Consider This from NPR - What Bad Bunny means to Puerto Ricans

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

This summer, the island of Puerto Rico was under the thrall of Bad Bunny. His 31-concert residency at a stadium in San Juan was a homecoming for the global superstar.It's also a homecoming for many thousands of people who left home – but are flocking back for the shows.NPR’s Adrian Florido reports on how the concerts resonated with Puerto Ricans on and off the island.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] episode was produced by Kathryn Fink, Elena Burnett, Liz Baker and Marc Rivers. It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon and Gigi Douban. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Scott Detrow. Happy New Year's Eve. Today is, of course, the last day of the year and the final day of NPR's end-of-year fundraising campaign. And it is not too late to end the year on a high note and invest in a public service that matters to you. Public Radio is about to enter its first full year ever without federal funding.

And we really do need your support now more than ever before. Thank you so much if you're already an NPR Plus supporter or if you have already made a year-end donation. So many listeners have stepped up and shared why they support public radio. Like John in California who says truth is becoming a rare commodity, you are the miners of it. We appreciate that and we appreciate all of the support we have gotten this year. You can support NPR's quest for the truth moving into 2026 by signing up for NPR Plus. NPR Plus gets you access to perks like bonus episodes for many NPR podcasts, including consider this,

and you get to feel good about supporting public media while you listen. You can join us at plus.npr.org. Now to today's show. In Puerto Rico, it was the summer of bad bunny. That's when he played 31 sold-out arena concerts in San Juan. Having become a global superstar, he wanted to galvanize his homeland and let Puerto Rican fans see him perform, whether or not they actually still live in Puerto Rico. Yari Amar Bonilla is a political anthropologist at Princeton University. She went to more than one concert this summer.

Oh, I get emotional. It's almost like forgiving. 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 were still part of it. At the beginning of this year, Bad Bunny released a new album that was his most Puerto Rican and his most political record yet. The instrumentals often reference older styles of folk music from the island.

And some lyrics criticize gentrification and over tourism. When Bad Bunny came to NPR's tiny desk this year, he spoke with NPR music's Anna Maria Serre about the importance of preserving cultural tradition. One always lives in fear of losing something, he told me. When you're afraid of losing something, what you do is take care of it, even more. protect it, defend it.

Consider this. Bad Bunny's residency was a homecoming for a global superstar. It was also a homecoming for many Puerto Ricans who left their island in search of greater opportunities and then came back to see him perform. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Consider This from NPR. Bad Bunny's concert residency in Puerto Rico this summer brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in tourism spending to the island, but it also became an immense source of local pride. For many young people, the shows rekindled a determination to stay and make a life on the island.

This summer, NPR's Adrian Florido spent time in Puerto Rico, and brought us this report. 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. Oh my God, like I feel at home, I feel at peace, I feel like happy for the first time in months.

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. It's a love letter to Puerto Rico and the culture, especially to the people that have left. The concert's titled, No Me Quiroir de Kyi, 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 Bombat drum music that was first danced by enslaved Africans along the island's coasts. Musica hibara, 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 leave the dream of coming back, he says, to those of us were still here. We don't want to leave.

We're still here. This song in the rhythm of Blena has become an anthem on the island. It's just about wishing you'd taken more photos at the people you've lost. Yerrimar 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 bomb for her soul. Oh, I get emotional. It's almost like forgiving. 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. But her favorite parts of the concert are the defiant ones. Many young people are no longer just accepting that they'll have.

have to leave defined opportunity. Many are putting up a fight to stay, getting politically active, protesting, the sorry state of affairs. Bad Bunny's songs reflect that, too. When he says, "'De here, I don't move." 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. And then everyone's saying, I'm the P-B-G-R! Danisha Ghalerza is playing her Quattro, a Puerto R in the public plaza of her hometown, Guayania, on the island's southern coast. I'm blessed, that, for the most of my family, no has had to go.

I'm blessed, but most of my family has always. not had to leave, she says. She's 23. She wants to pursue her musical career in Puerto Rico. I'd like to be in Puerto Rico, but 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 difficult 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. He was an amazing feeling, Galatra says. She's been learning Bad Bunny's songs on her Quatero. Bad Bunny is making young people so proud to be from here, her mother says. And when you're proud of patriot And then the reality That you don't want to go and it's

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 and PR News, San Juan Puerto Rico. This episode was produced by Catherine Fink, Elena Burnett and Liz Baker and featured reporting from Anna Maria Sair. It was edited by Patrick Jaron Watanan and Gigi Duman.

Our executive producer, Saming Edigan. It's considered this from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.