| Merenhouse | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Merenrap, Merengue house |
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | 1990s, New York City, U.S. |
| Typical instruments | |
Merenhouse,Merenrap orElectronic merengue,Mambo/Mambo de Calle is a style ofDominicanMerengue music derived by blending it withdancehall,hip hop andhouse, particularlylatin house.[1] The mix of Latin, house and dancehall music started in New York City in the late 1980s.
Merenhouse usually combines rap singing (talk-singing) with actual singing. It has instruments that are typically in Merengue music, such as saxophones, trumpets,accordions, bass, guitar,güira, andtambora, a kind of drum. However, it can be combined with electronic sounds or even electronic sounds sampled from the actual instruments (much like house music).Sampling music consists of reusing a sample or portion of a sound recording in a song. Merenhouse is very upbeat and intended for dancing, similar to house music; it is hard to identify merenhouse basing only on itstime signature and itsrhythm alone: some of them are in a fast 2/4 beat and has typical Merengue rhythms, while some other are in a slower 4/4 beat, identifying more with thehip hop style. Merenhouse can be characterized mostly by the using of instruments/electronics and the combination of vocal styles.
The hybrid music known asMerenrap,Merenhouse, orLatin house was formed in the 1980s in New York City. Jorge Oquendo, an entrepreneur, encouraged artists to blend these genres.Lisa M mixedmerengue withhip hop/rap in her second album released in 1990. Latin house, in turn, combineshouse, rap,Latin rhythms andCaribbean music.[2]
Dominican Merengue can be considered an expression ofDominicantransnationalism, as there was a significant shift in the migration of Dominicans to New York in the twentieth century. As a musicalhybrid, merenhouse was popular with a generation of bicultural youth growing up in New York with Dominican roots that combined both aspects of their culture. Merenhouse is also a symbol of national identity to Dominican Americans.
The early 1990s saw a huge increase in immigration to the United States from theDominican Republic due largely to the greatly deteriorating economic situation of the Dominican Republic in the 1980s and early 1990s. New York City saw the bulk of this initial Dominican population growth, and once those first Dominican immigrates got settled in, New York became the hub of Dominican culture in the US. "By 1990, an estimated 900,000 Dominicans — 12 percent of the country’s population — lived in New York City alone". Dominicans also "tend to be more concentrated residing exclusively in barrios or ghettos likeWashington Heights, Manhattan-Inwood, home to 59% of Dominicans registered by the INS". This potent concentration of Dominicans all in one place allowed them to bring in their own culture while they assimilated into the melting pot of cultures found in New York.Merengue is one example of the many pieces of Dominican culture brought during this period of immigration, which was a key element to the creation of Merenhouse.[3][4]
The new style was most importantly influenced by merengue, the national music and dance of the Dominican Republic. It is in a fast 2/4 beat that hasAfrican,Creole, and European origins which emerged during the early 20th century. Merengue has varying styles and a very distinct rhythm.[5] During its beginnings, it includedcall-and-response vocals, a Spanish guitar, and a boxlamellophone called the "Congolesemarimbula". These instruments were later replaced with the acoustic guitar,acoustic bass, Germanaccordion, thetambora, a West African two-headed drum, and thegüira, which is a metal scraper. In the 1930s, Merengue was modernized and became the national symbol of the Dominican Republic, because orchestras played for the middle class and social elite. The sound became that of a more generic Latin band, and this included an instrument replacement for the piano, staple percussion and the acoustic bass. Merengue, in which merenhouse is based upon, developed in the 1980s and 1990s, and resulted fromJuan Luis Guerra's incorporation of more modern sounding arrangements and socially relevant themes; he was also influenced by pop andjazz music.[6]
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Genres that were popular during the 1990s in New York City greatly influenced Dominican Americans to create "Merenhouse/Merenrap":
ReggaeReggae music, known asthe Heartbeat ofJamaica, was born in this island in the late 1960s and derives from multiple indigenous genres, such asSka (the first style to be born outside the United States, that is always in Jamaica in the late 1950s), andRocksteady (also born in the same country, around 1966). It includes instruments like thebass drum,snare drum, keyboards, and guitars. When one thinks of Reggae music, first thinks of theRastafari religion, which was created just in Jamaica during the 1930s; moreover, many associateRastas and Reggae to its greatest representative,Bob Marley, also known asthe Jamaican Icon.[7]
Hip-Hop/RapThe termHip-hop music refers to more than a music genre, because it encompasses various elements:Rapping,Graffiti, Deejaying,EmCeeing, andBreakdancing.[8] The musical aspect, calledRap music (the act is namedRapping), can be defined as a style where lyrics are half spoken, half sung in short phrases, sometimes rhyming, and accompanied by a musical beat in the background; it had the opposite direction compared to other genres, because it was experimented in lives (in the early 1970s) and only at a later time (from the late 1970s) its singers, the rappers, began to record their songs and albums in studios. TheWall Graffiti phenomenon in hip hop can be traced back toThe Bronx, New York City, in the 1960s–1970s, where it started to gain popularity with the prevalence of "Street Gangs". As ways of sound production present in this genre there are thetoasting, took from the reggae tradition, and several different techniques ofDeeJaying (from Deejay, that stands for "Disc Jockey"), likescratching (invented by a DJ named "Theodor") and "punch phasing"; the Djing of hip hop, however, is different in relation to the reggae one. TheEmCeeing (from MC, which stands for "Master of Ceremonies") element in this style, moreover, consists in a person who is capable to entertain a public at events, and lets perform and sometimes presents deejays. Lastly, theBreakdancing aspect in hip hop is a competition in a context of street gangs between usually two dancers, with a music in the background that features "breaks", in which the winner is chosen by a variety of criteria; this phenomenon of hip hop culture was born always in The Bronx borough of New York City, in the poorer Afro-American and Latin communities in the early 1980s.
House musicHouse music is considered a music genre ofElectronic dance music (EDM), which was born in Chicago, Illinois in the early 1980s but not mainstream until the early 1990s, and it is heavily influenced bydisco. As of musical instruments, the synthesizer is most commonly associated with it and the music is often characterized by its continuous and repetitive beat. This style of EDM was pioneered by DJFrankie Knuckles, who moved from playing others' records to making his own music. There are many subgenres of House music, including "acid house", "latin house", and other EDM styles also derive from it, such as "techno", "trance" "drum and bass" and "jungle", as well as many more. This genre also has close ties tohip-hop, mainly because both were born around the same period.[9]