Orlando Sentinel: Support the music that makes Puerto Rico sing
When Bad Bunny closed his DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS World Tour this summer — the highest-grossing tour in history never to set foot in the United States — he gave a live demonstration of a truth we often forget: Puerto Rican music has never been one sound, and it cannot be confined to a single box.
As the nominees for the 27th Annual Latin Grammy Awards are announced in mid-September, just as National Hispanic Heritage Month begins, the timing offers a useful reminder: our musical legacy is not a static artifact. It is a dialogue. And this year, the conversation carries a distinctly Puerto Rican accent — with Daddy Yankee named the Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year.
There is no single musical expression capable of containing Puerto Rico. Our history includes bomba, plena, danza, música jíbara, salsa, jazz, popular music, sacred music and countless other traditions. Puerto Rican musicians have carried those traditions beyond the island and changed popular music worldwide.
For me, my Puerto Rican identity has followed me through a career spanning Latin music, jazz, classical composition, commercial production, media scoring and education. Sometimes that identity is explicit — in a title or a rhythm. Other times it is subtler — in how I understand musical conversation, approach improvisation or think about community. A tradition stays alive because people continue to perform it, teach it, reinterpret it and challenge it.