Ramtin Arablui

I was driving my kid to school and I would read banners in black background, white font that said, every time you lose power, remember that that is the PNP, which is the new progressive party's fault.

And in many ways, his pro-independence stance is again reflecting back what so many in his generation feel.

Benito is part of that broader phenomenon of a younger generation that has been tired of living through crisis after crisis and crisis after crisis and that think that the future has been robbed from them.

I think they're losing that fear of what independence might be.

And Bad Bunny has doubled down on Puerto Rican independence.

Rather than tour in the continental U.S.

in 2025, he set up a months-long residency in Puerto Rico, with many shows exclusively for Puerto Rican residents.

Karina went to one of the shows.

The show was amazing.

the residency made news.

It brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the Puerto Rican economy.

But Karina also has critiques.

Honestly, it was like a theme park.

All of San Juan and even some of the other little towns I went to on that trip

felt like a Bad Bunny concert theme park.

You see Church's Chicken doing a pop-up looking like a little roadside chinchorro, you know, kind of reproducing, like, tropes of rural life in corporate plastic.

Because Bad Bunny, for all his political causes, is also a brand.

And he's just one person.

And yet, in many ways, he's become the stand-in for all of Puerto Rico, which has its pros — it brings attention to the island — and its cons.

Whenever Bad Bunny does anything, I get 100 emails.