Agree with you Bermyboy. Interestingly, reggaeton , a knock-off of dancehall reggae, is now THE music of choice for the youth of PR, DR and Cuba. I believe Reggaeton is bound to become the main music in all the Spanish speaking islands. I am not sure they will ever listen to Dancehall due to the language barrier, but who knows ?
In my single days I had an amiga ask me if I liked reggae. I said yes, I dig reggae but hate reggaeton. She looked at me with a blank stare. I said I dig Bob Marley as I was sure that was the only reggae she ever hear of. She laughed at me like I was a dope. Saying Marley was "pop" and that reggae was reggaeton. We argued for a bit and she said "I don't know what you call it in nueva yol but we call it pop.
I showed her dozens of sites with bob marley and jamaica all talking about reggae and showing marley as the father of reggae. She relented, but still had doubts.
I showed her that both reggae and reggaetone had the snare on the 3, and even played some dance hall to show the progression. . . .I guess I was bored.
I have a buddy that owns a TV station in PR that plays music. The last I talked to him he said that reggaeton was dying down a bit. He was again receiving more salsa tunes to play than reggaeton.
I never understood the total lack of reggae in DR. I bought a CD of costa rican reggae last week in CR and saw lots of reggae influence as far away as Florianapolis in the south of brasil.
I am taking the fiance to Negril next week to groove to some reggae and try some jerk chicken and pork. I used to edit a Reggae TV show on manhattan cable back in the 90s, and have been DLing a lot of reggae from itunes so we are looking forward to it!