Transcript
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Michael Olinger (0:30)
Hey, I'm Michael Olinger for the podcast Extra this week we are featuring the work of our WNYC colleague and former OTM producer Alana Casanova Burgess. She's the host of La Brega, a podcast series all about Puerto Rico. Her team is calling Season two the Puerto Rican Experience in eight Songs. We think you're going to love the first episode of the new season. Here's Alana.
Alana Casanova Burgess (0:56)
Not long ago I was on a flight to San Juan. I was sitting on the left side of the plane with a clear view over the orange glow of street lights and traffic below. And as the wheels touched down, everyone who was grateful to be back in Puerto Rico applauded, as we always do. And then while we were sitting there taxiing or whatever, I heard someone just a few rows behind me start to sing. I rushed to record it on my phone. A few people craned their necks, a few stood up. Every passenger was under a spell listening to Preciosa. The most Puerto Rican of songs come from nowhere. I was flying to Puerto Rico to do some reporting for the second season of La Brega, a season about music. Every episode will be based on a different Puerto Rican song. And right away I get this musical blessing on a plane. Magic Puerto Rico Estacabron. Everyone knows that Puerto Rico Estacabron that Puerto Rico is fucking awesome. Because Bad Bunny has been saying and everybody is singing along. The biggest artist in the world right now doesn't just happen to be Puerto Rican. He's uncompromisingly Boricua, refusing to change his language or his accent.
Michael Olinger (2:52)
Tell me, how do you sum up like the past year or so for you?
Alana Casanova Burgess (2:58)
I don't understand what you say. Always talking about us, always bragging about us. He's sharing so much of Puerto Rico as he tops the charts over and over and over again. Bad Bunny, Bad Bunny, Bad Bunny, Bad Bunny. He's changed pop music and made it ours. The chart topping rapper from Puerto Rico was just named Apple Music's Artist of the Year. Well deserved too. In some ways this isn't new as an island that's just 100 by 35 miles, we've consistently punched above our weight. Puerto Rican music has long been everywhere, from the boleros that get people to sway to the reggaeton that makes them grind. We write lyrics so lovely that they're sung all over the world. We perform at the super bowl and we sweep at the Grammys. And I say we because when someone Puerto Rican takes the stage, it can feel as if your own cousin were up there. Benito. Congratulations. The VMA MTV award. The artist of the year represented for the Boricuas. Yeah, and all that music is doing a lot. Tucked into the lyrics are stories about who we are and what we want about Puerto Ricanness and what that means. That's as true of Ben Bunny's songs as it is about Preciosa, the song from the plane. So this season we're looking at ourselves through our music. Iconic songs that tell us about home and what it means to stay or leave. Songs that teach us about race and belonging or about freedom and our bodies. Songs about losing what should be ours and fighting for. And we should start actually with Preciosa. It's really the unofficial anthem, more meaningful to many of us, including to the plain singer Maiso, than the actual anthem. That's what he told me at baggage claim. Preciosa is about how beautiful Puerto Rico is. Miborinking hermosa. It's like a love song to a place instead of to a lover. The waves from the sea that bathe you Call you Preciosa because you are a delight, you are an Eden I will always call you Preciosa Llamare Preciosa. I have this recording From July of 2019 in Old San Juan of thousands of people singing Preciosa at a protest to get rid of the governor. They were singing the Marc Anthony cover. There's a long part at the end that he improvises a soneo. It's epic. This has been the iconic version of the song for over 20 years after he recorded it for a television music special from banco popular in 1998. He's in a kind of 1940s costume, pocket watch and everything, in a kitschy fake living room in front of a piano. Nothing about it feels authentic, except for Marc Anthony's passion for Puerto Rico. The man sounds like his soul is on fire. Fire. The original version was written in 1937, not by Marc Anthony, but by Rafael Hernandez, an artist who you could say was like the Bad Bunny of his time. No, I'm kidding. I mean, they're very different people from very different times. But they do have some things in common. Two Puerto Rican icons, both hugely influential, beloved everywhere, who use their Puerto Ricanness to shine. They're both uncompromising. The more I learn about Hernandez's genius and the different places he shows up in music history, the more I feel that swell of pride, like when your cousin takes the stage, like he was there at the birth of what would later become jazz. Though a lot of people don't know that part of the story.