Bad Bunny has given Puerto Rico a 'new influence' on the world stage, proud fans say
The fashion choice is a statement. It's consistent with the theme of his 30-show concert series: 'No me quiero ir de aquí,' which translates to 'I do not want to leave here.'
The concerts bring to life the songs on Bad Bunny's sixth studio album, 'Debí Tirar Más Fotos,' or 'I Should Have Taken More Photos,' which the artist has dubbed as his ' most Puerto Rican' album yet.
On it, Bad Bunny sings of his need to stay in Puerto Rico and cherish its people and history. Most of the lyrics speak to Puerto Rico's political realities and cultural legacy.
And for Puerto Ricans in the U.S. territory as well as those who live on the U.S. mainland, the focus on their beloved Caribbean archipelago is everything.
'It feels like we're home,' Ivy Torres told NBC News. She and her spouse, Alexis, are among the more than 600,000 people who are expected to visit Puerto Rico this summer to see the show — which is the first formal residency any singer has ever done at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot, the biggest indoor entertainment arena on the island, seating over 18,000 people.
'It's a great way to reconnect with your family, friends and everything we left behind,' Alexis said.
The couple moved to Ohio from Puerto Rico a decade ago during the height of the economic crisis on the island. 'It was hard,' Ivy said. 'We didn't want to leave our family and friends, but we had to.'
Bad Bunny sings about this sentiment in his song 'Lo que le pasó a Hawaii' ('What happened to Hawaii'). The song addresses fears around the erosion of Puerto Rican identity amid an influx of wealthy people from the mainland who have moved there following the passage of tax breaks, as well as a recent rise in short-term rentals that limit affordable housing opportunities for local residents.
Born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, Bad Bunny reached global success singing in Spanish, popularizing Puerto Rican slang across the world and putting a spotlight on the plight of Puerto Rican people.
'He does his music for Puerto Rico'
That's why for Puerto Rico resident Verónica González, it 'means everything having a star like Benito singing for us,' she told NBC News. 'He does his music for Puerto Rico, and he thinks about us.'
The album and residency effectively take fans on an emotional journey that fuses contemporary genres like reggaeton and dembow with traditional rhythms such as bomba y plena and 1970s salsa music.
Inside a restaurant in Old San Juan, Puerto Rican artist and painter Joabel Ortiz has been showing an art exhibit dedicated to Bad Bunny and his latest album.
Ortiz mixes traditional symbols of Puerto Rican culture like 'la pava' with images of the superstar — highlighting the through line that connects a present-day cultural phenomenon like Bad Bunny to the roots of Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rican officials estimate Bad Bunny's residency will have an economic impact of more than $186 million, generating more than 3,600 jobs and resulting in more than 35,000 hotel night bookings.
But to his fans, it's Bad Bunny's focus on the people and the essence of what it is to be Puerto Rican that resonates the most.
'We got a new influence to the world,' Ortiz told NBC News. 'That new influence is about our culture, about the ideas we got in the island, and how we do everything, how we speak, how we love, how we remember who we are.'
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The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Bad Bunny's Puerto Rico residency is a rare example of fame used for good
Earlier this month, a wave of tourists from the continental US began visiting Puerto Rico for the chance to see Bad Bunny. This would not be that remarkable – plenty of people go overseas for concerts, as tickets often go for much less than in the US (any dedicated Swiftie will tell you it was much cheaper to see her in Mexico City than, say, LA) – if not for the fact that Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, planned ahead for an influx of outsiders to the island. The first nine dates of his landmark 30-show residency at San Juan's Coliseo de Puerto Rico were reserved exclusively for island residents, who had to present proof of residency at one of nine locations, primarily agricultural markets. Only afterward could anyone from the outside attend the Puerto Rican superstar's show, No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí (I Don't Want to Leave Here), a three-hour magnum opus of Boricua pride in support of his new album Debí Tirar Más Fotos (I Should Have Taken More Pictures). In the nearly 10 years since Bad Bunny broke containment on Soundcloud, he has made defiance of norms and expectations a personal rule. From donning drag in the Yo Perreo Sola video, to seamlessly blending genres old and new, to his refusal to sing or conduct press in English – even his appearances on Saturday Night Live, one of several forays into English media, kept Spanish as the default – Martínez has thrillingly redefined what it looks like to be a global superstar. His residency in San Juan, the triumphant opening salvo of a world tour that will entirely skip the mainland US, is not just the latest bucked model but, I'd argue, the best use of megastardom in recent memory, an application of generational celebrity that unites potent symbolism with actual material change. With a capacity crowd of about 18,000 fans each night, the 21 dates of No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí open to non-residents are expected to bring 400,000 people to San Juan, two-thirds of them from overseas. The whole residency will inject about $200m into the long-suffering local economy – enough to bump up Puerto Rico's GDP by 0.15%. The boon would feel at odds with Martínez's mocking of thoughtless visitors in songs like Turista, if he did not also take steps to redirect the usual flow of American dollars on an island the US keeps in perpetual and extractive colonial purgatory. Tickets outside Puerto Rico are given premium price – at the moment, they cost $600 or more, on par with decent seats for Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter or Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour – and come bundled with rooms in locally owned hotels during the off-season. The deal is intended to dissuade visitors from booking one of the Airbnbs transforming the island into a second-property investment haven pricing out local residents, particularly in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017. Maria profoundly affected Martínez, who grew up an hour outside San Juan in Vega Baja, and has spent his career atop the global streaming charts redirecting the spotlight toward the archipelago's issues, from chronic blackouts to tax breaks for outsiders, as well as celebrating its rich history and fluid diaspora. The new show opens with a slew of national facts broadcast in Spanish, from the serious to the cheeky – 'San Juan is one of the oldest cities in the Americas. It was founded in 1521' as well as 'Sancocho cures anything, according to our grandmothers.' It features lavish sets – built by 1,000 local workers – evoking the lush hills and beaches of the island, as well as a whole traditional casita. The show has, unsurprisingly, provoked an outpouring of catharsis and celebration from the thousands within the Puerto Rican diaspora who have attended, and confirmed a core principle of the whole residency: this is for Puerto Rico, specifically and broadly. People like me – non-Hispanic English speakers who found Bad Bunny's music far away from his homeland, who groove without fully understanding the lyrics – can participate, but they will not be the center. All of this is, ultimately, one of the most interesting and thoughtful flexes of celebrity power, particularly at the time when the economics of live music feel so precarious. While smaller artists scrabble to make the money work, and venues struggle to keep their bottom line, the biggest artists compete to put on increasingly elaborate shows, for increasingly exorbitant prices. Tickets to Bad Bunny's residency for US residents still run easily into the thousands of dollars, but at least with a political point. This is an artist who has routinely eschewed US centrism, who posted a video to his Instagram referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents as 'sons of bitches' who can't leave 'people alone and working'. In an interview with Variety, he deemed touring the mainland US at this time 'unnecessary', as fans there have had ample opportunity to see him in the past six years. (For instance, 32 American stops for 2022's World's Hottest tour, including two sold-out nights at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.) He's right, and even from afar – the tickets are, unfortunately, out of my price range, though I would pay good money to see one of our most electrifying and charismatic performers on stage again – it is thrilling to witness. 'Before the residency, my fantasy for the longest time was to do a massive free show in Puerto Rico that could be locals only,' Martínez told Variety. 'And if it were up to me, all of the shows for the locals would be free, but what we've got planned now is next level.' The dream is ultimately improbable, for an artist of his stature and for it to be safe. But he's gotten as close as a superstar can get.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Bad Bunny's Puerto Rico residency is a rare example of fame used for good
Earlier this month, a wave of tourists from the continental US began visiting Puerto Rico for the chance to see Bad Bunny. This would not be that remarkable – plenty of people go overseas for concerts, as tickets often go for much less than in the US (any dedicated Swiftie will tell you it was much cheaper to see her in Mexico City than, say, LA) – if not for the fact that Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, planned ahead for an influx of outsiders to the island. The first nine dates of his landmark 30-show residency at San Juan's Coliseo de Puerto Rico were reserved exclusively for island residents, who had to present proof of residency at one of nine locations, primarily agricultural markets. Only afterward could anyone from the outside attend the Puerto Rican superstar's show, No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí (I Don't Want to Leave Here), a three-hour magnum opus of Boricuan pride in support of his new album Debí Tirar Más Fotos (I Should Have Taken More Pictures). In the nearly 10 years since Bad Bunny broke containment on Soundcloud, he has made defiance of norms and expectations a personal rule. From donning drag in the Yo Perreo Sola video, to seamlessly blending genres old and new, to his refusal to sing or conduct press in English – even his appearances on Saturday Night Live, one of several forays into English media, kept Spanish as the default – Martínez has thrillingly redefined what it looks like to be a global superstar. His residency in San Juan, the triumphant opening salvo of a world tour that will entirely skip the mainland US, is not just the latest bucked model but, I'd argue, the best use of megastardom in recent memory, an application of generational celebrity that unites potent symbolism with actual material change. With a capacity crowd of around 18,000 fans each night, the 21 dates of No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí open to non-residents are expected to bring 400,000 people to San Juan, two-thirds of them from overseas. The whole residency will inject about $200m into the long-suffering local economy – enough to bump up Puerto Rico's GDP by 0.15%. The boon would feel at odds with Martínez's mocking of thoughtless visitors in songs like Turista, if he did not also take steps to redirect the usual flow of American dollars on an island the US keeps in perpetual and extractive colonial purgatory. Tickets outside Puerto Rico are given premium price – at the moment, they cost $600 or more, on par with decent seats for Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter or Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour – and come bundled with rooms in locally owned hotels during the off-season. The deal is intended to dissuade visitors from booking one of the Airbnbs transforming the island into a second-property investment haven pricing out local residents, particularly in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017. Maria profoundly affected Martínez, who grew up an hour outside San Juan in Vega Baja, and has spent his career atop the global streaming charts redirecting the spotlight toward the archipelago's issues, from chronic blackouts to tax breaks for outsiders, as well as celebrating its rich history and fluid diaspora. The new show opens with a slew of national facts broadcast in Spanish, from the serious to the cheeky – 'San Juan is one of the oldest cities in the Americas. It was founded in 1521' as well as 'Sancocho cures anything, according to our grandmothers.' It features lavish sets – built by 1,000 local workers – evoking the lush hills and beaches of the island, as well as a whole traditional casita. The show has, unsurprisingly, provoked an outpouring of catharsis and celebration from the thousands within the Puerto Rican diaspora who have attended, and confirmed a core principle of the whole residency: this is for Puerto Rico, specifically and broadly. People like me – non-Hispanic English speakers who found Bad Bunny's music far away from his homeland, who groove without fully understanding the lyrics – can participate, but they will not be the center. All of this is, ultimately, one of the most interesting and thoughtful flexes of celebrity power, particularly at the time when the economics of live music feel so precarious. While smaller artists scrabble to make the money work, and venues struggle to keep their bottom line, the biggest artists compete to put on increasingly elaborate shows, for increasingly exorbitant prices. Tickets to Bad Bunny's residency for US residents still run easily into the thousands of dollars, but at least with a political point. This is an artist who has routinely eschewed US centrism, who posted a video to his Instagram referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents as 'sons of bitches' who can't leave 'people alone and working'. In an interview with Variety, he deemed touring the mainland US at this time 'unnecessary', as fans there have had ample opportunity to see him in the past six years. (For instance, 32 American stops for 2022's World's Hottest tour, including two sold-out nights at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.) He's right, and even from afar – the tickets are, unfortunately, out of my price range, though I would pay good money to see one of our most electrifying and charismatic performers on stage again – it is thrilling to witness. 'Before the residency, my fantasy for the longest time was to do a massive free show in Puerto Rico that could be locals only,' Martínez told Variety. 'And if it were up to me, all of the shows for the locals would be free, but what we've got planned now is next level.' The dream is ultimately improbable, for an artist of his stature and for it to be safe. But he's gotten as close as a superstar can get.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Explosive and experimental, Eddie Palmieri was a revolutionary figure in postwar American music
Some 20 years ago I watched as Eddie Palmieri approached his piano, noting how his features radiated a mix of joy and excitement. As soon as he began to play I grasped why. To say the great Puerto Rican New Yorker was a thrilling performer is an understatement: seated at the piano he threw himself into playing explosive Latin jazz, his rhythmic attack reminding me how his first job as a professional musician was playing timbales in his uncle's band aged 13. This sense of joy, the excitement he found in making music, the chances he took, helped shape Eddie Palmieri's long, brilliant career. To my mind, Palmieri was one of the truly revolutionary figures of postwar American music, up there with Muddy and Miles and Aretha and Dolly: a musician who reshaped a genre and extended the music's possibilities. 'El Maestro' is how his fans and fellow musicians referred to Eddie, and this human hurricane, built like a fire hydrant with the brightest smile and a mischievous twinkle in his eye, never disappointed. Born to Puerto Rican parents in Spanish Harlem and raised in the Bronx, Palmieri grew up absorbing the music of his fellow Latinos – from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and, especially, Cuba – alongside the contemporary jazz and blues of his African American neighbours. Eddie started piano lessons aged eight – his brother Charlie Palmieri, nine years his senior, having already made his name playing Latin ballrooms while still in high school – and, by his early teens, was working alongside the likes of Tito Rodriguez while leading his own band. His love of Thelonious Monk and McCoy Tyner's groundbreaking jazz piano ensured he studied harmony and determined to extend the possibilities of the Latin big band. Due to his enthusiasm for modern jazz, Eddie's playing was often unconventional, employing unorthodox patterns and percussive effects, all the while drawing on the rhythmic richness of Latin music. His adventurous spirit ensured he influenced jazz, Latin and funk musicians while his generosity as a bandleader meant young musicians gravitated towards him, and the likes of Celia Cruz, Willie Cólon and Herbie Mann all appreciated his skills as a sideman. Palmieri made so much remarkable music across his long creative life its hard to know where to start when suggesting what to listen to. With his band La Perfecta he recorded 1965 solo album Azúcar pa' Ti (Sugar for You), a pioneering Latin American recording that laid a blueprint for what would soon be recognised as the New York salsa sound. The eight-minute long Azúcar got heavy radio play on jazz radio stations that previously had kept to the three-minute format. Eddie, when asked how he achieved this, simply noted that the mob-affiliated Morris Levy owned the label: when Morris instructed DJs what to play they obeyed. The album also marks the first recording of Palmieri playing his trademark montuno (a repeated syncopated vamp) with one hand while soloing with the other. In 1970 Eddie formed Harlem River Drive with brother Charlie. Recruiting top Latino musicians, and Black funk/soul musicians such as Bernard Purdie and Cornell Dupree, HRD's eponymous 1971 album served up a hugely influential Latin/funk fusion – War, the great Los Angeles funk band, borrowed heavily from Harlem River Drive while acid jazz DJs would introduce the album to UK clubs in the 90s. In 1974, album The Sun of Latin Music again demonstrated Eddie's mastery of blending jazz improvisation with sophisticated Latin dance rhythms – it won Palmieri the first ever Grammy for best Latin recording. Here he employed modal stylings, feedback and tape loops, marking himself as way ahead of his contemporaries yet never losing his core Latino audience. Eddie had helped pioneer and popularise salsa but, once it became a popular dance genre, he moved on, always experimenting, never resting on laurels. He loved to collaborate and his albums with the likes of Cal Tjader, La India, Tito Puente and his brother Charlie are all masterful. His adventurous nature meant he was invited to play on 1997's Nuyorican Soul album by Masters at Work – this album took New York's Latin flavours into the house music genre and won Palmieri a new audience. Not that Eddie was about to settle into Latin house – he kept pushing his own musical envelope and 2017 album Sabiduría ('Wisdom') is among his finest. I had hoped to see Palmieri play again one day, but least I have the memory of seeing El Maestro pound his piano with wild joy, this Nuyorican magus furiously blending jazz and Latin rhythms as he continued to quest across uncharted musical terrain.
