Rocking to bilingual radio

By Timothy Pratt

Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2005 | 8:12 a.m.

"Ninguna como tu ... that's what makes me love you."

Listen up, amigo -- there's a whole new generation of the coveted 18-to-34 demographic that speaks English, Spanish and Spanglish. They're spreading across the nation and now they have their own local radio station -- the Las Vegas Valley's first bilingual spot on the dial.

The music featured on the station, La Kalle (KRGT) 99.3-FM, is called reggaeton, and it's as much a hybrid as the people who listen to it.

The lines above are from a song currently in rotation -- a standard love lyric, the first part of which says, "There's no one else like you."

The music, however, is anything but standard in terms of its cultural pedigree -- a mix of hip-hop from the urban United States; merengue, a frenetic, accordion-based shimmy from the Dominican Republic; bachata, a slower ballad tempo also from the Dominican Republic; and reggae, Jamaica's biggest export.

The station's public relations director, Zulema Santacruz, is an example of the type of young person the station wants as an audience.

Born in Miami of Cuban parents, the 32-year-old Santacruz says it took leaving that city at the age of 19 to realize not everybody spoke two languages.

"I took for granted that people were bilingual," she said.

But her sense of identity goes beyond speaking two languages. She says it is also about belonging to two cultures.

"If you would see me on the street, you'd see me as white, the typical, blue-eyed American," she said. "But I see myself as having the best of two worlds -- I can't imagine what it would be like not to be bilingual, not to have music from two cultures, or the food ..."

The sort of bilingual population that moves easily between two cultures in Miami, Los Angeles and New York City has spread to other cities in recent years, she said.

Santacruz moved to Las Vegas in 1991, and although it took a few years, she began meeting more people like her. Many were originally from Mexico or were born in the United States with one or two Mexican parents. Many had no ties to the Caribbean countries of Cuba, Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, the links so commonly found on the East Coast.

During the past decade, reggaeton, originally from Panama -- itself a place where Spanish and English have commingled over the years -- also began catching on.

In the November issue of Hispanic magazine, a story about the phenomenon of second- and third-generation U.S. Hispanics embracing bilingualism and reggaeton as their rhythm calls the radio format "hurban," for "Hispanic urban."

Santacruz believes switching between and fusing two languages -- in the songs and in life -- helps children learn both languages. She said she does not agree with those who say holding onto Spanish stunts assimilation into U.S. culture.

An added benefit is that non-Spanish speakers get curious about what the lyrics mean -- and learn some on the way, she said.

As an example, an Internet forum devoted to Pitbull, one of the top-of-the-charts reggaeton singers, had participants exchanging messages in the last few days about their versions of lyrics -- is he saying this word or another word? -- and the translations from Spanish to English and vice versa.

"Its kinda difficult to translate every line (word), b/c then it would make no sense," one participant wrote.

Another tried anyway and reached the same conclusion.

The forum -- basically a chat room for young people who listen to dance music -- had become an academic conference of sorts on language and meaning.

There are plenty of those listeners in the valley, judging by Arbitron ratings putting La Kalle sixth in the region in the coveted weekday 3-7 p.m. slot, with 6.4 percent of the market.

Last Wednesday, La Kalle teamed up for the first time with OPM, a club at Caesars Palace. The name of the night's event: "Caliente Wednesdays."

DJ Majesty, whose real name is Domenic Hernandez, a 28-year-old Nuyorican, or New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, was working the larger of two rooms.

He grew up with Spanglish as well, and sees reggaeton as the voice of Caribbean ghettos that has spread to all Latin and even non-Latin listeners -- just as rap songs written in or about black ghettos are heard across the nation.

"When I first got here, I felt like something was missing," said Hernandez, who has been in Las Vegas for three years.

"Now that I'm DJing, I'm bringing something from New York to here."

After bumping to four songs in a row, Diana Garcia and Shela Zarrabal offered their take on the music.

Garcia, 21, is from Sonora, Mexico, but has lived in Las Vegas for 13 years. Zarrabal, 30, from Baja California, has been in town since 1998.

Zarrabal began explaining in Spanish about growing up with rock en espanol. There's nothing like rock, she said, adding, in English, "You know?"

But reggaeton, she said, has accomplished what perhaps no other rhythm has been able to do: "It's united all of us."

And just then, her friend tugged at her and pulled her back to the dance floor.

Timothy Pratt can be reached at 259-8828 or at [email protected].