7th April, 2012
Reggaetón proper is still bubbling just under the surface of urban tropical pop. Although this is formally mostly just Latin dancehall, gesturing towards Jamaica with the title (which never appears in the lyrics) and towards Trinidad with occasional steel-drum accents, the dembow riddim is audible almost in negative, a clipped pulse embedded beneath a sugary haze of pleasant beachy instrumentation that could, quite intentionally, come from anywhere.
Don Omar, who we've heard from several times before, is Puerto Rican, and Natti Natasha, who we will hear from again, is Dominican, but they met and collaborated in New York, and the polish proveded by producers A&X, Link-On, and DJ Robin ends up neither Puerto Rican nor Dominican, but a generic "island sound" calculated to please the widest possible audience by sanding off any cultural specificity that hasn't already been assimilated into the global pop consensus.
Which makes it sound as if I despise this song, and I don't: but there's very little to latch onto. It excels at capturing a vibe, but no more than that: Omar and Natti Nat are, despite the repetition of their names, virtually anonymous chroniclers of a generic romantic encounter in which he initiates, she's unsure because of bad past experiences, and ultimately they lose themselves in a dance which functions as a perfect synechdoche for other physical pleasures.
It's another 2012 number one that only lasted a week at the top (although the year's 400-pound gorilla, which will take up residency at #1 and refuse to leave for months on end, draws near), but for once it feels like it. No video was filmed to prolong the hype cycle, and although it won a Billboard award in the Latin Airplay category, it has not particularly become a classic. Don Omar's biggest hits all came before and Natti Natasha's biggest hits will all come after: "Dutty Love" is our introduction to one of the handful of women who are ever allowed to be massive urbano stars at a time, and little else.
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