'A LEGEND': Bad Bunny brings Puerto Rican pride to epic show

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San Juan (AFP) — Bad Bunny’s sweeping first concert of his three-month Puerto Rico residency was a night of palpable emotion for the megastar whose latest smash artistic endeavour brings his global stardom back to his roots.

The marathon show in San Juan late Friday was flush with styles — from club beats and high-octane salsa to folkloric dance and soulful acoustics.

At one point, the enormously popular Bad Bunny — born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — appeared to pause to soak in the moment, breaking into a heartfelt smile as he gazed out at his thousands of ecstatic compatriots.

Savoring the present and honoring the past is a lesson taken from the 31-year-old’s sixth album “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”) and a theme the residency is celebrating, with a full-throated ode to Puerto Rican heritage.

The ambitious setlist included many of Bad Bunny’s most recent tracks that underscore injustices in the US Caribbean island territory, but the evening was one of celebration: a lens on Puerto Rico that focuses on its resistance, pride and joy.

The first song was previously unreleased, and there were no details on whether the track will eventually have an official drop.

Some fans online speculated that perhaps he’ll keep it exclusive to the residency.

That would be a fitting move for the artist who, after a blazing burst to global fame that saw him briefly move to Los Angeles, has returned home and intensified his efforts to make music about Puerto Ricans, for Puerto Ricans.

The first nine shows of his 30-concert stretch, which will take over San Juan’s Coliseo for consecutive three-day weekends into September, are only open to Puerto Rican residents — and the odd celebrity like LeBron James, who attended Friday night.

‘A legend’

The night paid homage to Puerto Rican culture and history — including with percussive plena music and bomba-infused rhythms — but it was also a career retrospective of sorts, showcasing the immense range that Bad Bunny has exhibited since his major breakthrough less than a decade ago.

The show featured the heavy Latin trap of his 2018 hit “La Romana” and the 2020 club smash “Yo Perreo Sola” — shining examples of his earlier work in reggaeton that catapulted him to stardom.

“His reggaeton never fails,” student John Hernandez Ramirez said ahead of the concert.

The 21-year-old said he was drawn to Bad Bunny for the heart-pounding beats. But more recently, he said he has been inspired by the artist’s lyrical evolution.

Hailing from a rural area of Puerto Rico, Hernandez Ramirez said he found particular resonance in “Lo Que Paso a Hawaii” — Bad Bunny’s exploration of gentrification, detrimental tourism and the colonization of both the state and his homeland.

Bad Bunny highlighted those issues in the lead-up to the concert, projecting historical facts onto a big screen over the lush, tropical set on which chickens roamed freely. Many of the sentiments drew enormous cheers from spectators as they filed in.

“Puerto Rico has been a colony since Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ the island during his second voyage to the New World in 1493,” one read, with a parenthetical explaining that “the Taino tribe already inhabited the island.”

Part of Bad Bunny’s stage design included a house built in the island’s typical style, which had featured in a short film he made starring legendary Puerto Rican filmmaker Jacobo Morales — clips of which also appeared on the big screen.

From atop the structure, Bad Bunny delivered some of his most iconic songs, including the recent “Nuevayol” along with “Titi me pregunto.”

He then returned to the main stage for a hip-swiveling salsa sequence, wearing a 1970s-style tailored suit in the style of the genre’s icons who preceded him.

Streamers in the colours of the Puerto Rican flag burst from the ceiling as he led fans in a mesmerizing medley that included “Baile Inolvidable,” accompanied by a full band.

The show clocked in at three hours but fans — many adorned in flag attire and others sporting baseball jerseys of the Puerto Rican baseball legend Roberto Clemente — couldn’t get enough.

Marta Cuellar, a 61-year-old Colombian and longtime Puerto Rican resident, told AFP that the series of concerts is a great way to celebrate the island — and a gift to Latin American culture more generally.

“Bad Bunny,” she said, “is going to be a legend.”

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