BROADCASTS.com

For this week\u2019s Latino USA, we\u2019re bringing you an episode from the newly released podcast series from WNYC Studios and Futuro Studios, La Brega, The Puerto Rican Experience in Eight Songs.

By the end of the 1990s, merengue ruled supreme on the radio and TV in Puerto Rico, but the road to get there was long and complicated, coinciding with the growing Dominican population to the island and culminating in perhaps what was the pinnacle of its popularity and takeover in Puerto Rican music, at home and abroad: Elvis Crespo\u2019s \u201cSuavemente.\u201d Journalist Ezequiel Rodr\xedguez Andino shares the story of merengue\u2019s ubiquity and how the shift from salsa to merengue brought to the surface serious class and racial tension that still remains today.

You can subscribe to La Brega here.