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with his new song If I had met you beforewhich premiered this weekend, Karol G He joined the list of reggaeton artists who have bet on merengue, that popular genre of Dominican origin, which had its boom in the 80s and 90s.
Now, the popular Bichota sings and dances What would have been? // If I had met you before // Surely // You would be dancing this one with me // Not as friends in his new single, quite handsome and catchy.
Karol G continues to demonstrate his musical versatility, first He ventured into spite as 200 Cups and now in meringue with If I had met you before.
They were artists like Johnny Ventura. Wilfrido Vargas, Elvis Crespo, Juan Luis Guerra and Sergio Vargas, among others, the owners of the festivals at the end of the 20th century. Topics like El Venao, Abusadora, Suavamente, La Bilirruina or Bubbles of love They were a hit and were played in all the discos and garage dances at that time.
With the arrival of the new century and the boom of reggaeton soundsmerengue lost shine, diffusion and impact, until 2022 the Spanish Rosalía released the single spite, written by the Puerto Rican Nino Seguarra, and they talked about merengue again, this time from the hand of the reggaeton artists.
The single had such an impact that it was included among the magazine’s 100 best songs of the year. The Rolling Stone. The Dominican Juan Luis Guerra himself highlighted the creative work of mixing musical patterns of bachata and merengue with flamenco.
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Bad Bunny and Ryan Castro
That same 2022 Bad Bunny released his album A summer without you, which included the topic After the beachwith all the essence of the Dominican merengue. That recording made people talk about the versatility of the reggaeton player because of his vision to take advantage of the sounds of other genres to innovate and surprise. Including a meringue, which seemed lost in the last century.
But before Rosalía and Bad Bunny, in December 2021, two reggaeton artists from Medellín, Ryan Castro and SOG, they had already launched their own merengue. It was about Womanizer.
“Ay-ay-ay, I’m a womanizer // Ay-ay-ay, and I never deny it // When I steal someone, bye and see you later // Ay-ay-ay, they yell “Womanizer” at me says the catchy chorus, with the same tone and accelerated rhythm of the merengues of the 80s and 90s of the 20th century.
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“We believed that it was a song for Colombia and that it was only going to be played in December, the objective was to hit here and now, and it became the song of the summer, of the year,” says SOG, who now has the role of producer-artist.
He highlighted that the song was born with the idea that aunts and uncles could dance at family and block parties, now dominated by reggaeton.
“When we released the song there was no merengue on the market and it was impressive to see it enter the list of the 23 most popular songs on the planet, being a merengue made by a couple of Paisa reggaeton players, which got everyone talking about the genre. It does not mean that others have decided to record because of us, but we open that possibility“, reiterates SOG, which is surprised by the ease it has to produce and “fix” a meringue.
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This tendency to bring other genres to reggaeton is a currently dominant characteristic in the urban genre, which is increasingly moving away from its original sound from the early 2000s.
Today it merges and appropriates content from spite, electronic, pop, regional Mexican and Dominican merengue itself.
