Remembering A Classic

Wisin Y Yandel’s ‘Pa’l Mundo’ Turns 20

One of reggaeton’s marquee duos broke ground in 2005. Their historic album continues to influence the club, charts, and beyond

If you grew up in Latin America, the Caribbean, or diaspora in 2005, you grew up to the thud of a dembow beat.

Whether you winced at it or leaned heavily into it, depending on your age, there’s a strong chance you were at a party de marquesina sweating up on your crush, gyrating in sweaty jeans or a miniskirt. You were in the passenger seat of your cousin’s car riding around Caracas or San Juan or Santo Domingo. You were in a middle school grinding train, figuring out what your hips could do in the eyeshot of horrified chaperones.

But before reggaeton became a global music industry behemoth that redefined pop music, and even before it was the soundtrack to Caribbean teenage dreams and Latin diasporic childhoods and sometimes-criminalized dancefloors in San Juan that hosted freestyle battles to what was then called “underground,” the booming beat was far mellower. Nine years before Wisin y Yandel coalesced as a duo, Jamaican producers Steely and Clevie made the “Fish Market” riddim. The following year it was sped up and injected with early electronic dub by Dennis “The Menace” Thompson, who created the “Pounder” instrumental. This blistering waist-whiner, made for a steamy partystarter originally sung over by Jamaican New York-based DJs Bobo General and Sleepy Wonder, would become the base riddim that reggaeton artists freestyle over to this day.

Wisin y Yandel’s Pa’l Mundo appeared on Nov.eer 8, 2005. Daddy Yankee had dropped the seminal album Barrio Fino the year before. By the time *Pa’l Mundo *landed onto the world, Wisin y Yandel had successfully made a name for themselves in the underground. Joining forces in 1998, they had been together for over half a decade before “el duo dinámico” making the 19-track monster of an album under their self-titled independent label WY Records. Though they’ve had hits afterwards, this was a kingmaker for both of them, remembered (and bumped at full volume) to this day with a reverence reserved for a records considered foundational to a genre.

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Powered by a confluence of rhythms from merengue (“Mayor Que Yo”) to bachata (Romeo Santos-assisted “Noche De Sexo”) to salacious old-school reggaeton (foundational reggaeton track “Rakata”), and propelled by the genre’s newfound visibility Pa’l Mundo was bound to become an instant classic. Outside of just being unbearably good, it was groundbreaking for its weirdness, sampling everything from telephone ringing (“Llama Pa’ Verte [Bailando Sexy]“) to a Take Me Out To The Ballgame instrumental (“Fuera De Base”), Pa’l Mundo’s inspiration for blooming producers cannot be denied.

Produced by reggaeton’s finest producers, from Luny Tunes and Nely “‘El Arma Secreta” to then-burgeoning Tainy, the album went to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Charts, and snaked its way into the heart of a generation of Latinx fans. Solidifying their place as forces in music, Wisin y Yandel rode the success of Pa’l Mundo and came to define a genre’s sound in the process as it continued to grow in reggaeton on Puerto Rico and beyond.

“I grew up with Los Extraterrestres, they’re pioneers from here, from PR,” says rapper Young Miko, who has collaborated separately with both Wisin and Yandel as solo acts. “They came out of the marquesina parties. That wave was Wisin y Yandel, Don Omar, Jowell & Randy, Gringo, Chencho [Corleone], Plan B…when I was little, the high school parties were all perreo parties playing the classics. I’m so sure when they put this out they knew it was a good record, but did they know they were making something that would never die? ‘Rakata’ is for sure a top five song for me.”

The staying power of “Rakata” in particular is undeniable, from the iconic opening shoutouts to the bouncy dembow chain rattle that beckons you close to the nearest body on the floor. It’s inspired a slew of remixes, including one Ja Rule and Tea Time made for English-speaking hip-hop fans. On a more philosophical level, they’ve inspired the current wave of Latin electronic acts and producers. Venezuelan “diva experimental” du jour Arca’s earth-shattering “Rakata” comes to mind, a twisted fantasy of a track produced by Luis Garban, who produces as Safety Trance / Cardopusher and has shared stages the world over with reggaeton pioneer DJ Negro of The Noise, brandishing his cybergoth vision of deconstructed club reggaeton alongside an old school-centric set from Negro at the latest edition of Puerto Rican underground party Isla Del Terror.

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“I wanted to make something dark, reggaeton with witch house sounds that still felt emotional — I showed the beat to Alejandra (Ghersi, aka Arca), she wrote her part, and all of it changed,” says Safety Trance of producing Arca’s “Rakata.” “The song took a life of its own, and it was her idea to name it “Rakata”; I think it does justice to Wisin y Yandel’s legacy, thinking about how Pa’l Mundo is a key album of the genre.”

Let’s be clear: reggaeton is electronic club music. The Caribbean architecture of its riddims makes it danced differently than anything you’d hear at your local rave, but Latinx DJs and producers the world over have taken to spinning reggaeton beats, as well as guaracha and Venezuelan raptor house, alongside techno, house, trance, and more. In that regard, we can consider Wisin y Yandel —and Pa’l Mundo’s impact in particular, with its glittering electronic flourish— to be foundational to the current wave of quote-unquote “Latin Club.”

“Tainy did a lot of the production, and he was all over the album, not on the biggest tracks, but he’s all over it. Aesthetically, it’s quite an electronic sounding album: The sounds they’re using, like the plucking, is trance-y, almost,” says the artist Nick León. “When I’m making music and pulling from things that inspire me, even if I’m not thinking about it, I go back to a lot of those sounds because they’re quite emotional sounds or just like clubby. It blends well with faster dance music, some of the acapellas and the lyrics and these things. I think of ‘Paleta’ and hear Kamixlo, you know?”

Wisin y Yandel officially broke up in 2023. Since then, the now-legendary duo have shown a willingness to bridge the generational gap, both together and separately. Their aptly named final album La Última Misión (“The Final Mission”) ranges collaborations with reggaeton’s new stars from Rauw Alejandro and J. Balvin to dancehall icon Sean Paul and Spanish experimentalist Rosalía on “Besos Moja2”, a re-imagining of their hit song from 2009’s La Revolución.

This penchant for collaboration and cross-genre experimentation comes as no surprise:at the height of Pa’l Mundo’s popularity, Wisin y Yandel lent verses to a Luny Tunes remix of Paris Hilton’s flash-in-a-pan pop single “Stars Are Blind”, which was recently covered by Catalonian reggaeton starBad Gyal. Despite (allegedly) going their separate ways —there are rumours of a follow-up to 2022’s supposed final mission—the pair’s legacy, reputation, and willingness to pass the baton have made them some of reggaeton’s most reliable hitmakers and mentors.

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Despite not being together anymore, the pair remain relevant the world over, from up-and-coming reggaeton acts and Latin electronic producers to masked French DJs mixing “Paleta” with Linkin Park at festivals in the U.K. It would seem the groundbreaking pair, now on their separate ways, have made good** on quite a few of their self-proclaimed nicknames: “The Aliens, The Leaders,” “The Kings of the New Millennium,” and perhaps most pertinently “El Duo De La Historia” — “The Historic Duo.” Their lasting success, and the waves made by the album 20 years since it dropped, call to mind some of the closing boasts of “Paleta,” which have proved to be something of a dedication and a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was an album made Pa’ Puerto Rico / Pa’ los latinos, y Pa’l Mundo.* *

“Where I grew up in Broward, it was less Latino, so it was kind of like a way to identify myself a little more by listening to this stuff; it gave me something to explore that felt like a part of my heritage, or whatever,” says León. “There’s like a way that it connects with people from Latin America. It’s a throughline for the diaspora and to have like a thing that they can pull from or find themselves with a bit more or just like apply to what they do in music.”