Título en español.

Abstract

This article explores how Puerto Rican popular music constructs Blackness. The author examines how Afro Puerto Ricans interpret and represent their Blackness. Racialization in Afro Caribbean Diaspora is explored through the analysis of song lyrics and interviews to Black Puerto Rican musicians. Songs such as: Piel canela, El negro bembón, Las caras lindas, Tan bueno que era, Si Dios fuera negro, Carbonerito, Capullo y Sorullo and El africano have phrases and images that seem to reproduce the worst of racist discourse and, some of these lyrics, composed by Black Puerto Rican musicians, perpetuate racial stereotypes. Racial discourses operate from diverse registers and are complex productions of meaning. This article is intended to explain racialization as matrix for the production of meaning and a fundamental factor in the production of musical discourses that structure an imaginary of Afro Puerto Rican Blackness.