Episode list

First stop: Panamá. We meet three Afro-Panamanian friends -all descendants of West Indian canal workers- who start translating Jamaican dancehall songs into Spanish, and performing them at neighborhood soundsystem parties. Renato makes the first reggae en español hits and sells cassettes to commuters on tricked-out buses, known as diablos rojos, that are bumping and spreading the new sound.

El General arrives in Brooklyn in the mid-80s to find a booming dancehall scene underway, and links up with Jamaican producers who start recording and promoting Panamanian artists. Around the same time, a Spanish-language hip-hop revolution is taking place as mixtapes fly back and forth from NYC and Puerto Rico, led by legendary rapper Vico C.

Viejo San Juan, PR 1991, The Noise was DJ Negro's place where "underground" was born, and Ivy Queen got her big break. A sweaty rap battle rave mix that the kids from the hood flocked to every weekend it was the coolest party in the world.

In the early 90s, a wave of drug-related violence in Puerto Rico leads the government to launch the "Mano Dura" policy of invading and occupying housing projects with the National Guard, and underground music gets caught up in the crackdown. At the same time, rival MCs go to war, and lyrical battles sometimes spill out into real-world violence.

"El underground" evolves into Reggaeton, and it spreads like wildfire. Lyrics about street topics evolve into sex jams. A trend of sexually explicit videos leads a telenovela star-turned-senator to launch a crusade to regulate perreo and more.

In the early 2000s, two artists emerged to take reggaeton to the next level. Tego Calderon's smooth flows and message of Black pride wins new fans for the genre and Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina" blasts out of Puerto Rico to become a global hit, marking the dawn of the global reggaeton era.

After "Gasolina," music labels bet big on the genre and scramble to sign artists like Don Omar and Wisin y Yandel. But when a culture from the streets and corporate America collide, it isn't always pretty. Meanwhile, artists battle for reggaeton crown and Hector el Father unleashes a reign of terror on the scene.

The media is quick to pronounce the death of reggaeton, but soon Puerto Rican artists like Nicky Jam, Ñejo, Alberto Stylee, and others find a new promised land. The genre quickly gets a spark of new life in Medellín, Colombia a city eager to reinvent itself after decades of being plagued with violence.

And so it happens, Medellín, Colombia becomes a new reggaeton mecca thanks to a new generation of artists and producers. J Balvin, Maluma and others advocate for a more commercial sound, and they set the stage for neo-reggaeton's global takeover.

Reggaeton has now taken over the world. The scene has moved to Miami, where most of the biggest players are living and recording. As the music becomes increasingly commercial, some artists fight to keep the genre's original rebel spirit alive. In this final episode, Ivy Queen looks back at her career and the legacy of the music she helped create.