Jamsha
Encyclopedia
Alexis Caraballo Méndez, better known as Jamsha (and sometimes billed as DJ Jamsha), is a Puerto Rican
reggaetón
artist, music producer, disc jockey and film director. He has obtained recognition as a revivalist of reggaetón's underground flavor, which is closest to the genre's original Jamaican roots, particularly dancehall
. His viral videos, mostly available in YouTube
and making heavy use of comedy
and self-parody, have earned him a considerable fan base in Puerto Rico, Mexico
and other Latin American countries. He has staged shows in various Caribbean basin countries, as well as in Miami, Spain, and Genoa
, Italy (in October 2011).
's coastal tourist area); his roots are in the nearby town of Adjuntas
, although he was, indeed, raised in Ponce. His career officially started at the age of fourteen, when he served as a disc-jockey to Nailyn Collazo, aka La Nana, one of the rare reggaetón female artists of the time. La Nana left the music business soon after (at least temporarily) after becoming a born-again Christian, but Jamsha's talent didn't go unnoticed. Both Nana and Jamsha were part of Primal Underground, a reggaetón collective that issued song compilations from various artists, and as such, Jamsha was given a chance to do mixtapes, engineer or produce songs for various artists.
He later became a staff engineer for Jive Records
in Miami, until the label changed ownership in the mid-2000s. During his tenure at the label he collaborated with various Latino artists. He mixed, engineered or produced songs for reggaetón artists such as Arcangel, Cosculluela
, De La Ghetto
, Divino, J-King & Maximan
, Randy Nota Loka, Tego Calderón
, Tempo and Voltio
.
Particular mention has to be made about his collaborations with rappers Ñejo (first as a part of Ñejo y Dálmata, then with Ñejo as a soloist) and fellow Ponce native Guelo Star
. In 2008 Guelo Star releases "Putipuerca" (a portmanteau of the words puta -whore- and puerca, pig), the first song featuring Jamsha as a rapper. At first, Jamsha approached rapping humorously, mocking the flow of established artists such as El General
. This was also his approach when he recorded "Sendo Cohete" (which literally means "tremendous rocket", but loosely translates to "brazen hussy"), which became a sleeper hit for Guelo Star in late 2008.
in his songs. That, plus a preference for old-school dancehall beats put Jamsha in a different category compared to the recent work of most other Puerto Rican rappers. Jamsha's style is, therefore, a revival of underground, the oldest subgenre within reggaetón; some call him as the initiator of a "nueva escuela" (New School), which returns to the overt sexuality and risqué humor that first defined the genre in the early 1990s. As to counter this claim, Jamsha jokingly also calls himself Jamsha, El PutiFino (loosely translates as "The Fine 'Ho"). On occasions he plays with these words and calls himself "El Pitufino", a mockery of Smurfette
's name in Spanish.
With the assistance of his producer, Eggie Ruz, Jamsha has issued various songs under their label, Putifly (aka Sin Bichote) Records, and corresponding videos, produced by Low Low Budget Films. He has toured Mexico often, as well as his native Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
reggaetón
Reggaeton
Reggaeton is a form of Puerto Rican and Latin American urban and Caribbean music. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences. Reggaeton originated in Puerto Rico but is also has roots from Reggae en Español from Panama and Puerto Rico and...
artist, music producer, disc jockey and film director. He has obtained recognition as a revivalist of reggaetón's underground flavor, which is closest to the genre's original Jamaican roots, particularly dancehall
Dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably,...
. His viral videos, mostly available in YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and making heavy use of comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
and self-parody, have earned him a considerable fan base in Puerto Rico, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and other Latin American countries. He has staged shows in various Caribbean basin countries, as well as in Miami, Spain, and Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, Italy (in October 2011).
Origins
Jamsha claims to come "directamente de La Guancha" (straight from La Guancha, Ponce, Puerto RicoPonce, Puerto Rico
Ponce is both a city and a municipality in the southern part of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.The city of Ponce, the fourth most populated in Puerto Rico, and the most populated outside of the San Juan metropolitan area, is named for Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the...
's coastal tourist area); his roots are in the nearby town of Adjuntas
Adjuntas, Puerto Rico
Adjuntas is a small mountainside municipality in Puerto Rico located central midwest of the island on the Central Mountain range , north of Yauco, Guayanilla and Peñuelas; southeast of Utuado; east of Lares and Yauco; and west of Ponce. Adjuntas is spread over 16 wards and Adjuntas Pueblo...
, although he was, indeed, raised in Ponce. His career officially started at the age of fourteen, when he served as a disc-jockey to Nailyn Collazo, aka La Nana, one of the rare reggaetón female artists of the time. La Nana left the music business soon after (at least temporarily) after becoming a born-again Christian, but Jamsha's talent didn't go unnoticed. Both Nana and Jamsha were part of Primal Underground, a reggaetón collective that issued song compilations from various artists, and as such, Jamsha was given a chance to do mixtapes, engineer or produce songs for various artists.
He later became a staff engineer for Jive Records
Jive Records
Jive Records was a record label based in New York City, operating under RCA Music Group. Jive was primarily known for a string of successes with hip hop artists in the 1980s, and in teen pop and boy bands in the late 1990s. The word "jive" was inspired by Township Jive, a form of South African...
in Miami, until the label changed ownership in the mid-2000s. During his tenure at the label he collaborated with various Latino artists. He mixed, engineered or produced songs for reggaetón artists such as Arcangel, Cosculluela
Cosculluela
José Fernando Cosculluela Suárez is a Puerto Rican reggaeton, rap and hip-hop artist.-Biography:José Fernando Cosculluela Suárez was born on October 15, 1980,to Puerto Rican parents. Cosculluela was raised in Humacao on the East Coast of Puerto Rico. From a young age he became interested in music...
, De La Ghetto
De La Ghetto
Rafael Castillo , better known by his stage name De La Ghetto, is an American reggaeton singer/rapper originally of the duo Arcángel & De La Ghetto.-Biography:...
, Divino, J-King & Maximan
Casa de Leones
Casa de Leones , also known as Los Leones, were a Puerto Rican reggaeton group.-Professional career:The members of the group are Miguel A. De Jesús , Jaime Borges and Héctor Padilla , Randy Ortiz and Joel Muñoz...
, Randy Nota Loka, Tego Calderón
Tego Calderón
Tegui Calderón Rosario is a Puerto Rican rapper and actor.-Early life:Calderón was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, the son of Pilar Rosario Parrilla, a schoolteacher, and Esteban Calderón Ilarraza, a government worker for Puerto Rico's Department of Health. Moving at a young age from his native...
, Tempo and Voltio
Voltio
Julio Voltio is one of the reggaetón genre's best-known artists.His nickname came to be as the result of an accident. Before joining Karel, he worked as an electrician. One day, he stuck his hand in the wrong place and got shocked...
.
Particular mention has to be made about his collaborations with rappers Ñejo (first as a part of Ñejo y Dálmata, then with Ñejo as a soloist) and fellow Ponce native Guelo Star
Guelo Star
Miguel Ángel de Jesús, also known as Guelo Star, is a Puerto Rican reggaeton song-writer, composer, producer and occasional singer.-Professional career:...
. In 2008 Guelo Star releases "Putipuerca" (a portmanteau of the words puta -whore- and puerca, pig), the first song featuring Jamsha as a rapper. At first, Jamsha approached rapping humorously, mocking the flow of established artists such as El General
El General
El General is a Panamanian Reggae artist considered by some to be one of the Fathers of Reggaeton. During the early 1990s, he initiated the Spanish spoken dancehall that would later become reggaeton...
. This was also his approach when he recorded "Sendo Cohete" (which literally means "tremendous rocket", but loosely translates to "brazen hussy"), which became a sleeper hit for Guelo Star in late 2008.
Jamsha El Putipuelko
Caraballo then assumed his onstage personna: that of Jamsha, El Putipuelko (the slight spelling change is made to emphasize the Puerto Rican phonetic pronunciation of the name). The name implies that Jamsha actually revels in slacknessSlackness
Slackness refers to vulgarity in West Indian culture, behavior and the music. It also refers to a subgenre of dancehall music with straightforward sexual lyrics performed live or recorded. Its form and pronunciation varies throughout the Caribbean....
in his songs. That, plus a preference for old-school dancehall beats put Jamsha in a different category compared to the recent work of most other Puerto Rican rappers. Jamsha's style is, therefore, a revival of underground, the oldest subgenre within reggaetón; some call him as the initiator of a "nueva escuela" (New School), which returns to the overt sexuality and risqué humor that first defined the genre in the early 1990s. As to counter this claim, Jamsha jokingly also calls himself Jamsha, El PutiFino (loosely translates as "The Fine 'Ho"). On occasions he plays with these words and calls himself "El Pitufino", a mockery of Smurfette
Smurfette
Smurfette is a female character from the Smurfs.Smurfette was the only female Smurf until the creation of Sassette. A Granny Smurf was also later introduced, although it is unclear how she was created. Thierry Culliford, the son of Peyo and current head of the Studio Peyo, announced in 2008 that...
's name in Spanish.
With the assistance of his producer, Eggie Ruz, Jamsha has issued various songs under their label, Putifly (aka Sin Bichote) Records, and corresponding videos, produced by Low Low Budget Films. He has toured Mexico often, as well as his native Puerto Rico.
Videos
Jamsha's videos have had a strong following in YouTube, considering the fact that his are independently produced, and not backed by a major record label. Among them are the following:- Ella tiene jevo (pero quiere güevo)- filmed mostly in Mexico, this video features two parallel story lines. In one of them, Jamsha is a cook in a Mexican restaurant. A menacing looking man enters it, along with his beautiful girlfriend. She smiles at Jamsha, approaches him, and gives him her phone number. He is then ecstatic at the chance to sleep with her. In the second story line, an abusive man first ignores, then throws down a balcony, his inflatable girlfriend (alternately played between Jamsha in drag and an inflatable sex doll).
- Ya te olvidé - filmed at major landmarks in Mexico (particularly the Ángel de la IndependenciaEl ÁngelEl Ángel de la Independencia , most commonly known by theshortened name El Ángel and officially known as Columna de la Independencia, is a victory column located on a roundabout over Paseo de la Reforma in downtown Mexico City.El Ángel was built to commemorate the centennial of the beginning of...
monument in Mexico City, using stop animation) and Puerto Rico as well as various locations in Ponce, this video attempts to show Jamsha's "sensitive side" (although a bit in jest). In it, Jamsha is living "the worst day of my life" (he loses his job, his record label drops him and his girlfriend kicks him out of the house, all in a single day), until a shopkeeper (Puerto Rican radio DJ Nino Davis, in a cameo) persuades him to play a lottery ticket. The ticket wins him USD$5 million dollars, but Jamsha's mood isn't too uplifted, even after traveling a lot or finally getting to eat in a classy restaurant. The former girlfriend shows up to the restaurant to make amends, but Jamsha asks his newly-hired bodyguards to kick her out of the place.
- El Club de Cochofles - filmed mostly in Ponce and Guaynabo, in Puerto Rico, and partly in Mexico City and VeracruzVeracruz, VeracruzVeracruz, officially known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The city is located in the central part of the state. It is located along Federal Highway 140 from the state capital Xalapa, and is the state's most...
, this features the story of three very dissimilar female friends who share one thing in common: no intentions of settling down. One is a rich girl, another is a serial shoplifter, and the third one is prone to fits of violence (she wears an ankle monitorAnkle monitorAn ankle monitor is a device that individuals under house arrest are often required to wear. At timed intervals, the ankle monitor sends a radio frequency signal containing location and other information to a receiver. If an offender moves outside of an allowed range, the police will be notified...
after being sentenced for trying to kill her live-in boyfriend -Jamsha, in disguise-, after she finds him in bed with another man). They gather regularly in a tree house when they're not otherwise getting themselves into trouble. The video alternates them with views of two cheerleader squads (one a traditional one, acting demurely, the second one featuring strip dancers dressed in cheerleading uniforms). An outtake shows the violent girl trying hard to record a gangsta rapGangsta rapGangsta Rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths. Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word...
song.
- Tú eres vilgen - filmed in Ponce (most notably near Ponce's Cruceta del Vigía), this video features three story lines. In the opening scenes, Jamsha and a girl are necking in the backseat of a car until she stops him and asks him to drive her home, since she's a virgin and wants to save herself for marriage. He reluctantly agrees. The video then splits into two lines: one where Jamsha is in a house party broken up by the girl's father; the other has Jamsha mimicking (from the waist up) his attempts to have sex with the girl, but instead pulling several objects out of her vagina (including a live squirrel) and needing various household items as a prerequisite for sex (including a weed trimmerString trimmerA string trimmer, also known as a strimmer, line trimmer, weed whacker, weed whip, weed eater, weedy, or whipper snipper, is a powered handheld device that uses a flexible monofilament line instead of a blade for cutting grass and other plants near objects...
).
- El recoge escombros (The Wreckage Cleaner) - filmed in Adjuntas, this video is a fake documentary about Jamsha as a country boy / sanitation worker who is unwillingly pulled into women's houses for sex.
- Flejetón - filmed mostly in Ponce, this video describes "skanks" in humorous terms (subjects include two neighborhood girls, as well as Jamsha in drag). It also features Jamsha in disguise as a private investigator, and various gymnastic stunts from street dancers.
- Cabro'eMonte - filmed mostly in San GermánSan Germán, Puerto RicoSan Germán is a municipality located in the southwestern region of Puerto Rico, south of Mayagüez and Maricao; north of Lajas; east of Hormigueros and Cabo Rojo; and west of Sabana Grande. San Germán is spread over 18 wards and San Germán Pueblo...
, with some scenes shot in Ponce, Times SquareTimes SquareTimes Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
in New York City and Berlin, Germany, this video features hand puppets, particularly a Jamsha lookalike and a horny goat.