In a hospital in Buenos Aires, a new movement of young artists is making its presence felt in consultations with children and adolescents. Urban music is forcefully interrupting. These children and young people sing and dance to their songs, listening to them while playing on the PlayStation. Mixing various genres, including trap, rap, reggaeton, and R&B, these artists fill stadiums and become references in the field of streaming.
A young man says he is going to see Nicki Nicole. Seeing my ignorance, he shows me a trendy video featuring representatives of the urban genre. Women and men in sportswear, baseball caps, gold chains and body jewellery, singing: "Take a photo of me, so everyone can see it. In the car, while we're doin' naughty things. Baby, that dude bellaquea.1 If they say I'm a bandit, don't believe 'em." The same singer, who at that time went viral on social media for being the girlfriend of an international footballer, promised a successful future – showcasing herself on Instagram in luxury destinations, helicopter trips, and private jets.
In her songs, brands such as Gucci, Mercedes-Benz and Nike take centre stage. "I went to the mall and spent five thousand. What I'm wearing is worth three thousand […]. I'm about to buy the chain. I've been wearing Chanel for a long time. They're trending if I tag their name."2
References to photos and Instagram are frequent. Images that affect the body and produce fascination, inviting you to dance, to move.
Money, cars, jewellery that, through phallic logic, attempt to cover the mystery that unites a man and a woman, placing the object as a plus and making this relation exist. Objects that point to harmony between the sexes without differentiation. He sings: "I want someone like La Joaqui. Someone who likes to smoke, the street, guns and cruising around." She sings: "I want someone like you. Better yet, two. Smoke, smoke until you cough."3
These cultural movements are contemporary ways of dealing with the impossible real, with what does not work in the symbolic. With objects that block and colour what has no representation. With a photo, they attempt to capture the sexual relation in an image, where the traumatic will always remain outside, opaque to phallic meaning and radically Other to sexuality.
[1] The word bellaqueo comes from the term bellaco, a word originating from Puerto Rico that refers to a "sexually aroused person" or "lustful person". Bellaqueo is an adjective derived from the noun bellaco.
[2]Emilia, "La Chain." La Chain, 2022. Available online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ri2ZVbqS8&list=RDS9ri2ZVbqS8&start_radio=1
[3] La Joaqui, "Dos Besitos," Dos Besitos, performed by La Joaqui, Salastkbron, and Gusty dj, 2022. Available online: Spotify.
