Statement of Support for Reggaetón as a Communal Afro-Diasporic Cultural Practice — Drafted by the Puerto Rico Reggaetón Committee. 

To the Honorable Court and U.S. District Judge André Bitotte Jr.,

We, the undersigned historians, professors, students, community leaders, and organizations, write in support of Reggaetón and the communities that created it, in light of the ongoing legal case regarding copyright and the use of rhythmic and sampled elements within this musical tradition.

Reggaetón, like Reggae and Hip-Hop before it, emerged as a grassroots expression of Afro-diasporic creativity in the Caribbean archipelago of Puerto Rico and its diaspora with roots in Jamaica, Panamá and the Bronx. It is a genre fundamentally built on shared cultural practices of borrowing, remixing, and reinterpreting sounds.

Sampling, honor lyrics and rhythmic repetition are not acts of theft or plagiarism, but longstanding communal methods of musical dialogue within African-descended communities across the Americas as a form of expression during times of hardships.

1. Cultural Context 

From Jamaica to Panama to the Bronx to Puerto Rico, Afro-Caribbean communities alongside Black Americans have exchanged rhythms, phrases, and riffs for decades, shaping genres like Reggae, Hip-Hop, and many other genres born of mixture such as Reggaetón in Puerto Rico or more recently Dembow in the Dominican Republic.

Hip-Hop itself freely and historically drew from Reggae, often without authorization. Likewise, Reggaetón developed by sampling and reshaping Hip-Hop, Reggae, and local Puerto Rican sounds with Afro-Caribbean inspirations. 

This exchange is not mere imitation; it is a reflection of a shared diasporic history, rooted in survival, creativity, and community innovation.

2. The Safaera Case and Double Standards

The lawsuit surrounding Bad Bunny’s Safaera highlights a troubling double standard.

Puerto Rican producer DJ Nelsón had sampled Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On” in “Nelsón Eres Un Loco” in the year 2000, in underground Reggaetón scene, without legal controversy. Only when Bad Bunny’s global visibility in 2020 with “Safaera” and commercial success brought Reggaetón into the U.S. mainstream for a second time did legal enforcement intensify due to the new financial opportunities with the standing of the artist internationally.

This illustrates a pattern: localized Afro-Caribbean creativity is ignored, erased until it becomes profitable, at which point corporate copyright enforcement intervenes. 

Missy Elliott herself used Caribbean diasporic music as inspiration throughout her career without backlash. The song “Get Ur Freak On” is heavily influenced by Jamaican Reggae toasting and riddim. As well as using Patois without being Jamaican. 

3. The Current Dembow Case

The claim that the foundational “dembow” rhythm can be owned and licensed undermines the very principle of how diasporic music functions.

To copyright a rhythm that has circulated communally for decades risks criminalizing an entire culture and erasing the contributions of marginalized Afro-Caribbean communities who nurtured this art form long before it became commercially valuable.

4. Our Position

We urge the Court to recognize that:

Reggaetón is part of a continuum of Afro-diasporic cultural traditions, not a commercial anomaly. 

Overly broad copyright claims threaten to privatize a communal heritage without consultation of historians, experts and community members, setting a precedent that could harm not only Reggaetón but countless other cultural music genres rooted in Black and Caribbean traditions of communal sharing.

Protecting Reggaetón means protecting the right of marginalized communities to sustain, transform, and pass on their cultural practices without disproportionate legal or financial barriers.

5. Conclusion

Reggaetón is more than a genre; it is a living testament to the resilience and creativity of Afro-Caribbean peoples. It belongs not to corporations or estates, but to the communities that gave it life. We call upon this Court to consider the broader cultural and historical context, and to ensure that the law does not erase or criminalize the very traditions that gave birth to Reggaetón.