For one night, Puerto Rico was the center of the universe. To close its historic, Bad Bunny moved the entire world to a small piece of land in the Caribbean with a concert of more than three hours broadcast live by Amazon platforms and seen in every corner of the world. But here, for the happy ones who could attend One morelike the Global Megaestrella baptized this last function at home after 30 concerts over three months, the outflow noise was not felt. Only the heat of thousands of Puerto Ricans who, along with Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, shouted once more: I don’t want to leave here.
That was the name of the singer’s residence in the Coliseum of Puerto Rico that between July and September of the island. 31 concerts were sold as a whole and more than half a million people attended the show. For the now famous Casita de Bad Bunny, part of its stage, during the last months they paraded famous from LeBron James, Penelope Cruz or Austin Butler. In all functions there were guest artists, including great names of the urban genre, most of them from Puerto Rico, such as Jowell and Randy, Ñengo Flow, Archangel or La Ghetto, but also from other countries, such as Colombian Feid or Dominican El Alfa.
But, as Martínez Ocasio promised in all concerts, every night was unique. And this Saturday was no exception. Bad Bunny really assumed his role as a host of Puerto Rican culture and invited the rest of the world to participate in it. To listen, learn and love Puerto Rico, even if it was at a distance, even if it were only for one night. From the sauce to the full and the bomb, always through reggaeton and perreo, the singer exposed what is the Puerto Rican flavor and export the accent, the rhythm and joy of his people.
The broadcast of the concert was possible thanks to. But his alliance will go beyond tonight. The technological giant announced that it will invest in local education and economy with a series of initiatives aimed at promoting the development of the island, which has fallen into a spiral of crisis in recent years, particularly after the hurricane María Devastate the territory in 2017, and leaving structural damage that persists today. Tonight’s concert was planned to take place on the eighth anniversary of the cyclone.
For Puerto Ricans, from María, September 20 has been a solemn date. But today, Bad Bunny made the storm’s anniversary a celebration of the resilience of the Puerto Ricans. A tribute to those missing, but also a gift for those who follow. “There is no bigger pride than saying that I am from P fucking R, ”Martínez Ocasio repeated tonight. A feeling that the entire concert was evident, but especially when he interpreted, along with the Boricua salsa Marc Anthony, Lovelya love letter to Puerto Rico that was not only sung, but was cried for the attendees.
Puerto Rico first
Rocío Guerrero, director of Music for Latin America and Iberia at Amazon Music, says that since she started working in the company five years ago, her dream was to manage an agreement like the one she devised with Bad Bunny: “Use what is the universe and the Amazon giant to continue supporting and raising Latin music.” When the artist announced his residence a year ago, he knew it was time and met with the singer’s team. “For them, from the first minute in which we talked, everything was how we could. That was the goal and mission of this alliance,” recalls the executive after landing on the island to attend the show This Saturday.
The agreement itself, the first of its kind between Amazon and an artist, has two components: investment in local education and technology, and support for local trade. “On the education side, we want to create educational centers in which we can help with Stem courses for teachers, for children. And that these centers serve as a refuge in case of hurricanes,” says Guerrero. The promotion of education on the island arrives at a critical moment for the local system: hundreds of public schools have closed in the years after María, and the educational infrastructure is on the verge of collapse.
“Then, on the side of the support for local trade and the economy, which is the part that excites me more, we have two aspects,” Guerrero continues. “One is with alliances with local farms so they can use Amazon infrastructure.” These alliances will allow Puerto Rico to be the supplier of fresh food and vegetables within the shopping website of the technological giant. And at the same time, Amazon will launch local purchase: a global store with Puerto Rican products of all kinds. “It will be Puerto Rico’s mirror to the world,” says Guerrero.
Most of the initiatives, managed between the Bad Bunny and Amazon team, without contribution from the local or federal government, as Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, they will start working next year, when Amazon will open its first logistics center on the island.
Sing to the future
For Arturo Massol Deyá, executive director of Casa Pueblo, a community self -management organization that fights for the conservation of local natural resources and, the pact between Amazon and Bad Bunny is a step in the right direction. “It gives happiness that Bad Bunny wants to make social reinvestment,” says Massol.
The biologist also sent the artist’s team, before the residence began, an estimate of the ecological footprint that would leave the 31 concerts. According to the expert calculations, the residence will have issued approximately 23,675 metric tons of carbon dioxide, between the energy used, generated waste or the transport of the attendees. “By doing that estimate, it was like saying, ‘we want you to do social reinvestment to mitigate the problem.’ “But we want you to invest in the solution.”
For Casa Pueblo, the main problem that persists eight years after María It is the instability of the local electricity network. The one that collapsed completely when the hurricane hit the island and left more than three million people in the dark, some for days, others for months. Since then, electricity has continued to fail, and. The solution, says Massol, is solar energy. Casa Pueblo has been at the forefront of the use of this natural resource in Puerto Rico for more than two decades, but especially from the Cyclone in 2017.
Massol, who attended one of the concerts of the residence, where Casa Pueblo carried out on the outskirts of the enclosure an educational exhibition on the resilience of solar energy, invites Bad Bunny to promote this alternative. “Bad Bunny is singing forever because the route on which the government takes us is the continuity of the blackout,” he says, referring to one of the artist’s songs about the situation on the island. “But it is important to sing in the sunlight, to the alternative, because it exists and is proven.”
