"One Way Love": The Rise of Latin Freestyle: How TKA Ruled the Clubs but Missed the Charts

The Twelve Inch 156 : One Way Love (TKA)

The early 1980s in New York City was a battleground of sound. Disco, though fading from the mainstream, was feeding into what came next. Hip-hop was breaking onto the streets, with rap and the electro beat as its major tools. But hip-hop wasn’t the only genre to emerge from this melting pot of influences—Latin Freestyle was also born in this era of transition.

How did Latin Freestyle emerge? Why did it peak in the late '80s but fail to cross over into the U.S. pop (and European markets)? And what was the secret sauce that made TKA the genre’s biggest success story?

This is the story of a genre born from the streets, shaped by drum machines, and propelled by heartbreak on the dancefloor.