The Sound of Santurce: A Neighborhood’s Musical History
By Elena Vega Santiago | Originally published 2008 | El Cuarto del Quenepón Archive
Editor’s note: This oral history was compiled from interviews conducted between 2005 and 2008. Some of the voices captured here have since passed on. We preserve their words as a testament to the neighborhood they loved.
Santurce doesn’t look like much on a map—a district squeezed between the tourists of Condado and the cruise ships of Old San Juan. But for nearly a century, this neighborhood has produced music that changed the world. From the casas de música of the 1940s to the reggaeton studios of today, Santurce’s sound has shaped Puerto Rican identity and influenced global pop culture.
This is an oral history of that sound, told by the people who lived it.
Part One: The Migration Years (1940s-1950s)
Don Elpidio Vázquez, 87, retired musician:
“I came to Santurce from Cayey in 1946. I was seventeen years old, looking for work. The only thing I knew was music—my father taught me guitar, and I could play any jíbaro song you wanted.
“In Santurce, there were these boarding houses where people from the mountains stayed. At night, we would gather in the courtyards and play. Someone had a cuatro, someone had a güiro, and we would play the music of our pueblos. It was homesickness turned into sound.
“The neighbors—the ones who had been in the city longer—they thought we were jibaritos, country people. But slowly, they started listening. The music reminded them of where they came from too.”
Doña Carmen Luisa Reyes, 91, retired seamstress:
“La Placita wasn’t fancy then. It was a real market—farmers selling plantains, women selling bacalaítos. And musicians everywhere. Every Saturday night, the whole neighborhood would come out. You didn’t need a nightclub. The music was in the street.
“I remember the first time I heard Ismael Rivera sing. This was before he was famous, when he was just a boy from Santurce. He had this voice—you heard it once, you never forgot it. Everyone stopped to listen. Even the vendors stopped selling.”
Part Two: The Salsa Era (1960s-1970s)
Roberto “Papo” Díaz, 72, former club owner:
“I opened my club on Calle Loíza in 1967. We called it El Rincón Caliente—the Hot Corner. At first, we just had a jukebox. But the musicians started coming in after their gigs at the big hotels, and they wanted to play. So we put a little stage in the back.
“Willie Colón played at my club before he was Willie Colón. Héctor Lavoe—when he was still with Willie—they would come and jam until three, four in the morning. The tourists in Condado were sleeping, and we were making history.
“The police didn’t like it. They would come, say we were too loud, say we didn’t have the right permits. We would pay them off, and they would leave. That was how it worked. The music was more important than the rules.”
María del Carmen “Malena” Santos, 68, singer:
“As a woman, it was hard. The salsa scene was for men—the musicians, the managers, the club owners. A woman could be a singer, but only a certain kind of singer. You had to be beautiful, you had to be sexy, you had to not cause trouble.
“I caused trouble. I wanted to lead my own band, choose my own songs. The men didn’t like it. But Santurce was different from other places. Here, the neighborhood supported us. The people who came to hear us play didn’t care about the rules. They just wanted good music.”
Part Three: The Hip-Hop Invasion (1980s-1990s)
Jorge “DJ Negro” Rodríguez, 52, DJ and producer:
“I heard my first hip-hop record in 1983. A friend brought it from New York—Grandmaster Flash. I didn’t understand the English, but I understood the drums. That was bomba rhythm, African rhythm. I knew we could do something with that in Puerto Rico.
“Santurce was where it started. We would set up speakers in parking lots, in abandoned buildings, and just play. Mixing salsa samples with breakbeats, rapping in Spanish. The old heads thought we were crazy. ‘That’s not music,’ they said. But the kids understood.
“The first reggaeton tracks—what we called ‘underground’ back then—came from Santurce. DJ Playero had his studio here. Daddy Yankee was from Santurce. Tego Calderón lived in Villa Palmeras, just down the road. This neighborhood created a whole genre.”
Anonymous, 48, former underground artist:
“I can’t use my real name because I was doing some things back then… let’s say the police were interested in me. But the music was real. We were telling our stories—about the caseríos, about poverty, about what it was like to be young and Puerto Rican with no opportunities.
“The government hated us. They called it ‘música de criminales’—criminal music. They raided record stores, confiscated tapes. That just made us more popular. If the government is against you, the people know you’re saying something true.”
Part Four: The Global Moment (2000s-present)
Laura Mercado, 34, music journalist:
“I started covering reggaeton in 2003, when nobody in the mainland press was paying attention. Santurce was exploding with studios, with producers, with artists. You could walk down Calle Loíza and hear three different recording sessions happening at once.
“When ‘Gasolina’ hit in 2004, everything changed. Suddenly, the whole world was paying attention to music that had been made in these streets for a decade. The artists who had been underground went global overnight.
“Santurce is different now. The gentrification has pushed out some of the studios, some of the artists. But the energy is still here. The next Bad Bunny is probably recording in some basement right now, in a neighborhood that most tourists never see.”
Juan Carlos “JC” Ortiz, 29, producer:
“I grew up hearing the stories—about the old salsa days, about the underground years. My grandfather played with Ismael Rivera. My uncle was a DJ in the ’90s. This music is in my blood.
“When I’m in the studio, I feel that history. I’m using technology my grandfather couldn’t have imagined, but I’m doing the same thing he was doing: trying to capture what it feels like to be Puerto Rican, to be from this place, to have this experience. The tools change. The need to make music doesn’t.”
Coda
Don Elpidio Vázquez, 87:
“People ask me what happened to Santurce, like the neighborhood is dead. It’s not dead. It’s different. Everything changes. When I came here in 1946, the old-timers complained that we were killing the real Puerto Rican music with our jíbaro songs. Now I hear old salsa people complaining about reggaeton.
“The music keeps changing. That’s how you know it’s alive. Santurce will keep making music as long as there are Puerto Ricans who need to say something and no one is listening. Which is forever.”
Elena Vega Santiago conducted these interviews between 2005 and 2008. She thanks the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College for archival support.