MCP 6 (3) pp.

295309 Intellect Ltd 2010

International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics Volume 6 Number 3

Intellect Ltd 2010. Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/mcp.6.3.295_1

EDDY L. BORGES-REY University of Mlaga, Spain

Buhoneros reggaetn : Emerging Venezuelan musical practices through mediations in the informal sociopolitical ecosystem

ABSTRACT
The following article explores the musical practices and communicating mediations carried out in each stage of the music industrys value chain in Venezuela, in order to observe the way those mediations inuence the actors involved, determining the elements that both interact and dene the Venezuelans musical identity taking reggaetn (very broadly speaking, reggaetn is a Latinized derivative of Jamaican reggae, originating in Puerto Rico, via an interpretation of Panamanian reggae) as a case study. With this purpose, the research has used some empirical data and qualitative techniques, such as participants observation, interviews and netnography, as well as quantitative data obtained from the main statistical sources in the country. After establishing the state of the art, the study raises a number of questions to be discussed: (a) the features reafrmed through a transculturalization process mainly led by reggaetn in the Venezuelans musical identity; (b) the creative uses the consumer has given to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in order to participate in the new communicating dynamics on the Internet; and (c) the effects

KEYWORDS
musical identity communicating mediations sharing musical practices informal commerce Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela social networks

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that content appropriations, mainly encouraged by the habits of the new Internet user or Venezuelan informal commerce, are having in the countrys music industry.

INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, digital music and the set of cultural practices circumscribed around it are beyond any regulation of a social, political or legal nature. Despite the efforts from the music industry to keep control over the procedures inherent to production, distribution and marketing, the user has re-dimensioned the consumer dynamics and transferred the control over contents from the industry to the audience. Many different virtual communicating facilities such as social networks, P2P and Torrent-style content networks, among others, are making this transition worldwide easier, but each country is developing its own legal framework, orientated to controlling the situation. This reality increases in developing societies such as Latin America, where an informal economy, decient copyright regulations and consumption patterns have visibly modied the net of sociocultural relationships between digital music and its different actors. In this article, we will focus on the Latin American country of Venezuela and the mediations that take place in the value chain of the music business. These have been marked by the progressive decrease of living standards in recent years, as a result of which the informal sectors have come up with some new commerce and distribution dynamics incompatible with the countrys legal constitutional framework. That is why Venezuelan authorities have unsuccessfully over the last decades tried to design policies in order to regulate the informal economy and the emerging piracy practices, which have been strongly consolidated and have affected the music industry. From a sociological perspective, a number of mediations have been taking place on different levels: on the one hand, appropriations (carried out mainly by actors such as authors and producers) linked to hybridization processes concerning formal aesthetics and music styles that result from cross-national transculturation activity; on the other hand, appropriations linked to contents and consumer dynamics (enforced by users), determined by the socialtechnological phenomenon mentioned above, and theorized in the work of Leonhard (2008), through which one can step from property to access and from product to service, affecting business models and value chains signicantly. At the same time, as we will see, these appropriations had ramications for the different ways in which the social and cultural identities of the Venezuelans have been constructed, notably changing their musical imaginaries and the way they perceive their citizens rights and duties regarding ICTs and media contents.

DEFINING THE FRONTIERS OF VENEZUELAN CULTURAL IDENTITY IN MUSIC

Despite the fact that the end of the last decade was marked by the setting of the global society parameters within which we have to live now, the peoples cultural identities, rmly rooted during a process that took hundreds of years, still ght to retain what essentially denes them. In fact, globalization brought

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about a general return to roots, a movement that, along with others such as the end of the millennium and the consequent uncertainty it sparked in the society of knowledge reafrmed cultural determinants and social imaginaries. The 1990s helped some Latin American countries such as Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia reafrm some of their cultural features, marked by a strong folklore authenticity but mixed, at the same time, with inuential worldwide cultural tendencies. Discourses transmitted through media such as cinema (with a ourishing of independent lm-making boosted by the trio Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu, Alfonso Cuarn and Guillermo del Toro, just to cite an example) and television (with the creation of MTV Latino) catalysed Latin cultural expansion throughout the American continent, particularly in US societies like Florida. Something similar happened to music. There were many music fusions based on the referential popular music of the time (pop, rock, hip hop, heavy metal) and many groups and solo artists, such as Caf Tacuba (Mexico), Aterciopelados (Colombia), Man (Mexico), Shakira (Colombia), Plastilina Mosh (Mexico), Illya Kuryaki and the Valderramas (Argentina), Molotov (Mexico), Los Fabulosos Cadillacs (Argentina) and La Ley (Chile), which had a great impact, even in Europe. Venezuela did not have any access to this promotional ow (represented by MTV Latino) for a number of reasons. At that time, the Venezuelan music industry only supported those artists who proved protable and these kind of artists did not belong to any of the networks genres of interest. A small group of artists with a musical offer that could be attractive to MTV Latino could not get the economic support needed to establish a promotional strategy (videoclip production, mainly) appropriate to the aesthetic quality demands of the transnational company. In these circumstances it was hard to get on the bandwagon. Some Venezuelan groups managed to get in, nonetheless (Desorden Pblico, Caramelos de Cianuro, Dermis Tat or La muy Bestia Pop), although none of them managed to be as prestigious as the ones mentioned above. It is most likely that another key factor might be the lack of stylistic cohesion in Venezuelan popular music. It is well known that music in large cities of the country is dened by the multicultural phenomenon from a few decades back, as Venezuelan popular music began its hybridization process in the early 1960s, when the Fania All-Stars releases entered the nation. In fact, as we will see in this article, the inuence of other cultures in building the Venezuelans cultural identity has played a major role. The rst signicant problem can be traced back to the Colonial era, when Simn Bolvar, after a number of South American countries achieved their independence, established a republic by joining several colonial entities called La Gran Colombia. This newborn state was made up of El Virreinato de Nueva Granada (known today as Colombia), La Presidencia de Quito (Ecuador), La Provincia Libre de Guayaquil (Panam) and La Capitana General de Venezuela. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, La Gran Colombia dissolved because of political divergences, but the frontiers established between Colombia and Venezuela divide geographical territories such as the Llanos (plains) and the Goajira peninsula that now share cultural identities as well as traditional heritage. El Llano, as it is known in Venezuela and Colombia, is a geographical surface characterized by a swampy plain on which a social community with a distinctive cultural heritage is established. It could be said that

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the Colombian and Venezuelan llaneros referring to plainsman represent signicant equestrian subcultures in South America [. . .]. They developed those unique subcultures, with their own values and customs [. . .]. They also served as symbols for the courage of Venezuelans and Colombians due to their vital martial role in their patriotic victory over the Spanish. (Slatta 1984: 19495, 203) But Los Llanos are also known for their folk traditions that served as the foundations of the Venezuelan and Colombian cultural heritage. The most representative example can be seen in the music of the region, with the joropo as the most renowned cultural manifestation. The joropo is a musical form on a rhythmic base of 6/8 or on occasion 3/4, where native musical instruments are used, such as the cuatro a small four-string guitar and the bandola, similar to the cuatro but played with a different technique, as well as adapted versions of the maracas and harp. Reciting is involved, which allows the llaneros to rival each other in contrapunteos similar to Freestyle Battles and Rap Battles in which they show their improvisation qualities and their ability for rhyme. This musical genre is an element within the national symbols of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a cultural manifestation that, because of questions of historical memory, must be shared with Colombia due to territorial aspects explained above all of which could certainly condition the sense of belonging needed to consolidate a cultural identity, as McQuails notion suggests: No matter how much the link between culture and society has become weak, a central group of cultural attributes still remains and presumably identies a whole group of humans, especially those who have a clear location in time and space as either a nation, an ethnic or a religious minority. Culture, so understood, serves to express a sense of belonging to a place, a period and a community. It helps individuals to either nd or create a personal sense out of their experience as well as a shared feeling of belonging to a place. From this perspective, the most relevant things are both language (with all the past dragged and stored with it) and place symbols, especially those of nation and region, but also of immediate local space and what brands them as distinctive and familiar. (McQuail 1998: 111) The inuence of Colombian culture in Venezuelas musical identity can also be seen in the evident transcultural effect of vallenato in the western side of the country. El Zulia (the western regions mainland) represents a social community with distinctive cultural features. Focusing on its folk music, the gaita (one of the regions own musical genres, with a strong anti-establishment and protest discourse) is an obligatory reference during December, and it is always associated with Christmas festivities all over the country. Today, however, gaita is being displaced by vallenato in some of its traditional cultural contexts. The reason for this might be partly found in both the borders proximity and the high number of Colombians who inhabit the cities of Zulia, or even in the effect of the Colombian border radio stations, whose waves act as catalysts for indoctrination dynamics in Venezuelan territory. The truth is that the Zulian radio media encourages this musical genres spread and its reception in public transport as well as in discotheques and other leisure situations, even during the

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traditional Amanecer gaitero a folk music festival celebrated in memory of La Chiquinquir (Zulians patron virgin) festivities, where live performances by famous vallenato groups recur year after year. Living in a major Venezuelan city could lead us to the conclusion that where music is concerned the Venezuelan people either do not possess a cultural identity of their own or that they actually have one constituted by an eclectic syncretism built on the multicultural discourses present in their society. In fact, this musical diversity, which is characteristic of Venezuela, has its roots in the hybridization process that Venezuelan popular music experienced with the arrival during the 1950s of pop and rock from the United Kingdom and the USA, and, later on, in the 1970s with the advent of music of African roots such as the Dominican merengue and the New Yorker/Cuban salsa. By the 1980s, a number of groups and orchestras started to blend different elements of these musics. This is how several legendary groups were born, such as Adrenalina Caribe, Daiquir or Guaco (La sperbanda de Venezuela), which began as a Zulian gaita orchestra and now offers a musical scheme that melds diverse Latin music styles (the Cuban Timba mainly, with a strong inuence by Giraldo Pilotos Cuban group Klimax). As time went on, the presence of merengue and salsa in the countrys musical culture scene was completely established, with an unquestionable inuence of the media in that process. In recent days, the charts of radio stations and music TV programmes have promoted merengue artists such as Olga Tan or Elvis Crespo, or salsa performers such as Marc Anthony, thus guaranteeing their hegemony on nightclub dance oors and making old legends such as Juan Luis Guerra, Rubn Blades, Hctor Lavoe, Willie Coln or Gilberto Santa Rosa, just to name a few, obsolete. The Venezuelans have taken over a series of foreign cultural practices, rooted in their musical identity to such an extent that they are already a permanent part of their set of cultural practices. Thats the case of the repeated presence of Mexican mariachis in common social celebrations, such as La esta de los quince aos a typical Latin American party where 15-year-old girls are presented to society by their parents silver wedding anniversary parties or regular birthday parties. The set of cultural practices with the utmost inuence in Venezuelan cultural identity during the last decade are those related to the musical genre known as reggaetn. In fact, this form of music has gradually displaced and ultimately removed salsa from the niche it used to have in the Latin American market. Of course, other cultural instances such as cinema, television, fashion have played their respective roles in this process, but, as can be seen in the empirical data which is provided below, music has been a very signicant driver, due in part to the musical permeability of the Venezuelans.

A LANDSCAPE OF REGGAETN APPROPRIATIONS

Some evidence of what has been explained above may be the question that Catao asks in his work on salsa imaginaries: And where is salsa?, seems to be an obligatory question in view of the growing invisibility of this popular Caribbean sound, a process caused by the unusual rise of other, more elemental and standard musical expressions, but also more in line with the new record production patterns. (Catao 2006: 2)

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Salsa, with the mediated expansion it had since the 1970s, became a reference worldwide. In fact, Salsa has reached Latino and non-Latino audiences worldwide, becoming the most internationally recognized style of Latin music (Kattari 2009: 108). This reality remained valid until a new transcultural ow from Puerto Rico known as reggaetn would signicantly change the imaginaries, identities, consumer patterns and cultural practices of the average Venezuelan; the salsa, which began its cultural legacy in Cuba and was then brought to New York and nally to Venezuela and Colombia, served as a hybridization model for reggaetn (Kattari 2009). Many lines have been written in explanation of the social phenomenon of reggaetn. We will mention some ideas that will serve as bases for its study. As Marshall points out, By reggaetn, then, we refer to a relatively new genre (and related set of cultural practices) strongly marked both by a particular approach to musical style (e.g., dancehalls boom-ch-boom-chick as reshaped by urban Puerto Rican sensibilities and informed fusion with hip-hop) and a relation to the market (i.e., explicitly commercial, courting a wide audience). (Rivera, Marshall and Pacini 2009: 8) In musical terms, the reggaetn comes from a mixture of a number of Latin American rhythm, melodic and harmonic forms that converged in Jamaica. The cause for this hybridization might probably be Jamaicas own multicultural background, a Caribbean mix of European, African, and indigenous traditions (Kattari 2009: 114): where the Jamaican reggae and mento come together, as well as Trinidadian soca and calypso, Haitian meringue and konpa, Puerto Rican bomba and plena, Dominican merengue and bachata, Cuban son and mambo, and, among others, Nuyorican salsa, combined with inuences from Panamanian and American music as well. (Marshall 2006) With the dawn of the millennium, Venezuela had an urgent need for new incentives in the popular music landscape, a need that was initially lled by the bachata mainly with groups such as the New Yorker/Dominican Aventura, among others but the explosion of this phenomenon was interrupted by the resounding appearance of reggaetn that would denitely establish itself with artists such as Don Omar, Tego Caldern, Daddy Yankee, Wisin y Yandel or Ivy Queen, once they reached the US media platforms that spread this music culture among the Latino communities settled in US society. This demand, under the guidance of the music industry, will not go unnoticed; once it proves to have a signicant presence in the market, it will help consolidate the creation of outlets totally focused on spanning the genre in this market segment such as MTV channel Tr3s. At the same time, the promotional ow will reach other Spanish-speaking societies, and even consolidate some European regions such as Spain as a growing market. Of course, the reggaetn as Marshall clearly pointed out is just a part of a wider set of cultural practices that integrate a number of aesthetic forms also rooted in the cultural identity of Venezuelan youth. This socio-demographic

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segment is exposed to themes frequently visited in this genre, themes that have their origin in the feeling of marginalization and poverty typical of the rundown social classes in Puerto Rico. The most frequent are sex, dancing and partying, experiencing love, lyrical prowess, violence and heartache. All these topics were reviewed by Dinzey-Flores in a study that analysed the lyrics of 179 songs of this genre, and they were revealed to have this frequency of interest: sex, the most frequented (43%), followed by party and dance (37%) and love (30%) (Dinzey-Flores 2008). The night meeting events in Venezuela are often visited by youngsters who have unconsciously appropriated these discourses, and their subsequent cultural practices may be associated with the typical night ritual set by the reggaetn listeners dynamics, as Dinzey-Flores explains: The typical plot involves a guy really liking or even loving a woman, pursuing her by asking or demanding her to dance or have sex. In these occasions, sex and dance are often synonymous or act as metaphors for each other, sometimes making it indistinguishable when one or the other is meant. References to perreo as the preferred dance style, but also as a metaphor for sex, are ever present in reggaetn songs. The pursuit of the woman is often attached to the reggaetonero extolling his own rapping, lyrical, or sexual virtues, which sometimes involve the mention of being ready to kill or having a posse of friends ready to follow his violent orders and defend him. (Dinzey-Flores 2008: 47) Actually, this violent approach towards sex and women that can be regularly found in reggaetn topics generates a situation where More and more girls let themselves be objectied as the boys start to think that they have the power to use and abuse women (Prez 2006: 6). Given this situation, young people especially girls will resort to evasive arguments. Many will say that they listen to the music for the catchy beat, and dont pay attention to the lyrics; but even then [given] todays styles in music video portrayal and within our society it is very hard to not see the sexual connotation of the genre today. (Prez 2006: 6) The truth is that the link between reggaetn and Venezuelan cultural identity is being built on the foundations of a growing identication on the part of Venezuelas deprived society with some of the Puerto Rican political and social ideals referenced in the lyrics, which are eventually transferred to the daily practices of those communities. Part of that life which, due to the degree of cultural appropriation in Venezuelan society can be very similar to the Puerto Rican is evident in their language and slang, with many common concepts. For example, the club or discotheque (la disco; discoteca; la pista; discotequeando) has a 28% presence in their lyrics; neighbourhood (barrio; casero; residencial; vecindario; ghetto; the Hood) has 25% presence; the street (calle; callejn; carretera; avenida; camino; el expreso; freeway) has a 22% presence; home and intimate geographies (Casa; hogar; mansin; cuarto; habitacin; cama) has 21%; Puerto Rico geography (Puerto Rico: Borinquen; Bayamon; Caguas Carolina; Guaynabo; Loiza; Montehiedra; Ponce; Salinas; Santurce; San Juan: Trujillo Alto; el rea

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este) has 17%; everyday routine spaces (tienda; restaurante; marqueta; cancha; cementerio; gradas; hotel; playa; el mar; el rio; el cao; en la fauna silvestre; el risco; la tumba; altar) have 11% (Dinzey-Flores 2008). This assimilation and subsequent adaptation of slang into the particular Venezuelan context is complemented by the imitation of certain representations from the ghetto-fab phenomenon, such as large hoop rings and long acrylic nails (Prez 2006), as well as markers such as violent poverty and blin-blin aesthetics (Dinzey-Flores 2008), the latter referring to ashy style which signals resistance to, as well as acceptance of, certain socio-economic conditions. The sum of all these factors led to the establishment of the sociocultural bases that served as a foundation for reggaetn made in Venezuela. In music terms, the transition began a few decades back. Since the late 1980s, many popular tunes from Panam entered the collective musical memory of Venezuela, such as Gabys El meneto, or El Generals Son Bow, Muvelo, Tu Pum Pum, Rica y apretadita and Te ves buena, all of which, along with Bolivian band Azul Azuls hit song La Bomba (covered and spread worldwide by King frica), would inadvertently become early forms of reggaetn. This melange was imbued by other music rhythms, like Brazilian group Kaomas Lambada or La sopa de caracol by Honduras Banda Blanca, musical styles that had great repercussions during the 1980s and 1990s. An example of this is the emergence of Venezuelan artists such as Natusha, who adjusted themselves to the new trends by creating updated versions of these genres with notable sales success in the country. At the same time, a new Caribbean rap tendency emerged in the discos and the media with artists like Puerto Rican Wilfred y la Ganga and their hit song Mi abuela, Qu Pasas Mami, yo te quiero or Gerardos Rico Suave. Subsequently, this hybridization with rap and hip hop during the 1990s merged with Dominican merengue. New York group Proyecto Uno or Dominican Ilegales and Sandy & Papo (the latter settled in Venezuela) stand out as prime examples of merengue house. By the late 1990s, a solid cultural base had been established and was ready to take in the next evolution of the genre, with a whole new generation of artists such as Fulanito, The Noise, or Panamanian producer Chombo, author of the compilations known as Cuentos de la Cripta, which contained some early reggaetn drafts such as Las chicas quieren chorizo by Wassabanga, or El cubo de leche by Jam & Suppose. At the same time, the rst responses from Venezuelas music industry to the reggaetn-styled merengue house phenomenon came with Warner Music Latinas release of the rst record by music band Calle Ciega. Currently, the former members of Calle Ciega, Chino & Nacho have become along with Franco & Oscarcito the most representative artists of Venezuelan reggaetn. Both duos have taken advantage of the new market dynamics designed by the music business, mainly spread with the help of viral promotion through digital media like social networks and tube sites on mobile devices, specically addressed to the socio-demographic segment of highest interest regarding these artists musical provision.

NEW MEDIA AND SYMBOLIC INTERCONNECTIONS: FROM P2P TO SOCIAL NETWORKS IN MOBILE ENVIRONMENTS
As is well known, Venezuela is going through complex challenges which to a large extent determine its technological appropriation. The Venezuelans, however, have managed to adjust themselves to the changes and patterns set by the world technology market by establishing a set of creative uses according to

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their social condition. A clear evidence of this is the growing exploitation market that mobile phone company Blackberry has found in the country. This can be conrmed in the statements of Douglas Ochoa, communication and social development manager of Telefnica in Caracas: 70% of Blackberry sales in Latin America are made in Venezuela. Just the annual sales of this device in the Venezuelan market are double those of Brazil and Mxico together, considering that Venezuela has a population of 27 million people, against Brazils 191 and Mxicos 100 million people. (Lpez 2009) It is a fact that Venezuelans get regular access to social networks, instant message services such as Microsofts Messenger or microblogging options like Twitter, through their mobile telephone, which allows them to be connected in a ubiquitous manner; they also download Internet content through P2P or Torrent networks from their homes as well as taking an active role in the creation of user-generated contents, which are later distributed by regular channels in digital environments. All these activities belong to the usual set of cultural practices of users worldwide; this is a major contrast considering the economic, political and social reality of Venezuela, dened by growing misery rates. According to the index made by US economic news agency Bloomberg, Venezuela ranked last in a list with 60 countries, with a 36.8 percent rate of misery (Tejero 2009). In this way, the Venezuelan users consumer pattern follows the standards quickly set in developed countries in recent years. Those are set against the parameters and regulations imposed by the music industry, which, in the process of assimilation and understanding of the new consumer dynamics, creates new strategies in order to maintain some of the control previously lost, to survive; because the commercial music industry has always relied upon a rich, wide variety of activities of an amateur nature (Frith 2006: 38). A few years ago, there were already signs that indicated a number of drastic changes in consumer dynamics and, therefore, in technological appropriation. As Dillon points out, The reality is that we are increasingly becoming a more networked, pervasive musical world. Recognising the social, creative, and political power of such networks is important as they not only provide a medium through which we can express ourselves but also challenge us not to simply ripoff dominant or existing approaches to music but actively develop new practices and opportunities. (Dillon 2006: 303) This interconnected music universe has found in social networks a catalyst that allows the digitalized musical content and its subsequent treatment (sharing, delivery, promoting, creating a current of opinion around it, etc.) to generate effects that have profoundly changed those cultural practices related to them as: the interactions occur through the technology, facilitating not only synchronous, virtual communication but also asynchronous communication

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and, in some cases, side-by-side and face-to-face interaction. In this respect, Interconnected Musical Networks (IMNs) potentially facilitate wider forms of musical collaboration. (Dillon 2006: 300) This new collaboration among digital users nds in social networks a rich interactive scene based on the mediations that occur on those symbolic resources suggested by the technological appropriations (De Aguilera 2008), affecting also the creation of a music cultures dening features. Thus, as explained in a previous study: As in other scenes in daily life, music on the Internet participates in the construction of our identity but in diverse forms. Thus, in the most popular social networks (Facebook) and in those websites that allow the user to listen and share music selectively (last.fm), this construction of identity is based on the act of sharing (music, information), converting each user into one more agent of identity creation, balancing between the public and private, the personal and collective. (De Aguilera, Adell-Pitarch and Borges-Rey 2010: 41) On this basis, after exploring the symbolic values appropriated through the reggaetn culture that dened the music identity of most Venezuelans nowadays, we will review the collaborative dynamics that occur in social networks in Venezuela; but rst, a clear distinction must be made. There are many different socio-demographic groups that follow a specic music-consuming pattern, but they can all generally be reduced to only two: one linked to the use of conventional media such as radio and television also regular pirated goods buyers at buhoneros (informal street stands); and another one more involved with the ICTs, which use these in order to appropriate their content and generate a variety of cultural practices around it. The consumer dynamics of the rst group whom we will call technologically random begins with radio listening. Despite the fact that, in developed societies, the use of radio is usually restricted to a commuting context or an evasive listening while doing other activities, radio in Venezuela is one of the most important channels of promotion of popular music. In fact, the hit parade system determines what the random users consume, encouraging them to nd a particular hit among the pirate records offered by buhoneros or even commercial establishments. The second group the technologically involved shows a different dynamic. These users have more specic musical preferences and devote much of their time to explore the Internet in search of information about styles, trends and groups they nd interesting. They download contents from P2P networks and Torrent sites on a regular basis, and create playlists that are then redistributed through Spotify or social networks. They enjoy sharing and recommending music to their group of virtual friends. For both groups, the playlists represent an important factor, as they determine to a large extent the perception of the users musical identities in the networks where they interact. In fact, the music preferences of the random user are conditioned by the playlists created by informal traders of pirate CDs, since some of the most commercialized cultural goods are hit compilations. This is just an effective marketing strategy, as the random users usually go to the stores

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or street traders to acquire a compilation containing the music hit they heard on the radio and so, incidentally, they get access to a number of other hits that reafrm their presence in the top lists as they are more and more listened to. On the other hand, in the scenario where the involved users interact, the playlists are mere virtualizations of their music preferences marked and imbued with their musical identity distributed on the Internet, either through Spotify or Facebook or YouTube, noting that the playlists in the latter two also contain a number of visual codes with a great inuence in virtual groups. In any case, this interconnection in the cross-media environment where not only social networks but also conventional media converge brings about an unprecedented change in communicating dynamics. Music television still keeps a remarkable market share, as has happened for a few decades: Through the intervention of the technological processes and dominant codes of musical television, musics collectivity becomes the subject of its visual representation (Berland 1993: 40). That identity, clearly linked to a number of symbolic ideals from a variety of reggaetn aesthetics, is promoted and instilled by satellite/cable networks such as MTV, Tr3s, VH1 or HTV channels which are accessed by a wide range of the population illegally in most cases and which, along with television, condition the demand for artists. At the same time, the mediations carried out in mobile telephone environments are an increasingly relevant factor; the creative uses Venezuelans have conceived through these in order to promote their preferences, reafrm their musical identity and share the cultural goods they appropriate demonstrate signicant ethnographic data. As Castells and others point out, Young people have spearheaded the spreading of mobile communication technology in developed countries, as well as invented, created, and adapted new communicating uses. [. . .] The youth culture has found in mobile telephones an appropriate tool to express the need of safe autonomy, ubiquitous connectivity and self-administered nets of shared social practices. (Castells et al. 2007: 37778) In fact, young Venezuelans not only participate actively through their mobile phones in social networks, where they get to comment on those videos and theme songs uploaded, or interact in fan groups, forums and blogs; they also act as distribution channels for music exchanged among users via Bluetooth or from a more creative perspective voice notes. This increasingly habitual practice involves any musical theme broadcast through radio, television or a live performance, being recorded by the mobile phones voice notes application then sent to the contacts net through MMS, Microsoft Messenger or BB PIN (Blackberry instant communication system). These practices, although effective viral promotion tools for artists, also represent one more invasive appropriation dynamic that threaten copyright protection laws.

CONCLUSION: THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN REGULATION AND THE INFORMAL ECONOMY

What began in Venezuela as the sporadic, clandestine sale of a few pirate CDs by street traders has become today a network of wide production and distribution of cultural goods that represent a major part of the countrys informal

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commerce. According to gures from the Venezuela National Statistics Institute (Spanish acronym INE), by the second half of 2009, the informal sector was made up of 44% of the countrys employed people. Comparing this data with those statements from the Authors and Composers Society of Venezuela (Spanish acronym, SACVEN) indicating that 85% of lms and music CDs commercialized in Venezuela, and almost 72% of personal computers installed software, come from pirate versions (Lugo and Sampson 2008), we can afrm that the distribution and promotion of these cultural goods largely depends on their circulation through a non-copyright-regulated process outstripping a number of market conditions that slow the contents global consumption, an aspect the new user does not feel enthusiastic about. What Leonhard proposes as a liquid model for digital music shows a kind of user who dictates consumer patterns and whose power of choice affects the music industrys prots: We are heading into a music like water future, based on this very simple fact: Today, there are more people in more places around the globe tuning into music with more enthusiasm and sheer determination than ever before, and depending on their cultural backgrounds, they are using a myriad of different ways to get what they want. Whats more, to a large degree the traditional record industry is simply no longer invited to the party. The bottom line is that consumer empowerment has nally reached the music business, and many consumers have now taken charge of their own entertainment. Its now My Media, not yours that you are simply broadcasting to me. (Leonhard 2008: 38) In this sense, the Venezuelan user has obtained the content within the illegal framework in most cases, thus showing an increasing piracy practice in different sectors of the informal economy. This aspect is obviously conditioned not just by the massive demand for these goods, but also by the search for working alternatives to the high unemployment rates in the country. The expansion of music CDs, lm, TV series and live concert DVDs and the pirate software sale business has reached such a rate that many trademark branches can be seen in shopping malls in Venezuelas most important cities functioning as sellers of pirated consumer goods. Their service offer is so wide that they not only sell those items, but also hire them, according to videostore-like procedures, and even make them on demand. As a response to this situation, several institutions that watch over the rights of artists and the record industry have put pressure on the government to create new policies to regulate the activities carried out by these establishments, which range from illegal 24/7 street trading in crossroads and trafc light stops to the stores mentioned above. Therefore, the Inter-institutional Agreement Against Piracy was created in 1996 under the protection of the Ministry of Justice, with the Brigade against Piracy (Spanish acronym COMANPI) as its operative agency, attached to the State Polices Anti-Organized Crime Division. Later, in 1999, in view of a new governing body known as the Organic Procedural and Criminal Code, the Ofce Prosecutor XVIII for the Public Ministry was created, with authority in copyright matters, followed by the National Alliance for the Defence of Music Industry (Spanish acronym, ANDIM). In 2002, there arrived the Anti-piracy National Action Group (Spanish acronym,

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GANA), which, in need of new lines of action, merged with the Integrated National Service of Costumes and Tributes Administration (SENIAT), leading to the Commission for the Implementation of Industry Protection Policies based on Author Rights and its Fiscal Impact (Olivar 2005). The rate of commerce of pirated works and goods, however, has not changed signicantly, a conclusion drawn from the Spanish Institute of Foreign Trades gures. According to these, by 2008, Argentina and Brazil stood out as the countries where the cultural industry had a major economic presence, with up to a 3% value of the gross domestic product, while the rest of the countries in Latin America only reached 1% value or less; such is the case of Venezuela or Paraguay (ICEX 2010), proving that almost the whole cultural industrys activities in Venezuela are carried out within the frameworks of the informal economy. In his work, Leonhard sets out an analysis of digital musics current situation and its relationship with both users and music industry; he also suggests what could be, according to him, the right measures to remove piracy out of the equation. He tells the industry to: Drastically lower the prices for music products and you will see piracy disappear quickly because pirates cannot compete any longer. Can you make a prot on a lower sales price? Heres my math: Reduce your production costs by 25%; sell the product for 30% less; cut in the artist for 2040%, but most important, look to get 95% of your catalogue exposed to their perfect target groups, via the Internet; save 50% of your marketing budgets; and take advantage of a much larger market altogether, because now people will be paying attention to music again. (Leonhard 2008: 31) This cultural and political structure also has a certain consequence within the Venezuelans musical identity, as this dynamic has been a determining factor in the way the user gets access to contents, making consumption easier in many ways and adjusting it to some practices such as buying a pirate DVD movie as yet unreleased in the cinema or listening to the album which the artist has not released yet onto the market which run contrary to the model chain that the industry struggles to maintain. That is the reason why the organizations, and the people integrated or linked to them, with nancial interests in this sector take actions as swiftly as possible in order to maintain, among other things, their audiences. The kind of relationship these have with music texts is typical of those textualized cultures explained by secondgeneration semiotics scholars, in which it is well known that people look for musical experiences instead of just consuming music goods, often using music to create specic symbolic atmospheres and experience feelings and emotions within them (De Aguilera 2008: 43). Thus, the consumer patterns have changed: users are no longer concerned about how music is obtained, they just care about the emotions music will let them experience. In fact, Venezuelas informal economy has established a trend in music consumption repeated among several Latin American countries, including some emerging economies like Brazil. In this respect, Venezuelan users are locally strengthening a cultural practice which is not only globally widespread, but which dictates the dynamic bases of access and content control which empower the new user.

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REFERENCES
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Olivar, E. (2005), La lucha contra la piratera en Venezuela: debilidades y fortalezas. Pensar el libro, CELARG, Edicin 2 ao 2005, www.cerlalc.org/Revista_ Pirateria/pdf/n_art05.pdf. Accessed 15 January 2010. Prez, L. (2006), The Sexual Message in Reggaeton and How It Affects Society, www. rpi.edu/ krullr/commt/PerezPaper.pdf. Accessed 21 February 2010. Rivera, R., Marshall, W. and Pacini, D. (2009), Reggaeton, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Slatta, R. (1984), Gauchos, llaneros y cowboys: un aporte a la historia comparada, Boletn americanista, Volume 34, Issue 1, Barcelona, Spain: Universitat de Barcelona, pp. 193208. Tejero, S. (2009), Bloombergs index: Venezuela has the highest rate of misery among 60 countries , El Universal, http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/02/ 24/en_eco_art_bloombergs-index:_24A2235015.shtml. Accessed 14 March 2010.

SUGGESTED CITATION
Borges-Rey, E. (2010), Buhoneros reggaetn: Emerging Venezuelan musical practices through mediations in the informal sociopolitical ecosystem, International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics 6: 3, pp. 295309 , doi: 10.1386/ macp.6.3.295_1

CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Eddy L. Borges-Rey is an associate lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Mlaga, Spain. He has published Hybridizing Knowledge. Research on Communication and Music (co-published with Miguel de Aguilera and Ana Sedeo, SPICUM, 2010), and has collaborated in collective publications such as Music and Communication: Transdisciplinary Perspectives (UOC Press, 2008) and A Telly in the pocket. mobile TV: contents, formats, audience (Crculo de Estudios Visuales Ad hoc, 2009). As a professional, he has worked as a journalist and media practitioner in Venezuela and Spain and more recently in the cultural promotion sector as media manager. His research focuses on the users cultural practices in the new digital communicative environment. Contact: Eddy L. Borges-Rey, University of Malaga, Faculty of Communication Science, Teatinos Campus 29071 Malaga. E-mail: eborgesrey@uma.es

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