Show Notes
Welcome back! I said I was gonna do a solo episode but I don’t have the bandwidth right now. Instead we’re jumping back in with a wonderful episode about Cuban Reparto music with my guest Dr. Mike Levine, Assistant Professor of Musicology at Christopher Newport University. From production to consumption to distribution, we cover many of the most pertinent characteristics of this kind of Reggaeton-adjacent tradition, and get into the politics of censorship, gender, and place—among other things.
Timestamps
00:00: Intro
3:05: Mike’s research interests in Cuba
5:20: Mike’s book (Pegao), the USB distribution network of Cuban popular music, and the question of political music
22:40: Reparto aesthetics
36:12: Global Reggaeton
41:37: Gender in Reparto
44:06: What’s making guest cy
References
Díaz, Vanessa, and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau. 2026. P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance. Duke University Press.
Levine, Mike. 2025. “Sneaking Across the Digital Divide: Usb Sticks and the Infrastructure of Independent Cuban Music.” In Independence in 21st-Century Popular Music: Cases from Beyond Anglo-America, edited by Shannon Garland, Pedro Belchior Nunes, and Pedro Roxo. Bloomsbury.
