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For weeks, the island of Puerto Rico has been under the thrall of Bad bunny. He's performing 30 sold out concerts in San Juan this summer. He wants his residency to galvanize his homeland and let his Puerto Rican fans see him perform, whether or not they actually still live in Puerto Rico. Yarimar Bonilla is a political anthropologist at Princeton. She's been to more than one concert this summer.
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Oh, I get emotional. It's almost like forgiving, like I think for those in the diaspora, it feels like we've been forgiven. You know, it's like a recognition that we left unwillingly and that we've never forgotten this place, that we are still part of it.
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At the beginning of this year, Bad Bunny released a new album that was his most Puerto Rican and most political record yet. The instrumentals often reference older styles of folk music from the island, and some lyrics criticized gentrification and over tourism. When Bad Bunny came to NPR's Tiny Desk this year, he spoke with NPR Music's Anna Maria Sayer about the importance of preserving cultural tradition.
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One always lives in fear of losing.
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Something, he told me.
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When you're afraid of losing something, what you do is take care of it.
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Even more, protect it, defend it.
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Bad Bunny's residency has been a homecoming for a global superstar. It's also been a homecoming Puerto Ricans who left their island in search of greater opportunities and came back to see him perform. From npr, I'm Ari Shapiro.
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This from NPR, Bad Bunny's 30 concert residency in Puerto Rico, this summer has become an immense source of local pride. For many young people, these shows have rekindled a determination to stay and make a life on the island. NPR's Adrienne Florido reports.
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As soon as she landed back on the island, Michelle Garcia Mercado felt at ease. She doesn't get to come home too often, but she was not going to miss Bad Bunny's concert.
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Oh, my God. Like, I feel at home. I feel at peace. I feel, like, happy for the first time in months.
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She's one of hundreds of thousands of people who've left Puerto Rico in recent decades in search of opportunity. She remembers boarding the plane to Orlando three years ago.
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I was like, I can't believe I'm doing this, because I was like, I was trying to stay here for, like, the longest time.
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But Puerto Rico is not an easy place for young people right now. Its economy is weak. Good jobs are hard to find. Housing's gotten so expensive as gentrification, and tourist rentals have swallowed up units. There are constant power outages. A lot of people give up trying to make it here. Garcia's family on the island, like so many, has been hollowed out.
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My brother left three years before me. My youngest brother and my mother left two years before me. They don't want to leave, but they did not feel like there was a future here.
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Bad Bunny's concert series has been a reason to come home for Garcia and for many people who, like her, never really wanted to leave. She had a blast at the show.
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It's a love letter to Puerto Rico and the cult, especially to the people that have left.
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The concert's titled no me quiero IR vequi. I don't want to leave here. For three hours, San Juan's biggest concert arena pulsates with the rhythms and traditions of Puerto Rican culture, the things that make life here so rich despite the struggles. There's bomba drum music that was first danced by enslaved Africans along the island's coasts. Musicajivara, peasant music that came from the rural mountains. There's plena, salsa, reggaeton, house party. It's visceral joy. And yet all around, people are crying, kissing their friends, their fathers, their grandmothers. It's the nostalgia, the sorrow of so many families that have had to say goodbye to the people they love. And then Bad Bunny speaks to the 18,000 people in the arena, those who still live here and those who don't. For those of us who've had to le dream of coming back, he says, to those of us who are still here. We don't want to leave. We are still here. This song in the rhythm of Plena has become an anthem on the island. It's just about wishing you'd taken more photos of the people you've lost. Yarimar Bonilla is a political anthropologist at Princeton. She's been to the concert more than once this summer. Like many Puerto Ricans, she found great success in the States. But also, like many of them, she's long felt guilty about leaving. Bad Bunny's message that where you live doesn't make you any less Puerto Rican has been like a balm for her soul.
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Oh, I get emotional. It's almost like forgiving. Like I think for those in the diaspora, it feels like we've been forgiven, you know, it's like a recognition that we left unwillingly and that we've never forgotten this place, that we are still part of it.
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But her favorite parts of the concert are the defiant ones. Many young people are no longer just accepting that they'll have to leave to find opportunity. Many are putting up a fight to stay, getting politically active, protesting the sorry state of affairs. Bad Bunny songs reflect that, too.
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When he says.
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They won't force me out of here. I'm not moving, tell them this is my home. This is where my grandfather was born.
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And then everyone says.
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Danisha Galarza is playing her cuatro, a Puerto Rican folk guitar, in the public plaza of her hometown, Guayanilla, on the island's southern coast. I'm blessed that most of my family has not had to leave, she says. She's 23. She wants to pursue her musical career in Puerto Rico, and she has worried that she might have to leave. Her mother, Joyce Figueroa, says, look around at this plaza. It's frozen in time. She says the Catholic Church was destroyed by an earthquake five years ago. It's still not been repaired. The city hall just finally being repaired eight years after Hurricane Maria damaged it. The town library closed for lack of funding. It's hard to convince your children that they should want to stay and build a future here, she says. She and her daughter and their whole family went to Bad Bunny's concert together. They cried and cried. It was an amazing feeling, Galacha says, because she's been learning Bad Bunny songs on her cuatro. Bad Bunny is making young people so proud to be from here, her mother says. And when you're proud of your homeland, you try a little harder for it, she says. You fight just a little harder to stay. Adrian Florido, NPR News San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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This episode was produced by Katherine Fink, Elena Burnett, Liz Baker and Mark Rivers and featured reporting from Anna Maria Sayre. It was edited by Patrick jaranwattanan and Gigi Duban. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigun. Thanks to our Consider this Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors. Learn more at plus.NPR.org It's Consider this from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.
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