of the international zeitgeist takes musical minds with the talent to capture the best of both. Across the Latin sphere, artists have shown considerable aptitude in this regard in the past few decades from reggaeton to cumbia turra. Today’s genre rises to the occasion from the streets of the Dominican Republic, platforming its national pride merengue in a conversation between the island and American hip-hop, dance, and R&B. It shows how surrendering a bit of the proprietary ownership over tradition to evolving trends and technology can strengthen that music’s heritage by placing its stamp upon a new era.

Mambo urbano seems a bit of an inaccurate handle—RYM works in mysterious ways—because it’s more often referred to as merengue urbano in writing, indebted to the centuries-spanning sound of merengue complete with its own holiday (November 26th) circulating through the Dominican and Haitian musical atmospheres. Its persistence since the mid-1800s lies in its marriage of its easy-to-learn couple’s dance and distinctive, characteristic eighth-note piano melodies with tambura drum rhythms that evolved out of the genre’s earlier instrumentation centered on accordion. Just as mariachi became branded as Mexico's national music as it emerged post-Revolution and flamenco had a similar function in Spain, dictator Rafael Trujillo weaponized the merengue during his 1930s rise to endear himself to rural Dominicans among whom the sound was most beloved. He bent bands to his will and compelled them to write propaganda merengues in his honor. This stranglehold laid the foundations of the genre’s diasporic popularity: many musicians flocked to Puerto Rico and New York and sowed the seeds of merengue far beyond the island, forming the channels for mambo urbano decades later.

Mambo urbano has a clear precedent in the stylings of the legend Johnny Ventura, who fused the rock’n’roll sweeping across youth worldwide with merengue in the 1960s. Rock’n’roll’s unapologetic expressions naturally resonated in the wake of Trujillo’s assassination in 1961 as youth celebrated freedom from autocratic chains. A few decades later, hip-hop similarly transformed the way the Dominican diaspora interpreted music and expressed their lives’ wins and struggles and made its way into the musical ambitions of aspiring merengueros. The merengue is a cultural constant for families split between the US, Puerto Rico, and the DR, so slotting it into novel styles is a potent act of transnational joy. 

In the 2000s, certain singers began adopting the flows and flexing, explicit lyrics of hip-hop and reggaeton. The importance of producers in mambo urbano also reflects their essential position in hip-hop: merengue melodic lines are often created from loops rather than traditional live instrumentation, so producers have to be crafty in harnessing its fast-paced staccato melodies while simultaneously fashioning a groove for the emcees to ride on. Its blending of a globally-known sound with hip-hop’s crossover potential has proven irresistible for stars to dabble in. Shakira, Pitbull, and Rosalía have all basked in a mambo urbano moment, and Rosalía’s single “DESPECHÁ” in the style became her most-streamed song as its bounce dominated the summer of 2022. 

“DESPECHÁ” was a solo number, but it wasn’t going to be originally: one of mambo urbano’s pioneers Omega had recorded a verse. Though he didn’t feature on the smash, we look back at one of his trailblazing 2000s’ efforts filled with hits of his own. “Si Te Vas” features a trademark understated delivery electrified with autotune, the piano rays-of-light and synthesized horn breakdown accentuated by hard-hitting percussion. “Merengue Electronico (Rompe Consola)” opens the shuttle to a space-age merengue with its alien arpeggios against its repeated piano melody, tambura, and snares. Lovelorn “Lloraras” slows the pace and leans on the more traditional axis of instrumentation, lent extra levity by the layers of horns at the climax. As he eases in, he takes no prisoners, declaring to any rivals “Yo estoy claro que tú conmigo morirá en el primer intento / Revolucionando el mambo” [“I am sure that with me you will die at the first try / I’m revolutionizing mambo”] on “Sorpresa” and staking his claim as the king of flow in riding the high-speed wave of “Dueño.” Though the English chorus of “Tu y Yo” heavily leans on cliché, Omega’s cool disposition cutting the heat of merengue and hip-hop’s torches meeting is an irresistibly festive sound. It’s with a satisfied smile that he knows he’s searing these horn and piano-galore melodies into your head, and though many have tapped into mambo urbano’s strengths, they will always be in the position of trying to outdo the doer.