Bachata y el Bajo Mundo

Today, I ended up in a hole in the wall spot in the Bronx to grab a couple of beers, picadillos and of course listen to some crazy loud bachata. Now, it was a bit surprising to run into this spot full of dudes, 2 or 3 ladies -most of them waitresses and Univision on in the background. The men ogle you as if they just got out of prison or detention (which might be true of 1 or 2 dudes in the spot). El Bajo Mundo, where there is mad love among the hardest of the hard, is strictly for music, dancing and la vida ludica y cruda.

Bachata was once considered the music of the brothels of the Dominican Republic known as "cabarets". It talks of unrelenting love, sordid affairs and hounding hatred. Coco Cabrera, one of New York's beloved DJ's, every Sunday as he plays his Coco Clasicos describes his adventures en los cabarets in the Dominican Republic as a young man. The colorful characters of prostitutes and their "consumers" listening to this rauchny, blues type music to drown out their day-to-day sorrows.

At the turn of the 21st century, Bachata music was redefined and reinvented. I remember when I started listening to Bachata music and my mother had a heart-attack. She could not believe that I was listening to music of el Bajo Mundo. My mother demanded that I stop listening to it. However, over the next couple of months, my parent's generation understood that this was no longer the music of the poor/working/deviant class. Now listened to by Dominicans of all classes and with a global audience, groups such as Aventura.

A Bronx-Dominican group, Aventura is an atypical cross-over group who took bachata to new heights. So much so, Aventura was a semi-featured group at the Hispanic Heritage Celebration at the White House with President Obama. This very group reaching its' zenith, has decided to no longer perform as a group, having their last and final performance at Madison Square Garden in February 2010.

Bachata and el Bajo Mundo go hand in hand. Bachata is fueled by the struggle and lives of the people, of the poor, workers, and immigrants. El Bajo Mundo is soothed and healed by Bachata. Bachata is its' voice.

Check out Santo Domingo Blues, a documentary about the history and evolution of bachata through the work of Luis Vargas. (http://www.santodomingoblues.com/) to learn more about bachata.