53 min listen
4. "I Wonder if I Take You Home" — Freedom in Freestyle
FromLa Brega
ratings:
Length:
41 minutes
Released:
Feb 16, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Created on the streets by young Nuyoricans in the mid-1980s, freestyle music became the soundtrack for the lives of second-generation Puerto Ricans. Hip-hop and pop, Latin Caribbean rhythms and instruments — it all came together in freestyle. The sound was ubiquitous in New York, and later in Orlando, Florida, where many of these Boricuas were charting new ground and new lives across the diaspora.
Artists, many of whom were young Puerto Rican women, ultimately became the face of the genre; and for the listeners that so resembled them, the music provided an opportunity to dance to the beat of someone who looked and sounded like them. Young freestyle artists sang about love, heartbreak, and their sexual desires. In Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s “I Wonder If I Take You Home” — one of the genre’s biggest hits — a young woman sings about her sexual desire, on her own terms and without shame.
As a Boricua born in the '90s, reporter Raquel Reichard didn’t experience the freestyle explosion in real time, but she’s felt its profound ripple effects. In this episode, we meet two mother-daughter duos — including Raquel and her mother — for whom “I Wonder if I Take You Home” is particularly special. The song opened intergenerational conversations around sexuality, respectability and empowerment, and while impacting their lives both personally and professionally, it also strengthened their relationships with each other.
Learn more about the voices in this episode:
• Stacey DiLiberto, lecturer at the University of Central Florida
• Louie Ortiz-Fonseca, freestyle historian and former freestyle artist
• Nic Lopez Rodriguez, DJ and performance studies scholar
• Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro, Executive Director of Florida Access Network
• Read Raquel Reichard’s reporting on the history of birth control trials.
• Watch the documentary "La Operación,” about the sterilization of Puerto Rican women during the 1950s and 60s.
Our cover of “I Wonder If I Take You Home” is by the artist RaiNao, featuring IFE (out this March).
Listen to our Spotify playlist, featuring music from this episode — and this season. We’ll keep adding to it each week as new episodes come out.
Special thanks this week to Zoe Colón, Angel Vendrell, Jackie and Emily Diaz, Richie Rosario, Cynthia Torres, DJ Dominick, and Maritza and Lizardo Reichard. Fact checking this season is by Istra Pacheco and Maria Soledad.
Artists, many of whom were young Puerto Rican women, ultimately became the face of the genre; and for the listeners that so resembled them, the music provided an opportunity to dance to the beat of someone who looked and sounded like them. Young freestyle artists sang about love, heartbreak, and their sexual desires. In Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s “I Wonder If I Take You Home” — one of the genre’s biggest hits — a young woman sings about her sexual desire, on her own terms and without shame.
As a Boricua born in the '90s, reporter Raquel Reichard didn’t experience the freestyle explosion in real time, but she’s felt its profound ripple effects. In this episode, we meet two mother-daughter duos — including Raquel and her mother — for whom “I Wonder if I Take You Home” is particularly special. The song opened intergenerational conversations around sexuality, respectability and empowerment, and while impacting their lives both personally and professionally, it also strengthened their relationships with each other.
Learn more about the voices in this episode:
• Stacey DiLiberto, lecturer at the University of Central Florida
• Louie Ortiz-Fonseca, freestyle historian and former freestyle artist
• Nic Lopez Rodriguez, DJ and performance studies scholar
• Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro, Executive Director of Florida Access Network
• Read Raquel Reichard’s reporting on the history of birth control trials.
• Watch the documentary "La Operación,” about the sterilization of Puerto Rican women during the 1950s and 60s.
Our cover of “I Wonder If I Take You Home” is by the artist RaiNao, featuring IFE (out this March).
Listen to our Spotify playlist, featuring music from this episode — and this season. We’ll keep adding to it each week as new episodes come out.
Special thanks this week to Zoe Colón, Angel Vendrell, Jackie and Emily Diaz, Richie Rosario, Cynthia Torres, DJ Dominick, and Maritza and Lizardo Reichard. Fact checking this season is by Istra Pacheco and Maria Soledad.
Released:
Feb 16, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (39)
7. Se acabaron las promesas: La relación que tiene Puerto Rico con los Estados Unidos siempre ha sido un tema de debate intenso. En 1952, Puerto Rico adoptó un nuevo status que prometía descolonizar la isla. En inglés le llama “Commonwealth”. En español, lo llamamos Estado Libre Asociado, o ELA. Por décadas se le prometió a los boricuas que este estatus era único porque les brindaba una autonomía especial junto al beneficio de mantener lazos profundos con Estados Unidos. Ahora, en medio de crisis tras crisis, más personas están cuestionando esa promesa y usando la palabra colonia para describir la relación política con Estados Unidos. En este episodio, la antropóloga política y columnista de El Nuevo Día, Yarimar Bonilla busca a las personas que todavía creen en él ELA, mientras se pregunta, ¿qué pasa cuando muere un proyecto político? Pueden encontrar la pagina web del Puerto Rico Syllabus aqui. by La Brega