Memorializing La Lupe and Lavoe: Singing Vulgarity, Transnationalism, and Gender
Titel:
Memorializing La Lupe and Lavoe: Singing Vulgarity, Transnationalism, and Gender
Auteur:
Aparicio Frances R. Valentín-Escobar Wilson A.
Verschenen in:
Centro journal
Paginering:
Jaargang XVI (2004) nr. 2 pagina's xx
Jaar:
2004
Inhoud:
This essay serves as countermemory, as it reclaims the historical role of two late Latin singers, Guadalupe Victoria Yoli Raimond, known as “La Lupe,” and Héctor “Lavoe” Pérez, in the development of Latin music in the United States and in the construction of a Puerto Rican national identity, in the case of Lavoe, and of a Caribbean Latino community in the Diaspora, with respect to La Lupe. Most recently, younger generations of salsa singers such as Yolanda Duke, La India, Marc Anthony, and Van Lester, have “mimetically embodied” La Lupe and Lavoe, respectively, by recreating their singing styles, their repertoires, and their personae. Why are Puerto Ricans and Caribbean Latinos/as memorializing these two particular singers? While also shaped by gender politics, Lavoe and La Lupe’s countercultural positionings articulate the complex process of forming oppositional identities whereby their personal lives and stage personae remit audiences, in metonymic ways, to the constructed illegality of being a Latino in the United States. Their respective social marginalities contribute to their canonization as musical and countercultural heroes while simultaneously triggering posthumous performances of countermemory. While Lavoe has been canonized and integrated into the masculine genealogy of Puerto Rican national musical forms, La Lupe’s struggles with the industry revealed her structured secondariness as a female interpreter and artist in a male-dominated world. Transcending the mere reflexivity of music and identity, we also argue that the act and process of memorializing both La Lupe and Lavoe are re-creations and reconstructions of the Puerto Rican/Latino/a imaginary by incorporating the diasporic narrative into the traditional inscriptions of the nation.
Uitgever:
City University of New York : Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños (provided by DOAJ)