ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
After a year selling out stadiums from South America to Europe to Asia, the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny returned home this weekend.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRUMMING)
FLORIDO: His surprise announcement that he'd end his global tour with two final concerts in San Juan sent Puerto Ricans on and off the island scrambling for tickets online. I met Yara Vargas outside the stadium this weekend.
YARA VARGAS: I'm from Puerto Rico. But I live in Arizona right now.
FLORIDO: She was one of the lucky ones. Her sister snagged tickets. So even though Vargas had just flown home after visiting family in PR...
VARGAS: I used all my airline miles, and here I am again (laughter).
FLORIDO: It's island pride, she said.
VARGAS: It's the pride that we have that he has gone all over the world to represent us, for people to know our music, for people to know what Puerto Rico is about. And for him to close in Puerto Rico is incredibly special.
FLORIDO: Jian Cordero, a university student, lives just outside San Juan in a neighborhood coping with Puerto Rico's many infrastructural crises. He often gets no running water or electricity.
JIAN CORDERO: Yesterday, I don't have electricity for, like, four hours. And then it came, and then it go back, and then it came, and then it go back. So it's really stressful, really, to live here.
FLORIDO: He goes to lots of protests. Getting tickets gave him a joyful reason to join a crowd.
CORDERO: I think that's really important and why this is for the Puerto Rican people because we are having so much issues in our island. And this is the little feeling that, as a society, can be united but united for happiness.
FLORIDO: Anushka Dufresne was born and raised in New York. She said Bad Bunny's global success has changed her life as a Puerto Rican in the diaspora.
ANUSHKA DUFRESNE: I've always said it quite proudly, but when I was younger, there was a bit of a desire to just be American. I'm from the Bronx. I'm a New Yorker. That was my identity because it was the safest. And now, I can be proud to be Puerto Rican.
BAD BUNNY: Puerto Rico.
(CHEERING)
FLORIDO: Inside Puerto Rico's largest baseball stadium, under the wide-open Caribbean sky, with a massive Puerto Rican flag fluttering in the breeze, Bad Bunny began his concert with a message to his people.
BAD BUNNY: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "I can't return your water. I can't bring you electricity."
BAD BUNNY: (Speaking Spanish).
(CHEERING)
FLORIDO: "What I want to bring you is a little bit of joy."
BAD BUNNY: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "And a reason," he said, "to feel proud to be from here and to have hope and the strength to keep fighting for this island."
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing, inaudible). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
