Dunbar brings reggaeton to Anchorage
Published: May 15, 2006
Last Modified: May 15, 2006 at 04:13 AM
Born in New York to a Puerto Rican mother and a Jamaican father, and raised in Manhattan, Washington Heights and Harlem, Huey Dunbar was bound to have some stories to tell.
Fortunately, he was compelled from the get-go to use music as a medium.
"Since age 3, I've been singing," he said from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a recent stop on his world tour that brings him to Club Millennium at 9 tonight. "I don't think it was even my decision. Someone upstairs makes the decision for you what your destiny is going to be."
That destiny led him from singing along with his mother's eclectic record collection, to being discovered by producer Sergio George at a high school talent competition, to signing on as lead vocalist with the Latin pop group Dark Latin Groove.
Singing with DLG provided him with good experience, but ultimately it wasn't what he wanted. "The group was basically my college," Dunbar said. After his "graduation," he released "Yo Si Me Enamore" in 2001 and "Music for My Peoples" in 2003. Going solo allowed him to pursue his own stylistic interests because, as he put it, "you couldn't fit rap into a ballad."
Considering his background, his subsequent attraction to reggaeton seems perfectly appropriate. Reggaeton blends hip-hop with Jamaican influences like reggae and dancehall, and Latin American (especially Puerto Rican) influences like plena and bomba. The result is a very danceable, high-energy genre where heavy beats prop up sparse instrumentation and melodic rap, most often sung in Spanish.
Spanish is Dunbar's second language so he often thinks and writes in English and later blends it with or translates it into Spanish, "if it makes sense for the song."
"What can you expect," he asks in "Me Muero," a song about getting caught cheating, "when you play with fuego?"
"Spanish is a beautiful language," he said. "It has something all its own; it's very honest. And what's profound about it is that there are so many Latino cultures all over the planet, and they can all communicate with one language. I love singing in Spanish."
Good thing, because he makes it sound incredible. His vocal range is so high and he projects so well, it's hard to believe he's a tenor and not a falsetto.
It might also be hard to believe, considering his performance persona, that he's actually a really nice guy. His lyrics, for one thing, are typical of reggaeton, often revolving around partying and hooking up. "Look at how you livin' mami," he sings in "Lose Your Mind," a man's response to his partner's complaint about his shenanigans. "I'm lacin' you, now face it boo." In promotional photos, a set of dark, brooding eyes stares seductively from above a sexy pout and unbuttoned shirt. He's marketed as a total player.
But don't hate. "I detach myself from any of that," he said. "You shouldn't walk around being in your album covers." In reality, he's a just a business-savvy guy who loves video games, his mom and writing songs with his girlfriend of almost five years.
Still, his subject matter does tend toward the confessional. "It's important to be a little bit revealing," he said. "I don't think there's anything I've gone through that other people couldn't relate to. At the end of the day, we're all human."
Emily Triplett can be reached at etriplett@adn.com.
