1. Introduction
[1.1] Often founded by enthusiasts and fans of the subject matter being collected, community archives tend to emerge from feelings of frustration with how certain cultures, histories, and experiences are overlooked, or not prioritized, by institutional and broader cultural preservationist policies (Baker and Collins 2017; Baker et al. 2020; Collins 2018; Flinn 2007). Lack of representation, inaccessibility, and exclusivity within existing practices has meant that some individuals and communities do not see themselves reflected in heritage narratives and spaces. Michelle Caswell (2014) repurposes the term "symbolic annihilation" to refer to the omission of historically marginalized groups from exhibitions, museums, and archives. By fact of their existence and contents, however, community archives address the gaps in dominant heritage narratives—including "archival absences" (Caswell 2014, 26)—which have traditionally erased or misrepresented subcultural groups. Increasingly, people have taken to social media and digital platforms to create freely accessible online community archives dedicated to the cultures that have been "consistently excluded or ignored by traditional memory institutions" (De Kosnik 2016, 1–2).
[1.2] The convergence between activism and archivism within community archives (Flinn and Stevens 2009; Caswell 2014; Cifor et al. 2018) is increasingly discussed in the context of popular music archives (Baker 2015; Collins 2015; Collins & Carter 2015). In recent years, researchers have responded to the emergence and growth of community archives, informal institutions, and online spaces established and maintained by enthusiasts—namely volunteers and fans—dedicated to popular music (Baker 2015; Baker and Collins 2015, 2017; Baker, Doyle, and Homan 2016; Baker and Huber 2013; Brandellero, van der Hoeven, and Janssen 2015; Long et al. 2017, 2019). This approach corresponds with critical approaches to cultural heritage and, notably, the emergence of frameworks that recognize the preservationist work that takes place "outside the realm of mainstream heritage institutions" (Baker and Collins 2015, 484). Notably, fans are collaboratively constructing historiographies of popular music cultures, creating "participatory online archives" (Collins 2019, 79) that preserve the materials and histories ignored or excluded by formal institutions and dominant popular music narratives, as well as making them available for others to access and enjoy (Collins and Carter 2015, 128, 131–32). By fact of their online or digital format and collaborative, participatory, or "do it together" approach, these community-based, fan-founded popular music archives are key sites of activism (Baker 2015; Collins 2015; Collins and Carter 2015).
[1.3] Increasingly, the activism identified within popular music community archives is explicitly conceptualized within cultural justice frameworks (Long et al. 2017, 2019; Cantillon, Baker, and Buttigieg 2020; Cantillon, Baker, and Nowak 2021). Cantillon, Baker, and Nowak (2021, 75) describe cultural justice as "a form of social justice, in that both are concerned with power and inequalities"; however, the notion of cultural justice "offers a more precise lens through which to consider the cultural dimensions of injustice." When thinking about heritage, cultural justice can be considered both as an outcome—the absence of cultural injustice—and as a process that addresses injustices such as "cultural domination," "non-recognition," and "disrespect"' (Cantillon, Baker, and Buttigieg 2020, 22; Cantillon, Baker, and Nowak 2021, 75). Indeed, discussions of activism within community archives speak directly to cultural justice outcomes, namely representation, recognition, and access (Long et al. 2017; Cantillon, Baker, and Buttigieg 2020). For instance, it is noted that community archives respond to the failure of traditional memory institutions to preserve, accurately represent, and make accessible the specific materials of their cultures and histories (Flinn and Stevens 2009, 6, 8; Cifor et al. 2018, 70, 88; De Kosnik 2016, 10). In response to the persistent denial and invisibility of these communities and their histories, community archivists declare that their cultures and communities "exist and deserve status and recognition" (De Kosnik 2016, 2, 18).
[1.4] As a unique point of departure from existing conceptualizations of community archives within critical heritage and public history scholarship, this article discusses the concept of cultural justice as it manifests in preservationist practices dedicated to the Afro-Caribbean popular music genre reggaeton. Indeed, the focus on Black and Caribbean music cultures and practices is a significant intervention considering the somewhat limited scope of the existing scholarship on popular music heritage and fan studies. Deborah Pacini Hernández (2003, 14, 17) observes that the "tenacity of Eurocentric and English-centric approaches to popular music studies" has meant that certain genres—especially those associated with marginalized communities—are subsequently ignored in the academy. Focusing on fan-led community archives dedicated to reggaeton—once described as an "artistic manifestation of the marginalised" (Perez 2008)—responds to calls to pay "serious and concerted attention" to non-Western popular music (notably Latin/x American and Caribbean genres) and to be more inclusive of Black, non-white, and marginalized fandoms (De Kosnik 2016; Rivera 2019, 120).
[1.5] In this article, I focus on two online spaces: the Hasta 'Bajo project (hastabajoproject.com) and the Reggaeton Con La Gata platform (reggaetonconlagata.com). I conceptualize the practitioners behind these spaces as "fan-scholars"—a term I have borrowed from González (2016, 124)—to account for their explicit self-positioning as historians, museum professionals, or scholars (or affiliations with academic or cultural institutions) and as fans simultaneously. For example, the Hasta 'Bajo project emerged from the founder's academic study of reggaeton—a master's degree in Cultural Management at the University of Puerto Rico—and "a lifetime of being a fan of this music" (Velázquez Delgado 2020, 46). On the project's website, the managers of the archive, Patricia Velázquez Delgado and Ashley Olivia Mayor, introduce their professional credentials as history teacher and cultural manager, historian, and curator—respectively. Ashley is an assistant curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and holds a Master of Arts in Museum Studies. Similarly, Katelina Eccleston (aka "Gata"), the founder of the Reggaeton Con La Gata platform, identifies as a reggaeton historian and scholar in interviews and on the platform itself (Butler 2020). In the context of this article, the term "fan-scholars" corresponds with the destabilization of formal categories and the broad continuums of professional-amateur practice imagined in the scholarly discourse on popular music heritage (Roberts and Cohen 2014; Baker 2015). Although the fan-scholars who are the focus of this article have backgrounds in public history, cultural management, and/or curatorship, the community archives they have developed sit outside the institutional frameworks that support authorized heritage discourse.
[1.6] Through a thematic analysis of these online archives—supported by references to accompanying journalism and academic publications—this article considers the perspectives and motivations of the fan-scholars behind these spaces. To unpack the "activism-archivism" (Collins 2015) in these spaces, I pay particular attention to the explanations offered by these practitioners regarding their motivations for establishing a space for reggaeton and the broader significance of their efforts (Cifor et al. 2018). From analyzing these texts, I determine how the intended uses, functions, and impacts of these archives align with the pursuit of cultural justice. The cultural justice outcomes of access, recognition, and representation (Cantillon, Baker, and Buttigieg 2020) serve as a guiding framework to assess how the practices of reggaeton's fan-scholars manifest the "thrust for cultural justice" (Long et al. 2019, 98).
2. Reggaeton
[2.1] Reggaeton (or reggaetón) is a transnational popular music genre, performed predominantly in Spanish, emerging from the "overlapping and multidirectional circuits" of cultural-musical practices and communities across the Caribbean, the Americas, and their Diasporas (Marshall, Rivera, and Hernández 2009, 11). Due to its broad global and diasporic influences, the genre cannot be assigned a "single orientation point" (Marshall, Rivera, and Hernández 2009, 10; LeBrón 2011). However, it is important to highlight the role of Jamaica and Panama in the early history and development of reggaeton. Following the mass migration of English-speaking Black workers from the West Indies (namely Jamaica) to work on the construction of key infrastructure in Panama, by the 1970s and 1980s, the descendants of these Anglo-Caribbean migrant communities were experimenting with music styles, namely Jamaican dancehall reggae, creating the Spanish-language reggae recordings—reggae en español—a distinct genre presaging and often conflated with reggaeton (Marshall 2008, 2009a, 2009b; Samponaro 2009; Schneider 2017; Watson 2014). Having reached Puerto Rico by the 1990s, these Panamanian recordings, infused and blended with various rhythms and styles, including other Afro-Caribbean rhythms, such as US hip-hop (Ellis 2020, 201), and they eventually coalesced into reggaeton (Marshall, Rivera, and Hernández 2009, 4). Indeed, it is often explicated that reggaeton developed as a result of "two simultaneous histories"—the aforementioned production of Spanish-language reggae/dancehall in Panama "based on the cover songs from Jamaica" and the production of Spanish-language rap in Puerto Rico "based on covers of rap songs from the United States as well as original productions on the island" (Kattari 2009, 112) (note 1). In short, reggaeton is an inherently Afro-diasporic cultural practice, linked specifically to the experience of Blackness (Rivera-Rideau 2015).
[2.2] Reggaeton—as it came to be termed—spoke to the everyday experiences of marginalized and racialized communities in Puerto Rico. A Black working-class cultural practice, reggaeton (and its immediate precursor, "underground") faced—and continues to face—significant hostility from the island's predominantly white political-cultural elite, intellectuals, and institutional bodies (LeBrón 2019; Negrón-Muntaner and Rivera 2007; Rivera 2009; Rivera-Rideau 2013, 2015; Rudolph 2011; Samponaro 2009). Raquel Z. Rivera (2009, 121) argues that "class and racially based hierarchies and structures of oppression" have informed the public discourses surrounding reggaeton since its emergence. In their current expression, these pervasive hegemonic structures manifest as the "dominant strand of cultural nationalism" whereby "what has now become popularly recognized as Puerto Rican national culture" is determined by "a select few intellectuals, bureaucrats and cultural practitioners" and manifests via "policy initiatives, media and popular representations, and official discourses" on the island (Rivera 2007, 218, 220–21; Rivera-Rideau 2013, 618–21). These discussions of reggaeton's relationship to hegemonic cultural and institutional processes mirror Laurajane Smith's (2006) explanation of "Authorised Heritage Discourse" (AHD)—grand narratives of national-cultural heritage which prioritize the "experience and values of elite social classes" at the expense of a "diversity of sub-national cultural and social experiences" (66, 30, 51). Reggaeton is one of the "diverse expressions of Puerto Rican culture" excluded from its authorized discourses of cultural nationalism (Rivera 2007, 230).
[2.3] These "elite constructions" of national identity and culture—which are not exclusive to Puerto Rico but are prevalent across Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean—sustain racial hierarchies that privilege whiteness and erase Blackness (Candelario 2007, 342; Rivera-Rideau 2013, 618; Rivera-Rideau 2015, 20, 6; 2018, 57–8; see also Rivera-Rideau 2011). Within these societies, "racialising discourses" (Rivera-Rideau 2013, 624) produce anti-Black racism, social inequalities, and in particular, "diminished life choices" for people with darker skin tones and "visible markers" of Black or African ancestry, in comparison to their "lighter, white-looking compatriots'"(Candelario 2007, 343). When it comes to reggaeton, these discourses have also manifested as forms of cultural injustice. This entails the marginalization and demonization of reggaeton according to state-level notions of cultural nationalism and identity in Puerto Rico (Rivera 2007; Rivera-Rideau 2013, 2015), as well as in Cuba (Baker 2011). Also, it has been pointed out that the racialization and discrimination of Dominicans as Black subjects in Puerto Rico directly translates into their absence, despite their obvious contributions, in popular discourses of reggaeton's "birth stories" (Hernández 2009, 135; Rivera-Rideau 2018, 55–56). Similarly, the origins and influences of this "primarily Black music" are further obscured as a result of the genre's commercialization and whitening (blanqueamiento) (Marshall 2008, 2009; Rudolph 2011, 34). As white Latinx artists increasingly appropriate this Afro-Latinx practice, they are complicit in the erasure of Black practitioners in contemporary performances, further distorting the working-class, African diasporic roots of the genre (Rivera-Rideau 2019; Rivera Rideau and Torres-Leschnik 2019). When talking about reggaeton in the context of this article, I identify the manifestation of cultural injustice in the marginalization of a music practice that has racial and class-based connotations (according to hegemonic national scripts), as well as the under-representation and nonrecognition of Black people in contemporary performances and dominant historiographies of the genre.
3. Reggaeton's online fandom spaces
[3.1] Often founded by fans, online community-based popular music initiatives "demonstrate their quest for [cultural] justice" (Long et al. 2019, 102) by creating inclusive, participatory, and accessible spaces where people are encouraged to contribute, come together, and celebrate their cultural identities, memories, and histories (Baker et al. 2020; Cantillon, Baker, and Buttigieg 2017; Cantillon, Baker, and Nowak 2021). It is within these discussions of popular music preservation that the relationship between fandom, cultural justice, and affect is made particularly apparent. Affective archiving of popular music cultures and materials is often a fan practice. In popular music community archives, affective motivations manifest in the "communal urge" and collective efforts of fans—often "generated by a love of music and performers"—to record the existence and impact of a particular genre, and so to preserve its associated historical materials and memories (Baker 2015, 59). These affective archives create awareness of the broader significance of a popular music culture and its histories—simultaneously challenging existing notions of what constitutes the archive, what is worthy of archiving and how it ought to be archived (Long et al. 2017, 74). Said differently, affective archiving—underpinned by the "emotional commitments" of the fan-archivists—challenges the lack of attention or nonstatus of popular music as cultural heritage (68). At the time of writing, the scholarship on community archives dedicated to the preservation of reggaeton is limited. However, Michelle Rivera (2011, 2019) has explored online spaces created by communities of anti-fans, who have created digital archives of "anti-reggaeton" cultural artefacts. Specifically, these communities create archives of "amateur low-resolution renderings of visual culture" and produce commentary that "express[es] a desire to rid the world or a specific country of reggaeton" (Rivera 2011, 295, 289). This "user-generated content" (videos, songs, articles, visual images, online discussions) is exchanged and circulated across a "range of online spaces…from social networking sites, to blogs, to music streaming sites" (281–82, 286–88, 291). Paradoxically, as these anti-fans mediate the reggaeton texts that they "hate and love (or 'love to hate')," or "actively assert their disdain" through commentary (287, 281), they are documenting, preserving, and constructing a historical record of the genre in the digital realm. In short, these "spaces of online production" (Rivera 2011, 283) can be read as unauthorized or unintentional (Baker and Collins 2015) archives of digital reggaeton media.
[3.2] Interestingly, while these affective spaces afford anti-fans the opportunity to voice their frustration and resistance to the genre's so-called "urban ascriptions" and "deviant associations" (Rivera 2019, 112–13), these actions confirm (and conform to) classist and racist discourses that have served to marginalize reggaeton and its communities of practice. Put simply, anti-fans' collective efforts to ban the genre necessitates the non-recognition of other groups and their cultural practices. Thus, despite accidently creating archives of digital materials, these anti-fans are not doing so with an eye to achieving cultural justice outcomes vis-à-vis reggaeton. With this in mind, and at the time of writing, there has not been research on how individuals or communities of fans have created and used online spaces to actively and intentionally preserve the materials and histories of reggaeton.
4. The Hasta 'Bajo Project: "El reggaeton también es parte de nuestra cultura"
[4.1] The Hasta 'Bajo project invites participation, recognition, and celebration of reggaeton in lieu of—or in explicit response to—broader cultural policies that neither address nor prioritize the genre's preservation. Speaking at the online Zoom conference to mark the anniversary of the Hasta 'Bajo project, founder Patricia Velázquez Delgado repeated her rationale for creating the grassroots space: "There was no work collecting, safeguarding, and preserving the history and collective memory of reggaeton" (Velázquez Delgado and Mayor 2020). Specifically, an unsuccessful search for reggaeton on the official website of the Institute for Puerto Rican Culture (ICP) foregrounds the creation of the project (Solá-Santiago 2020). In her master's thesis, which accompanies the development of the project and platform, she elaborates that the genre has not been studied, safeguarded, and recognized as culture at the "institutional and academic cultural level" in Puerto Rico (Velázquez Delgado 2020, 35). In addition to the lack of "any effort" to safeguard the "many representative cultural items and tokens of reggaeton," Velázquez Delgado (2020, 3, 46) notes that there is likewise an aversion—on behalf of these institutions—to declare the genre "part of our culture."
[4.2] In light of the institutional failures to address reggaeton in safeguarding or preservationist policies, the archive's founder, asserts that "it is up to us to make the effort" (Velázquez Delgado 2020, 35, my emphasis). On its website, the project explicitly outlines the lack of representation and recognition it is responding to, explaining that "because the corresponding institutions [that] safeguard our culture do not have reggaeton in their periphery…we invite you to rummage through your boxes from the past and identify CDs, cassettes, photos, flyers [and] any object you have related to reggaeton…With this you contribute to our project and to the effort to recover this fragment of our history" (Velázquez Delgado and Mayor 2020, my emphasis). From its conception, therefore, the archive is immediately and explicitly positioned as a participatory and collaborative endeavor—a community archive. This participatory ethos is signaled through the use of inclusive language throughout the project's website—for example, upon entry to the project's homepage, visitors are welcomed by an invitation to "collaborate with the project" in the form of a cartoon graphic of an envelope (symbolizing a feature whereby people virtually mail their photographs) that reads: "From: Everybody" (Velázquez Delgado and Mayor 2020, my emphasis). Otherwise, the project makes explicit calls for collaboration by soliciting donations to its archive.
[4.3] The Hasta 'Bajo project invites people to share photos of reggaeton objects on their social media platforms by using the hashtag: #somoshastabajo. The hashtag is shorthand for the expression: "nosotros somos hasta abajo" (we are hasta 'bajo). Velázquez Delgado (2020, 8, 35) explains that the project intentionally adopts a colloquial tone or plain language to ensure broad accessibility to "all kinds of people, from students, fans and people within the reggaeton industry" itself—particularly poor and working-class young adults. The title of the project, Hasta 'Bajo, is an abbreviation of the phrase, "hasta abajo" (roughly translated as "all the way down"—although interpretations differ), a colloquialism commonly used in Puerto Rican reggaeton songs (Velázquez Delgado 2020, 37). Participants can also contribute photos of everyday objects—"whatever they have at home, no matter the year or condition" (Velázquez Delgado and Mayor 2020)—through the platform's Memory Mailbox (an online form). While the first option for donation-participation requires a certain level of familiarity or competency with social media functionalities (i.e., how to successfully hashtag the project), the latter option enables people who do not use social media (or who perhaps do not wish to make their social media accounts public) to confidentially donate photographs (Velázquez Delgado 2020, 32). However, while participation is facilitated through these two options for contributions or donations (which account for different levels of competency or familiarity with social media and personal preference for confidentiality), it is worth noting that accessibility and, therefore, participation is contingent on relative digital proficiency or online access. For example, the Memory Mailbox function includes the disclaimer: "P.S. you must have a Gmail account to fill out the Google Form" (Velázquez Delgado and Mayor 2020).
[4.4] Potential participants are also instructed to write personal annotations or descriptions of the donated (photograph of the) object(s). While the rules for annotating contributions explicitly prohibit "violent, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic or racist comments," as well as a recommendation not to use profanities, participants are afforded flexibility and personalization to write a description of or any comment about the object: "Tell us the history of this object. How did you get it? In what year? Where did you find it? Write everything you want to tell us about the object…you will always be given credit" (Velázquez Delgado and Mayor 2020). It is worth mentioning that the explicit prohibition of discriminatory and violent language suggests that the project's managers are committed to ensuring an inclusive, safe space for diverse communities of fans to celebrate their love for reggaeton. At the time of writing, participants have donated photographs of magazines, concert tickets, and CDs—displayed in a digital gallery on the project's website (named "La Galeria"). The accompanying annotations explain the personal significance of the objects, offering glimpses into participants' memories of reggaeton on the island: "I found these [concert tickets] a few weeks ago…I took my little cousin [to the concert at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico]"; "I was the one who changed the songs [on this CD] which were not very good [quality]"; "When I returned to my house [in Puerto Rico] I started to clean my room and found this CD…it brought back many beautiful memories of marquesina [garage] parties and the denim stains that the boys left on the walls" (Velázquez Delgado and Mayor 2020). Some of these object descriptions use abbreviations ("pa" instead of "para"), colloquialisms ("pai" instead of "padre"), and English-language loan words ("el bonding") that are typical of the vernacular used on the island and by the communities that engage with and practice reggaeton, in particular (Dinzey-Flores 2008). Perhaps an unintentional metaphor for an archive which represents (or reflects) its local communities of interest is the photograph of a pirated CD which, missing its sleeve or case, acts as a mirror, reflecting the donor's hand as they have positioned themselves to take the photo from above.
5. Reggaeton Con La Gata: "There is no reggaeton without Black people"
[5.1] Created and hosted by reggaeton historian, Katelina Eccleston (aka "Gata"), the Reggaeton Con La Gata platform comprises various social media profiles, a dedicated website and a podcast, Perreo 101. The term perreo is widely recognized by fans as a cultural practice (specifically, a style of dancing) and subgenre associated or otherwise conflated with reggaeton. Through Perreo 101, Gata advocates for the wider recognition of the Black communities in which reggaeton is rooted, profiling the Black practitioners pivotal to the genre's development and commercial success, such as in the episode "Reggae Respect: 35 Truths Nobody Wants to Accept" (Eccleston, 2020a), emphasizing the aesthetic borrowings between the genre and other Afro-Latinx music, such as in the episode "Evolution of Roots" (Eccleston 2019a); and highlighting the relative absence of women (particularly Afro-Latinx women) in contemporary reggaeton performances such as in the episodes "Where Da Ladies At?" (Eccleston 2019c) and "Make Reggaeton Nasty Again" (Eccleston 2019b).
[5.2] Outside of the platform, Gata has spoken out against the appropriation of this "very Black music," reminding people that—despite white-washing—the genre is "derived from Black music and Black people" (Eccleston 2020b). Indeed, on several occasions in her podcast narratives, Gata makes the link between the absence of Afro-Latinx reggaeton artists in contemporary performances and the distortion of the genre's Black roots. In response to the blanqueamiento of the genre, Gata uses her platform to call attention to the centrality of Black contributions to reggaeton, echoing scholarly voices which have addressed misrepresentation within conventional histories of the genre, including the contributions from Jamaica (Marshall 2008, 2009a), Panama (Marshall 2009b; Samponera 2009; Twickel 2009a, 2009b; Spencer 2019), and the Dominican Republic (Hernández 2009; Rivera-Rideau 2018), or otherwise imagine Afro-Latin/x American descent in reggaeton (Rivera-Rideau 2011; Rudolph 2011). Gata's efforts to promote a more complete understanding of the Black musical cultures and communities from which reggaeton emerges, as well as to advocate for recognition of the genre's Black contributions to the genre, are not necessarily unprecedented endeavors. However, both the format and delivery of the Perreo 101 podcast make her research more widely accessible to communities of fans, making these important interventions available beyond the realm of academia and its affiliated institutional barriers (note 2).
[5.3] In the podcast episode titled "Reggae Respect: 35 Truths Nobody Wants to Accept". (Eccleston 2020a), Gata specifically addresses the erasure of Panamanians (or Panamanian-Jamaicans) and Dominicans from established and prevailing narratives of the genre's genealogy:
[5.4] Prior to that Puerto Rican infusion, Panamanians were already cookin' it up!…At large we weren't calling our music 'reggaeton'—we were calling it 'reggae,' but that formula? Yes, we created it. Puerto Ricans added their sauce [and] swag into the genre, but we are not gonna disrespect Panamanian contributions to this genre. Never. It is a waste of time. And disrespectful more than anything…Dominicans are left out of the conversation too often…the sound is just as much Puerto Rican as it is Dominican…Why not give Dominicans their flowers? Puerto Ricans: I need you to accept that Panamanians created the blueprint for the sounds you been able to innovate and add to.
[5.5] In this excerpt, Gata addresses cultural injustices through language that explicitly articulates the nonrecognition and disrespect of these communities. For example, she uses colloquialisms or metaphors (to not give someone "their flowers" or to leave someone "out of the conversation") as a reference to cultural recognition—or, in this case, lack thereof. Other colloquialisms ("sauce," "swag," and "cookin' it up") are used to facilitate a relaxed and conversational space—and inclusiveness is likewise encouraged through the use of pronouns ("you" and "we") that imply that Gata is collaboratively (re)constructing these narratives with her listenership. For example, the command for Puerto Ricans to recognize the contributions of Panamanians (and the prompt—in the form of a rhetorical question—to recognize the contributions of Dominicans) can be read as direct calls for participation in revising dominant historiographies of this popular music genre.
[5.6] In an earlier episode, "Evolution of Roots" (Eccleston 2019a), Gata addresses her listeners, "Let's get specific about it though, reggae sounds like this," before inserting a short, representative clip of reggae music. Gata continues, "[However] reggaeton sounds like this," and plays a clip of a reggaeton song for comparison. Marshall (2009a, 24) notes that "for all the resonance with Afro-(Latin-)Caribbean music and with Afro-diasporic music more generally, the predominant rhythmic orientation of reggaeton is derived directly, and quite audibly, from [Jamaican] dancehall reggae" (my emphasis). Attempting to make this argument resonate with readers, Marshall (2008, 2009a) has used images or diagrams of rhymical patterns in his scholarly publications. However, by inserting audible song clips into her oral narratives, Gata's demonstration of the shared sonic infrastructure between reggaeton and other Black music practices is immediately (and "quite audibly") effective. Furthermore, weaving music into her spoken narratives makes these podcast historiographies engaging and fun to listen to. While unpacking her research, Gata often pauses to laugh, make light-hearted remarks (sometimes self-deprecating comments about her lack of authority to speak on certain issues), and generally addresses her audience in a way that strikes me as conversational and welcoming. This is not to say that Gata and the issues she addresses are not to be taken seriously but rather that her style of delivery and presentation (to speak nothing of on-the-go format of the podcast episodes) may appeal to fans who do not expect to, nor wish to, consult formal scholarship or traditional heritage spaces to engage with reggaeton histories.
6. Discussion
[6.1] Founded and managed by fan-scholars of the genre, these community archives are forms of activism. Framing these interventions in terms of cultural justice, both the Hasta 'Bajo project and the Reggaeton Con La Gata platform challenge the "trivialisation and marginalisation" of the experiences and memories of people who are "hidden," "under-represented," and "dealing with inequalities" (Long et al. 2019, 99, 106) by making space for reggaeton. Their very existence—or audacity to occupy space—as well as their explicit demands for the recognition of this Black, working-class cultural expression, poses a challenge to the "symbolic annihilation" (Caswell 2014) of reggaeton (and its communities of interest) via authorized heritage discourse. While respectively the Hasta 'Bajo project and the Reggaeton Con La Gata platform prioritize the recognition of reggaeton as Puerto Rican culture or as a Black musical practice, these are not mutually exclusive endeavors. To rewrite Blackness into the discourses of reggaeton and to write reggaeton—a Black music practice—into the canons of Puerto Rican cultural heritage are intimately connected decolonizing practices. By centering the quotidian experiences of working-class and Black communities, these interventions challenge hegemonic cultural discourses that have marginalized reggaeton and the people for whom it is meaningful. Rivera-Rideau (2015, 4) argues that there are certain reggaeton performances, through aesthetic choices and visual narratives, that insist on the "full recognition" of the communities and cultural practices marginalized by racist and classist discourses. The preservationist activities I have outlined here likewise make this insistence.
[6.2] These efforts also have implications for broader conceptualizations of the archive. By making space for reggaeton, and thus making a statement about the broader cultural value and significance of this popular music culture, these fan-scholars are challenging established notions about what kinds of cultural artefacts are worthy of preservation and designation to an archive (Long et al. 2017, 65, 74). While there have been other attempts to archive the genre—namely the establishment of the "RZ Rivera Hip Hop/Reggaeton Collection" at the Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora (affiliated with City University New York) in 2005—the practices profiled here speak to the role of fans in the preservation of these materials and histories. These practices also speak to the role of the digital or online space in facilitating community archiving. The digital and online format of these spaces support accessibility in ways that physical archives—often despite their best efforts—simply cannot. However, the founders of the Hasta 'Bajo project and Reggaeton Con La Gata platform do not take for granted that their online or digital interface will ensure the reach of these spaces. To ensure that these resources are used or accessed by communities of reggaeton fans, these practitioners implicitly and explicitly position their spaces as "doing it together" endeavors (Baker 2015; Collins 2015). They encourage participation through explicit calls for contributions (in the case of Hasta 'Bajo) or using language that is suggestive of a collaborative process (in the case of Reggaeton Con La Gata). Indeed, both projects use colloquial rhetoric and reggaeton-related vernacular (i.e., "hasta 'bajo" and "perreo") to make their platforms immediately identifiable to the genre's fans—signalling that these spaces represent, recognize, and are accessible to them.
[6.3] Furthermore, by detecting the affective motivations of the archivists, we better understand their "activism-archivism" (Collins 2015) and orientation to cultural justice outcomes. Said differently, the thrust for cultural justice is affectively articulated. Both spaces are imbued with a sense of urgency (or annoyance/frustration). These feelings are made apparent through their respective statements—"reggaeton is also part of our culture" and "there is no reggaeton without Black people"—which are echoed (implicitly or explicitly) through these spaces. As such, they function to negotiate the symbolic annihilation of reggaeton and its communities of practice from authorized or hegemonic discourses and scripts—whether these are permeated through institutional bodies, such as the ICP, or broader cultural matrices which perpetuate the marginalization of Black culture and communities. Not only does affect drive the "persistent commitment" of these fan-scholars (Long et al. 2017, 69) and, by extension, the cultural preservation work that takes place in these community fan spaces (Baker 2015)—affect is often expressed as an attachment or explicit call for the "ineffable and intangible moments, banal and wondrous artefacts…memories of experiences and feelings themselves"—or, otherwise, affect manifests in a sense of urgency or anxiety for preservation and the wider cultural perceptions that inform a lack of intervention (Long et al. 2017, 69–70). The Hasta 'Bajo project and Reggaeton Con La Gata platform are thus affective archives.
7. Conclusion
[7.1] The democratization of digital and online platforms has driven the proliferation of new practices and spaces of popular music preservation. These technologies have likewise facilitated the "flowering" of reggaeton—early recordings were often the "computer-generated" creations and experimentations of so-called "bedroom producers" (Baker 2011, 134; Marshall 2009a, 63; Marshall, Rivera, and Hernández 2009, 3). It seems somewhat fitting that reggaeton continues to exist through the online and digital interventions of unauthorized practitioners. These interventions would also explain why reggaeton has so quickly become subject to archival practices and heritagization despite the recency of the genre's history and development. In recent years, there have been sporadic efforts to collect and display reggaeton histories and materials—including the "Daddy Yankee Museum" (2019) hosted in a shopping center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the aforementioned institutional archive donated by reggaeton scholar, Raquel Z. Rivera. At the time of writing, the scholarship on the public preservation of popular music histories, by fans or other communities of interest, has not yet caught-up with reggaeton. When they do, however, these research projects will undoubtedly reflect the diversity of the genre's communities of practitioners, aficionados, fans (or fan-scholars), and reggaetonerxs. In the meantime, this article has made a modest contribution to scholarship on cultural justice by representing the online fan community archives (and their archivist-activists) dedicated to preserving and celebrating reggaeton.
[7.2] In the field of popular music heritage studies, versions of the phrase "labor of love" are repeatedly used to describe affective archives, implying that "love and passion are qualities that impel archival work" (Long et al. 2017, 69). Baker (2015, 46) talks about affect not only as driving these archivist practices but also in terms of the unintended (or unexpected) consequence of archiving, such as personal impacts that spill over and deeply affect archivists' daily lives. In considering what the practice of archiving affords the archivists in an emotional sense (Long et al. 2017, 71), there is also room in existing discussions on affective archives (and their orientation to cultural justice outcomes) on the personal risk to the archivists behind these community spaces. This risk is beyond personal feelings of exploitation, fatigue, and burnout that emerge from the nature of working (unpaid) in heritage spaces driven by enthusiast, volunteer, and fan practices (Cantillon and Baker 2020). Specifically, we ought to consider the excessive emotional labor required from marginalized groups to justify why their communities and cultures are deserving of the cultural justice that is taken for granted for dominant socio-political, white groups.
[7.3] There is also a need to consider the affective fall-out of these community archiving practices when the symbolic violence to which they speak so regularly manifests as actual violence. Since writing this article, the escalation of gender violence and femicide in Puerto Rico—notably the murder of Keishla Rodríguez Ortiz at the hands of her long-time partner, a well-known boxer who, coincidentally, had featured in the music video of Puerto Rican reggaetonero, Bad Bunny—has led to the announcement of a state of emergency on the island. Both the Hasta 'Bajo and Reggaeton Con La Gata have used their platforms to respond to the subjection of women and femmes (note 3)— prevalent not only within Puerto Rico but within our contemporary societies more broadly speaking. Posting a graphic on their Instagram profile, the Hasta 'Bajo project addressed the stubborn perception of reggaeton as a vehicle for violence against women: "El reggaeton no violenta a la mujeres. Los hombre sí" (Reggaeton doesn't violate women. Men do). While these community archivists rely on digital and social media infrastructure to make such interventions, it is important to consider the emotional distress caused by the inescapability of the manifestations of violence towards oppressed groups to which they belong. Equally, by positioning themselves as archivist-activists (or due to the broader recognition of the activism practiced in the spaces they maintain—in which I am complicit), there is arguably societal pressure (whether anticipated or actual) to respond to these cultural and social injustices in real time. The pressures are expounded by their visibility in the online space. Terms such as "affective archiving" and "labor of love" risk romanticizing the ugly work entailed in practices that challenge racist, classist, and sexist behaviors embedded in our social, cultural, and political landscape. Such ugly work, forefronted by fans, encompasses not only the emotional or affective burden of countering historical absences in heritage spaces but also the injustices and violence perpetuated beyond the walls of the archive.