Tego Calderón
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Tegui Calderón Rosario (born February 1, 1972 in Santurce, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto Rican rapper. He is best known as Tego Calderon. He not only records hip hop music music but also mambo, salsa (e.g. "Planté bandera" on his debut album, and "Llora, llora" and "Llámame" with Óscar d'León) in 2006, blues ("Mardi gras", on the 2006 album) and reggaetón. In addition, he has also made songs that are pure reggae, but sung in Spanish (e.g. "Chillin'" from the 2006 album The Underdog/El Subestimado).He also believes that Jamaican dancehall reggae and hip hop along with Salsa are the roots of Reggaeton. His album El Abayarde made him a major Latin star. His lyrics speak of the struggles of the Puerto Rican people, involve topics of racism, inequalities, and ghettos in Puerto Rico, and have strong nationalist undertones.
Calderon attended high school in Miami Beach, Florida. He received multicultural exposure he later drew upon in creating genre-crossing reggaeton, which may have shaped his stylistic range and his ease in collaborating with US musicians. Calderón says that his parents were die-hard fans of Ismael Rivera, and that Rivera's innovative salsa music influenced him. He lists his father's love of jazz as another influence (for instance, a solo trumpet playing a slower version of Minnie The Moocher by Cab Calloway is used as the backbeat of his first single, Abayarde). Calderón eventually studied percussion and created his own rhythmic style that combined the sounds of salsa, plena, dancehall, and hip-hop. Lyric-wise, he combined slang of the 1960s with current slang and tales of barrio life. Calderón made a couple appearances on other Latin rappers' albums before the White Lion label signed the artist. Issued in 2002, El Abayarde became Calderón's full-length debut. “EL ABAYARDE” broke sales records in the then-underground Reggaetón genre, selling a remarkable 50,000 on the first day of its release, and Calderón became an overnight Latin superstar. Just three months after making his solo debut, Calderón was greeted with a tumultuous response at a sold-out concert at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan. The following day, he made history when he became the first rap artist to perform at the traditional National Day of Salsa celebration.
When Tego first headlined New York’s Madison Square Garden in August 2003, The New York Times heralded him as “the most forward-looking performer” of the artists on the bill, noting that “Mr. Calderón made the best case for Reggaetón as music with room to grow.” In October 2004, when he returned to the stage of the Garden as the star of the breakthrough “Megatón 2004” event, attendance had swelled from 12,000 to a sold-out 20,000,with a large number of non-Spanish-speaking fans in the audience. “The crowd erupted into a frenzy,” noted the Village Voice. “The fruit of Tego’s crossover appeal was palpable...They were bopping their heads and flailing their arms to the universal beat.”
Returning to Miami led to an increase in the dancehall flavor of his music. This, combined with Calderón's outspoken viewpoint that salsa had become too corporate and too safe, made the 2004 album El Enemy de los Guasíbiri, a punchier, more hectic, more street affair. With the reggaeton genre becoming popular with New York City's hip-hop tastemakers and spreading its influence farther and farther, Calderón soon found himself fielding offers from hip-hop producers while landing tracks on numerous street-level mixtapes. His voice ended up on remixes of Usher's "Yeah," Fat Joe's "Lean Back," N.O.R.E.'s "Oye Mi Canto",and Snoop Dogg and Akon's "I Wanna Fuck You".
His Father Esteban Calderón Ilarraza was a government worker and died in May of 2004. His Mother Pilar Rosario Parrilla is an Elementary School Teacher.
From his appearances at New York’s annual Puerto Rican Day parades in 2004 and 2005, to becoming the first Spanish-language artist to be featured on New York’s Power-105, Calderón has been breaking cultural barriers. In a cover story on Calderón and Reggaetón,the Village Voice noted that Tego “almost single-handedly... steered his country’s dominant youth culture out of the island and Latino neighborhoods, and into the American stream of pop consciousness.” Among Calderón’s achievements are Latin Grammy and Billboard Award nominations, a Source Award for “International Artist of the Year,” a Tu Música award, and nominations for La Gente and Lo Nuestro awards
In the summer of 2005, Calderón signed a deal between Atlantic Records and his own independent label, Jiggiri Records, making him the first reggaeton artist to have a deal with a major record company.[1] His first album under the deal is titled "The Underdog" (El Subestimado) and is set for release on August 29th, 2006.
Calderon defines this new production as a journey through the Afro-Caribbean musical scene which masterfully brings together Reggae, Dance Hall, Salsa, Bomba, Rumba, and the Deep South feeling of the blues.
This new production is will feature the guests appearances of Buju Banton, Voltio, Bataklán, Eddie Dee, Luis Cabán, Yandel, Zion, Chyno Nyno, Don Omar and the legendary salsa singer Oscar D'León . Producers of the caliber of Cookee, Major League, Salaam Remi, Eric Figueroa, Luny Tunes, DJ Nelson, Danny Fornaris, DJ Nesty, Naldo, DJ Joe, DJ Fat and Echo & Diesel, also collaborated in the 21 track CD.
At the listening party for his upcoming album, Calderón explained that he no longer considers himself as a reggaeton artist because this subgenre of music has become too commercial.[2] Tego stated that reggaeton is becoming too much like pop music and that he does not let his children listen to it at home unless it is on the radio. Calderón's upcoming album will have blues, rock and salsa sounds, making it different from most new reggaeton albums.
Calderon had recently traveled to Sierra Leone along with artists Raekwon and Paul Wall to film a VH1 documentary about diamond mining entitled "Bling'd: Blood, Diamonds, and Hip-Hop." The documentary focused on the role of Hip Hop in the blood diamond trade, after the trip Tego had publicy announced that he would no longer wear chains, rings or diamonds.
[edit] Discography
Tego is currently on tour promoting his new album, which has been released on August 29th.
- Tego Calderon is in new video game Def Jam: Icon and can be seen in a ign video http://media.games.ign.com/articles/693/693580/vids_1.html (click Ep. 35: Def Jam Icon, GRAW 2, WIndows Vista (February 2, 2007)
[edit] External links
- (Spanish) Official website
- Tego Calderon Concert Photos
