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Now, all right, we're gonna get to the show with another story that music lovers are going to enjoy, and let's get to it.

From Fudro Media.

It's Latino Usa.

I'm Maria nor Josa today the concert that historians will be talking about in fifty years.

Because it made history.

Yes, I'm talking about Bad Bunny's iconic residency in Puerto Rico.

What it means that Benito celebrates Borriquas with the entire world.

Now Bad Bunny has been the most streamed artist on Spotify for three consecutive years.

He is also the first artist to top the Billboard charts with a Spanish album, and he was the first Latino to headline Coachella.

Now those are only a few of the records that Bad Bunny is broken.

Arguably he's the biggest star.

In the world.

I'm mcgonne and well, most artists, when they're on top of the world like that, they tour it.

They go on these global tours and make a ton of money.

But bat Bunny subverted that script.

Instead, he did something never done before.

He put on a three month, thirty day residency in his homeland of Puerto Rico, a choice that was deliberate and in part because it worried him that ice would be outside of his concerts.

The title of the residency no mikhiro iveki, I don't want to leave here.

So today a special episode of Latino USA with the creators of La Barega Labrega is our podcast here at Futuro Studios that's all about Puerto Rican identity and Labrega is gearing up for its third seasons come in soon, and to give you a preview, our team is here to get into Benito Bad Monna La Vega's co creator and host Alana Casanova, Virgess, producer Ezekiel Rodriguez, Andino editor Laura Perez, and our executive editor here at Puturo, Maria Garcia.

Well, they all cut together in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and they shared their experiences about the historic residency.

And just so you know, dear listener, parts of this conversation aren't Spanglish.

It's okay, you'll get it.

Let's listen to the conversation about Benito Bad.

Bundy.

Oracla.

We're here specifically in Santurday and we actually have like a great view, like we can see the Atlantic Ocean over there.

We can see the city on the right, and we're having fun.

And the first thing that we were talking about this we did go.

We did see it, but at different times.

Maria, it's your time, because you're you're the closest to Bernito.

You saw it very very like two days ago, dow days ago.

Yeah, a couple of days ago.

I still feel like it's in my aura.

I still have that Benito glow.

This was my fourth time seeing Benito.

I've been like closely following his career since my cousin, who was a big Trapero, introduced me to him in twenty fifteen when he was still on SoundCloud.

And I feel like in this concert, like I really saw grown up Benito.

He's so self actualized and he's really like he's a whole different artist than when he started.

Ala we were talking about a few days ago, was very dare I say horny?

I think, And there's still a lot of that, you know here, like he's there's still a lot of swagger and he's hot, but there's more overtly political messaging, and there's a lot of sort of homage to folklore and his origins and his roots, but like never leaving behind.

That's sort of like sager and hot and horniness.

It has ranged and I'm still glowing from it.

So what I want to do now is go to Lauda.

You want to see him like in the middle after Atlanta, right, and I know LA and I Laudio Porto Rico confession time, Laudio so Paradi, how do you feel how I was for you in the middle part of the tour.

That's how I define myself.

I say, I don't listen to his music, but of course I listened to his music because I live in Puerto Rico, and that's like in Meloso Pero in.

Terms of the musicality of what we're experiencing at the show.

I was struck by the moments that Benito is not the protagonist of the show, Like it opens and he's not on the stage, which is quite striking, Like you expect the lights to come up and like boom, he's there and he's for us.

He doesn't show up for a few minutes and it's not it's not even like about him at the beginning, and of course there's a sense of anticipation, where is he, When is he coming out?

And when he finally comes out, he's dressed in all white, just like all the other dancers on the stage.

He's wearing his Canadian hunter's cap or whatever it is.

But in a way, it opens and it's not even about him.

It's about the music.

So Ju.

Starts out and it's very powerful and spare on stage, and it feels like this performance to your point about him being an artist who knows how much he's really involved with who's on stage at what time in the choreography and what's going on with the the theater of what we experienced, but it feels like his taste, maybe we could say.

And then also that throughout the show, you know, it's like Benito and friends, like he brings out whoever's around.

Like the night that I went was there was in La Casita and Don hell Salle sho.

Ivy Queen John just wanted.

To add a little bit that when that happens, he's in the house, which has a symbolic value.

Add it right, because he's like.

Right right, and it is like a hangel, you know, like who's coming, who's going, who's going to show up next?

It's fine, I'm gonna go get a drink real quick, you know, like that whole thing happens, and I think it is like it's a sign of maturity and also just to sign like Benito such a good guy, like doesn't even have to who knows who knows a.

Guy or not, But it is very feels that way.

It's very old message, it's very endearing and with no real mine.

So went to.

Pelop was like Comendo Penelope Cruz and Como Penelope Cruz.

Pull it off.

But I think it's it has a little bit to do with what you were saying about sharing his roots.

I feel like all those artists and athletes and everyone who's been in La Caacida are part of his roots.

Yes, and also it is part of his roots, So I think it's like he's sharing all of that and it's like, yeah, you want to know why I like being body in Perigan?

This is this is what the whole experience.

Is, right.

There's something that feels so genuine about the way he does it, and I think it's particularly because it comes from like a place of generosity.

And there were so many moments in the concert where he talks about identity and even if he and his sons right where he says, yes, you know Pere la Lena.

A lazy, sort of simplistic take would be like, oh, he's going back to his roots.

But the thing is, if you followed him for the last ten years, like this man has always been rooted, Like this man has always been proud and connected to his home.

But this time he's coming one informed.

You know, he's grown, he's learned, and that's come manifesting in his the way he's writing his songs, and we saw with Unvernocinthi, for example, E L.

Pagon it was sort of the most direct critique he had ever done when he came out with the documentary.

But this time, you know, coming out with Look Hawaii, sort of this warning about statehood.

He's showing his cards in a much more explicit way than he has.

But I hear you loud at that.

Maybe for folks who live here, like maybe that still doesn't feel like enough, But I do think that in terms of his evolution as an artist, Cecian Thickes.

It actually feels like enough.

For me.

It's not him, it's other people around him, and not around him from his team, but around in the island and in our culture.

Like for example, A comp my Puerto Rico with that campaign of this sounds of Puerto Rico.

And it's so funny for me because that campaign it's only in English, and I haven't seen it in Spanish, even though everyone's coming here to see I need to sing in Spanish.

It's just that I cannot turn down my cynicism.

Now that we're invoking cynicism.

I had, like this golden opportunity which I was not even thinking about going to this concert because again I don't follow him, like I'm happy for him and I'm happy for everyone.

But then I got to go to like the first one, right, and then you know, to work.

But I said yes, I'm not gonna say yes, it's gonna pay me.

I'm gonna go for free.

Of course I'm gonna say yes.

And for me, it was like it's the first time I see him in concert in a concert, and it genuinely was infecting me, even with my own like I'm just here working type of attitude that I want there.

Right, there was a moment that I was recording and I can hear myself singing songs even though I'm sitting like very.

I'm just here to work a little bit.

Kind of like an out of body experience, like you're not and I'm singing out loud.

And then in Puerto Rico, you have like a lot of people that are just criticizing him like constantly, just because they didn't like that he became involved in like the day to day political can paign.

And there are also like the very Christian, very right groups which started like doing this campaign about all this is sad that we have this happening here because you know he's too horny.

We hate horny people.

Let's take a break and coming up on Latino us say it's not just bad bunny sexuality that gets him criticized.

Stay with us, Yes, hey, we're back.

Before the break, the La Brega team Alana Casanova, Burgess is A, Guiel Rodriguez Andino, Laura Perez and Maria Garcia.

We're speaking about their experiences at the Bad Bunny Residency in Porto Rico, and this time is a gill is going to start us off.

One of the criticisms, which was for me very cynical, was that for people I don't know in Puerto Rico, in public schools because we have the other pert like that's an official institutional.

Thing where schools do like a day where people.

It's and it's very problematic because we also do like the slavery thing and some people do some black face as well.

It's a weird day, but.

It's celebrating Concita, right, It's like the celebration the day that Columbus supposedly came here the first time.

So it's a weird day, but it happens every year.

There's semen a photo of Benito that is circulating around where he's la he's a little kid.

So some people were saying.

Ah, this is like just a play of like what we do in school, but with money, right, because he like trying to downplay what's happening and actually say so.

For me, it's funny because I think they're right, but I think it's not a bad thing.

I think it's amazing that he's doing Elia, Pertrica Nida for everyone with big production values, because we actually needed, like the in the moment we're living here, we need this affirmation and it's the affirmation we used to get from the left entrecho media here in Puerto Rico, which is not really a left because it's more like you know, national sentiment dress as radical because it's just like the independence movement right, And some people co opted those feelings about talking about Pertrica and Nida through that lens and they tend to be very serious, and I always hated that.

So I really like that he's.

Doing it being horny, being funny, because I think BENITOA is so funny.

Like truly genuine sense of humor.

One of his.

Powerful things about his lyrics are they are deep and funny and simple, like you can left because you see recognition on them, Like con you kind of laugh because you kind of know what he's talking about, Gondola Andrea production, right, So that's like, that's a great line, but he's actually making fun of the people that say that, like he's actually the kind of pub and people say, and those are people from Puerto Rico saying that, because there's always been a class thing about Regaeton being bad and from the poor people are from the black people, right.

I am from a generation that started working hearing about economic crisis, physical crisis as a reporter, that's the only thing I've been reporting about.

Pretty much everything is related to that for my whole professional life, and for the first time in my life in Puerto Rico, I go to a place where that's.

Not a problem problem.

It's quite the opposite, say, and I remember remember being there thinking, Oh, so this is what we could do.

A life size mogote a flamboy.

I've been thinking about this.

I'm like, maybe they did have a budget.

It doesn't seem like it, but I guess the budget was like whatever we need to spend to do what we want to do.

And that as a journalist, as a person adjacent to the culture world, we know how hard that is, how much we would love to have all the budgets possible right to produce our things.

And I feel it's also as a nochella Puerto rican da it's a great thing to show p Orricans what we can be and what we can do.

And I feel like that's literally what he wants to do.

It's interesting to see him like presenting the play for the first time.

The only moment where he was like tributing was this moment the first time he did it.

I know he's done it again, but that was kind of impressive, which is like when he goes to the house and does the concert on the top, which is like Patima Casina.

He has like a cell phone and he started reading like every single name of every red artist ever.

Wow itamente.

He was just reading number number and number number.

I heard this, every single name, everybody was.

At the end, he made like this little speech of and I know that somewhere a good look mothersa, Who's gonna come in the handed on?

Like he's also like talking about the future and then being the funny guy he is Joe, So you know, that's just that's where you go like okay to Tepo, this is this is for real, Like you don't you don't do that in a concert that everybody's been waiting, Like there was international press that day, like reading from a list on how fifteen thousands said, and people are actually responding to every single name.

That's incredible.

Definitely, I think that we look back at our celebrations of the labertorcan Well perto Rico Andela was Labertorrican, yesmo Byo and and we are critical of it, but there's that part of nostalgia that I feel still embodies that idea and that that photo and seeing for me, every time I see the photos that he shares from his childhood, it's like it's from my childhood because it's also it's a piece the Terra Casina.

So I feel like we are critical, but he's embracing it from a much more complex place.

Definitely, it's a much.

More conceptual show than he's ever done.

There are more like theatrics, and there's more like a narrative, and it's thought out and there's more of an.

Arc centering Julita finding the drum like once he starts playing, and every song from that first part is just bombay stare and it never goes away.

So that's interesting because this Houlito is like a real Afrobria doing he's not right, it tends to be so that already is fixing in that sense, and he's actually doing things in chronological order a little bit because like that.

Then eventually when in the house you have planna and then eventually he closes with salsa, which you can say is the evolution of those type of musica kep are considered Porto ricanya, even though there's.

A lot of other influences.

So you go like, oh, people were thinking about this, right, and then the whole scene and just Hornysina is like the unity of that, which is what we like.

At least seventies eighties kids lived like we were even Moimasino, bessinoim mexxinal el primo, that familiar, right, And there was a moment where I felt like putty me Casina and it's crazy because me Cassino and wealio and it feels like it was very Hendino.

And then using the three.

Stages because there were three stages at the end.

Right to actually champion other people and then champion the sounds of perto Rico while making Regatoon, which a lot of culture of people in Pertofrico still deny, saying Regedo is also part of this.

Yeah, I think it's amazing, right, Like I think it's great, and I think it's a great testament, and I think I think that's where we start to see the parallels.

Of what we were trying to do with three.

We can't spoil stuff because this is before, but there's so many things that are like echoes or mirrors of stuff we have found during this proproducing of and there's a lot of echoes of the feelings that you feel when you're there and the championing of others.

Let's take a break, stay with us, Hey, we're back.

Bad Bunny and the team at La Brega are all tapping into the same cultural ideas.

Let's listen into the conversation.

Benito says, this thing, which I think is like the core of the whole uh, the album and the concert, which is that gratefulness of actually his father and mother Grascia Mammy ge Metuitaki, which means like thank you, mother that you had me here.

In Puerto Rico, which is like that connection of Mamadaba, I love you, but I'm very glad that you actually did it here, even though it's been very hard, Like that whole story at the end LA showing that it's not easy being born here.

But I'm so grateful, And I think our season kind of goes.

There, right.

Yeah, I mean, not to give ourselves too much credit, but I think it's more something that beneathos tapping into is something that we're tapping into.

Also.

I mean, even at the beginning of the show, before anything starts, there's this billboard in front of the hill stage the Mogote, which has these facts about Puerto Rican history, And before I had even been to the show, I think we were all struck by how many of those have to do with the episodes that we were already reporting and recording.

There's one about the United Nations and how Puerto Rico's colonial status has been a long time issue with the United Nations.

We have an episode about that.

Baseball is another one.

Yeah, just the presence of athletes is box specific resers specifically in the show, and just like, yeah, the sense of championing of these people that he brings out again who he truly adores.

Right, there's a through line of the people, as Lauda said, who were there.

And so I'm excited for you all to hear it.

Thinking about how hard it was for us to decide on the episodes because there were so many champions that we wanted to acknowledge.

Yeah, so just to think about how his process is, I have a sense that he's usually a very impulsive person in terms of the decisions.

That they take.

Oh, I imagine he's just texting people on the.

Lit the time, Like that's how Pedro got there.

He was the first one to sing Hawaii if I'm not mistaken, and he said that it was like, yeah, I got the message last night and it was like, okay, I'm here, I'm taking a plane and I'm gonna be there.

He didn't even even have time to learn the song.

But yeah, show up with the sheets.

Yeah, I mean he was like so quick.

Right.

But going to talking about Lady and how when we started thinking about the show and about the season and how many examples of champions of Parican culture, Perican nests or pericon or whatever you want to call it, it was hard to decide and they were to choose froms.

This is my second season that I've had the privilege and the honor to edit Lea Brega, and being in Puerto Rico this week and seeing Bad Bunny, a parallel that I see in his art and with what you know, we are trying to do in Lebrega is one of the things that was like most most touching for me about the concert and about Benito in general, is that it's very clear that he is speaking to a very specific audience, and he is speaking to his people, you know, and he's not contorting himself to be legible to an outside gaze, to a white North American or even global audience.

You know.

He is making his art for Puerto Ricans.

And then he's saying, and if you want to come and take part asimos perra qui a guisaimos, you know, and to Mexican ching kitching Puerto Rico.

You know, to have an artist who's saying, come see me here.

And even though it wasn't speaking to me specifically, I felt it resonated with me.

It landed with me.

I think so many people, especially who come from communities who have faced colonization.

There is this survival mechanism that develops over generations where you perform or explain for whiteness, for the colonizer right to survive, and then three hundred years later you find that that's still like deep inside of you.

And to see an artist saying no, I'm not performing for any gaze except the gaze of my people.

To me, that's like inherently subversive, inherently political, and very very powerful.

And I found just feeling like a lot of solidarity, you know, and love and cutting you for that message and for the people it's for.

You can get an extended version of this episode on Futuro Plus.

Oh my God, It's so worth it.

Also watch out for season three of La Brega It's coming soon, definitely being John's season one and season two.

Our episode this week was produced by Sam Leads Ezeguil Rodriguez Andino and Monica Moreles Garcia.

It was edited by our executive editor Maria Garcia.

It was mixed by Stephanie Lebou.

Fernanda Echavarri is our managing editor.

Di Latino USA.

Team also includes Roxanna Guire, Julia Caruso, Jessica Ellis, Renaldo Leanoz Junior, Andrea Lopez Cruzado, Luis Luna Firi, mar Marquez, Julieta Martinelli, Adriana Rodriguez, and Nancy Drucquillo.

Benni le Ramirez and I are executive producers and I'm your host Maria Josa.

Latino USA is part of Iheart's Michael Tura podcast Network.

Executive producers at iHeart are Rio Gomez and Arlene Santana.

Join us again on our next episode.

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