Alana: Wepa, dos notitas: first, this episode is going to be in a mixture of English and Spanish. Osea… sera en Espanglish. Queremos experimentar un poco, so there won’t be two versions of the episode in your feed, just this one! 

Y… este capítulo incluye lenguaje que de pronto no usarían con sus hijes pequeñes– this episode includes language that you might not use around your kids. ‘Pa que lo sepan!

Bueno, aqui vamos. 

[MUSIC]

Xenia: La primera vez que escuché preciosa, yo er a un adolescente y estaba con mi mamá que estaba escuchando a Marc Antony…

[MUSIC - “Preciosa,” Marc Anthony: “Preciosa te llevo dentro…”]

Alana: This is Xenia Rubinos. 

Xenia: como las madres hacen: a todo volumen

[MUSIC - “Preciosa,” Marc Anthony: “Muy dentro de mi corazón”]

Xenia: Me acuerdo que mi mamá cantaba con todo su corazón a esa canción. 

And I remember it just being really important to her. So it felt important to me too.

[MUSIC/SCORING]  

Alana: Xenia and I have something in common, las dos somos hijas de mujeres puertorriqueñas que aman a Marc Anthony [we are both daughters of Puerto rican women who love Marc Anthony] . Xenia was born in Brooklyn y yo en Manhattan. 

Xenia: And I'm thinking a lot about my family and about my story and where I come from, and being far away from a home that you never knew, but that at the same time is very much yours.

Alana: Her particular kind of yearning…  it feels similar to mine too. Quizás se siente como tu añoranza, tambien, whether you’re longing for Puerto Rico or some other home. It’s relatable. 

Cuando Marc Anthony canta Preciosa, escuchas un orgullo sin límites –

[MUSIC - “Preciosa,” Marc Anthony : “Yo seré Puerto Riqueno!”]

Alana: Y sí, cuando lo escucho siento ese orgullo también. Pero yo sé que cuando pienso en Puerto Rico estos días, siento más layers – I don’t feel only pride, I also feel pain.  

[MUSIC/SCORING]

Alana: P -Erre duele. Es un lugar complicado, como ya saben, lo contamos en cada episodio. Así que, I was wondering, and, actually, all of us at La Brega HQ were wondering…  is there a way to hear Preciosa… and other Puerto Rican classics… through new ears in 2023? And better yet, is there a new way to sing them? 

¿Hay una manera nueva, en 2023, de cantar estas canciones clásicas? 

Y con esas preguntas, nos dedicamos a producir no solo un podcast esta temporada… pero también un álbum para acompañarlo. Un álbum de covers. 

[MUSIC - upbeat]

Alana: We got some of our favorite Puerto Rican artists 

Ana Macho: This is Ana Macho

Mireya Ramos: …Mireya Ramos

ÌFÉ: This is ÌFÉ

RaiNao: yo soy RaiNao

Velcro: This is Velcro

Angélica: Hola, soy Angélica

Xenia: This is Xenia Rubinos

José: Soy José de Balún

Alana: And we asked: How would you reimagine these songs for today? and even for tomorrow. 

…So, I'm super pleased to present you with La Brega's love letter to Puerto Rican music. La Brega: El Álbum. And in this bonus episode… We go behind the music.

[MUSIC - La Brega theme]

Alana: From Futuro Studios and WNYC Studios, I'm Alana Casanova-Burgess, and this is La Brega. The BONUS track: Canciones para el futuro de Puerto Rico. Songs for the Future of Puerto Rico.

[MUSIC -  theme resolves]

Alana: Our La Brega Bonus Episode has something new for us (and for you). En el lado B, tenemos una conversación con Angélica Negrón y José Olivares de la banda Balún who not only did a cover for the album, they also scored both seasons of La Brega. We recorded this live at On Air Fest, a podcast festival en Nueva York…

Pero no podemos ir al Side B sin el lado A. Entonces vamos a ir track por track to hear from the artists themselves to get the answer to that very important question. How did you reimagine these classics for 2023? 

So here we go. 

[SOUND EFFECT - tape deck and tape player]

Alana: First up, —Track 1: 

“Preciosa”… written by Rafael Hernández… And covered by Xenia Rubinos. It’s a wistful, minimalist R & B track that takes this classic to new, contemporary heights.

[MUSIC - “Preciosa,” Xenia Rubinos:” Preciosa seras sin banderas sin lauros ni gloria]

Xenia: Preciosa is the unofficial anthem of Puerto Rico.

Alana: Xenia está de acuerdo con Myzo, el que cantó Preciosa a capella en el avión en ese primer episodio. 

[beat]

Alana: ¿Se acuerdan?

Myzo: “...Preciosa será sin banderas sin lauros ni gloria….”

Alana: Para ellos, y para muchos boricuas, Preciosa IS Puerto Rico’s anthem. 

[For them, and for a lot of Puerto Ricans, Preciosa IS Puerto Rico’s anthem. ]

Xenia: It's an iconic song. It's historic,

Alana: Y hoy en día, en un contexto de desplazamiento, esa añoranza en las letras se siente bien pero bien presente. 

Xenia: The lyrics kind of still shine through in today's context

[MUSIC - “Preciosa,” Xenia Rubinos: “ Que aunque pase lo que pase, yo sere Puertorriqueña”]

Alana: So, Xenia kept peeling back the layers…

[MUSIC]

Alana: And found the core. La brega itself. 

Xenia:... Me he dado cuenta de cuánto es una canción de amor. It’s a love song full of longing.

[MUSIC - “Preciosa,” Xenia Rubinos: “Yo te quiero puerto Rico, yo te quiero” ]

[beat]

[SOUND EFFECT - tape deck and tape player]

Alana: Track 2: El Gran Varón… written by Omar Alfanno and performed by Willie Colón… 

[MUSIC - “El Gran Varón”, Willie Colón: “En la sala de un hospital…”]

Alana: And covered by Ana Macho.

[MUSIC - “El Gran Varón”, Ana Macho:  “a las 9:43 nació Simón”]

Ana Macho: I feel like before this experience, I had a superficial relationship with the song…

Ana Macho is a pop and urbano artist from Caguas, Puerto Rico. When I interviewed them for Episode 2 about the song, we chatted about the idea of them doing a Gran Varón cover. 

Ana Macho: Me gustaría hacer un cover del Gran Varón. Estaría bien cute. Estaría bien cute bien cute bien cute.

El Gran Varón tells the story of a father rejecting his child - and, as we unpacked in episode 2, es una canción que puede provocar una mezcla de reacciones. Hay gente que se reconoce en la canción,  [It’s a song that can bring on a mix of emotions. There are people who feel seen in the lyrics] and others are hurt by its depiction from afar of queer and trans life.  

Ana Macho: The first thing I knew that I wanted to do was, like, genre bend and do something different. 

But for Ana, the question was: how does the song change when a trans-queer body is behind the mic?

Ana Macho: La canción es como lo dices, no  lo que dices… Puede tener un contexto diferente también saliendo de una cuerpa, eh, trans queer? 

Alana: Y voy a ser bien honesta… desde que nos mandó su cover, la he estado escuchando pero ON REPEAT.

[MUSIC - “El Gran Varón”, Ana Macho: Cuenta la gente que un día el papá, fue a 

visitarlo sin avisar, vaya que error” ]

Alana: Ana redid the song as a New Wave, synth pop song — It’s got big rock guitar solos,

[MUSIC - Guitar]

Alana: and moody synth,

[MUSIC - Synths]

Alana: And those big fun 80’s snares.

[MUSIC - Snares]

Ana: We decided to go with an eighties dance pop theme.

[MUSIC - El Gran Varón, Ana Macho: “Su papá jamás le habló, lo abandonó para siempre”]

Ana Macho: I wanted to contextualize the song as a song set at the peak of the AIDS epidemic. 

Alana: Remember the original came out in 1989. Pero hay mucho que Ana Macho NO cambio de la canción – ni los pronombres, ni el nombre del personaje… 

Ana Macho: I decided to stick with as much as possible to the original lyrics. Just out of respect to this hypothetical, fictional character. Like it's their journey. It's not mine to like, project onto it.

Alana: Sin embargo, le dio una nueva manera de experimentarla. Y le dio otro aire… 

Ana Macho: I feel like I found new layers and new, new meanings to the song and new ways to connect to it as a queer person….

[MUSIC - El Gran Varón, Ana Macho: “Simón, Simón”]

[SOUND EFFECT - tape deck and tape player]

Alana: Track 3: 

OK so, te acuerdas que en nuestro episodio sobre Suavemente, quisimos saber porque ese merengue famosísimo que se toca por todas partes, viene de Puerto Rico y no de la República Dominicana? 

That episode was ultimately about the enduring influence of Dominican immigrants to Puerto Rico… en nuestra sociedad y cultura.

So, we thought it would be cool to ask artists from P -erre with Dominican heritage to cover the song. 

Mireya: Hi, I’m Mireya Ramos.

Velcro: My name is Andrés Ramos, uh, better known as Velcro.

Alana: Si, te estás preguntando si son familia, well……

 Mireya:  I also have the honor and the pleasure of working with my brother

Alana: Instead of covering Suavemente, we figured… let’s do a cover from a group that’s a big part of that episode… la Patrulla 15, Uno de los grupos dominicanos que llevó el merengue a Puerto Rico.

[MUSIC - “No tienes Corazón,” Patrulla 15: “Que tú no tienes, que tú no tienes, que tú no tienes compasión de nadie/no la tuviste, no la tuviste/ conmigo cuando la necesité”]

Mireya:  I'm very excited to be working on “No Tienes Corazón” 

[MUSIC - “No tienes Corazón,” Mireya x Velcro: “Que tú no tienes, que tú no tienes compasión de nadie. No la tuviste…”]

Alana: Mireya is best known as the founder of  Flor de Toloache, the premier all-female mariachi band. Pero, gracias a su familia, nunca ha sido limitada a un solo género de música. 

Mireya: Mi mamá que es dominicana pues siempre ella se encargó de que mi hermano 

y yo escucháramos música de todas partes de Latinoamérica…

Alana: Incluyendo merengues y otros géneros del caribe. 

[MUSIC - merengue]

Mireya: We would be in the living room, dancing with our mom and just being happy and enjoying life and, and enjoying life….el calorsito, the warmth of, of Puerto Rico.

[MUSIC - merengue]

Mireya: Y gracias a eso, esa experiencia con mi familia lo expreso en mi música y en todo lo que hago. 

[MUSIC - “No tienes Corazón,” Mireya Ramos & Velcro: “ Yo te di todo, yo te di todo/ yo te di todo lo que me…”]

Alana: Mireya and Velcro tapped DJ Adam 

[MUSIC - “No tienes corazón,” Mireya Ramos & Velcro Ramos: “DJ Adam, y el brother Velcro”]

Alana: A legendary producer in DR who made many of Tego Calderón’s most famous beats, and helped to re-imagine the track with them. 

[MUSIC - “No Tienes Corazón” Mireya & Velcro Ramos: percusión]

Alana: El resultado es un afro-house kind of track.

[MUSIC - “No Tienes Corazón” Mireya & Velcro Ramos: “Pero por tí no lloro más si tu no tienes corazón”]

Alana: …bien divertido. It feels like it connects the tradition of Dominican merengue to global Black music currents of today.

Es un homenaje a la riqueza cultural que el pueblo dominicano ha traído a Puerto Rico. 

Mireya: It's really cool to go back and get in touch with my Dominican side through this merengue.

[MUSIC - “No tienes Corazón”, Mireya y Velcro]

[SOUND EFFECT - tape deck and tape player]

Alana: Raquel Reichard, nuestra reportera del episodio 4, escuchó el  cover para su episodio sobre freestyle…

Raquel: Let's have a listen to this here song…

[MUSIC - “I wonder if I take you home,” RaiNao and ÌFÉ “And end up hurt, oh I don’t know…”]

Raquel: Oh my God, it's so good [laughter]

[MUSIC - “I wonder if I take you home,” RaiNao and ÌFÉ: “I just don’t know/ the way that I feel”]

Alana: Track 4: I Wonder If I take you home by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam and Covered by…

Rai Nao: Hola, Yo soy RaiNao…

Alana: That’s right, RaiNao, the urbano artist from Santurce who Rolling Stone recently named one of 5 women who are putting an end to the urbano boy’s club.

RaiNao: … Soy una artista puertorriqueña que está puesta pa’ irse a todo en la música y revolucionar.

Alana: RaiNao had actually never recorded a full track in English before this one.

RaiNao: Pa’ mí significó un reto, grabar una canción absolutamente en inglés por primera vez.

Alana: Y aunque nunca había escuchado la canción de Lisa Lisa, si había escuchado su corito. Pero de otra parte.

RaiNao: … I got hooked with that Black Eyed Peas song.

[MUSIC - “Don’t Phunk With My Heart,” Black-Eyed Peas: “I wonder if I take you home, would you still be in love baby? In love baby?”]

RaiNao: Would you still be in love baby? In love baby? (singing) I realized that all the times I sang that chorus I was singing and loving a version of it…

Alana: Para hacer el cover, Rai Nao se unió con ÌFÉ,

ÌFÉ: Hey everybody this is ÌFÉ! 

Alana: quien escribió nuestro tema, bidewai. ÌFÉ did know the original… and actually.

ÌFÉ: My introduction to Puerto Rican Music was actually through Lisa Lisa.

[MUSIC - I wonder if I take you home, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam: “I Wonder if I Take you home, would you still be in love baby?”]

ÌFÉ: So yeah,  I was gassed to like, be able to come back to Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam in this 

way.

Alana: He took this freestyle track and infused it with his deep knowledge of Afro-Caribbean percussive traditions.

ÌFÉ: So I took the basis of the sort of beat of the song. It's similar to a rhythm that is used in salsa sometimes, it’s called “oriza.”

[ARCHIVAL - How to play ritmo oriza on congas, Lorenzo Cozzarini: oriza rhythm]

ÌFÉ:  So I just took the jingle jangle of the original Lisa Lisa song, and sort of nudged it into the pattern that would be described as oriza.

Alana: Mezcla todo eso con la voz de RaiNao,

[MUSIC - “I Wonder If I take You Home,” Rai Nao & ÌFÉ: “I wonder if I take you home”]

Alana: y bueno…  es un palo. Otro palo.. 

[Mix all of that with Rai Nao’s voice and well… it’s a banger. Another banger]

[MUSIC - “I Wonder If I take You Home,” Rai Nao & ÌFÉ:   “Would you still be in love with me? Because I need you tonight”] 

[BEAT]

[SOUND EFFECT - tape deck and tape player]

Alana: Track 5: Las Caras Lindas de mi Gente Negra. Written by Tite Curet Alonso, first sung by Ismael Rivera in 1978.

[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Ismael Rivera: “Las Caras Lindas de mi gente negra”]

Alana: We asked the 12-piece afro-Puerto Rican salsa orchestra la Tribu de Abrante to make their own version of this ode to black beauty.

[MUSIC - Las Caras Lindas, Tribu de Abrante: “Las Caras Lindas de mi gente negra, son un desfile de…”]

Bárbara: Invita a bailar a mover el cuerpo, a esa celebración de esa alegría. 

Alana: Our reporter, Bárbara Idalissee Abadía-Rexach.

Barbara siente el sabor del lugar por el ritmo que escogió aquí Tribu de Abrante.

Bárbara: …la incorporación de otros ritmos afro-diaspóricos y  afro- puertorriqueños, y volver a traerla a Loíza a través de la bomba.

Alana:  The cover takes this classic salsa, and puts it over Bomba, the great Black Puerto Rican percussive tradition.

[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” Tribu de Abrante: instrumental bomba]

Alana: And Abrante shouts out neighborhoods in San Juan where Black Boricuas still live… and are still being marginalized, cómo La Perla.

[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” La Tribu de Abrante:”Caritas lindas allá abajo de la perla. Mis caras lindas de Llorens Torres”] 

Alana: Y para Barbara, “Las Caras Lindas”....

Bárbara: Todavía es relevante. Es importante. Todavía tenemos que seguir cantandonos entre nosotres mismes.

Alana: It’s still as needed as it was when Maelo first sang it. 

Bárbara: Eh que estamos aquí, que siempre hemos estado y que nuestra belleza también es innegable. 

[MUSIC - “Las Caras Lindas,” La Tribu de Abrante: “Pero que lindas, que lindas son, las caras lindas de mi gente negra”]

 [SOUND EFFECT - tape deck and tape player]

Alana: Y ahora, la última canción del álbum: Track 6: “Olas y Arenas,”

an iconic bolero by Sylvia Rexach … updated by Balún!

[MUSIC - “Olas y Arenas,” Balún: “Las veces, que te derramas sobre arena…”] 

Alana: Balún is so thoughtful in their approach to music and memory… they blend electronic sounds with percussion that give this remake the perfect mix of nostalgia with their signature dreamy synths. We’re such big fans and we’re so proud that they’ve scored both seasons of La Brega! 

[MUSIC - scoring]

Angélica Negrón: I spend a lot of time translating words and feelings into sounds, and it's a really hard process…. 

Alana: Después del  the break: Hablé con Angélica Negrón y José Olivares de Balún about scoring our show, como hacen  música entre dos mundos, y lo que Olas y Arenas significa para ellos.

Esto es La Brega.

[MUSIC - scoring]

MIDROLL

Mireya: Hi, I’m Mireya Ramos from Flor de Toloache, you’re listening to La Brega.

[MUSIC - Theme]

Alana: This is La Brega. I’m Alana Casanova-Burgess.

Balún is very special to us. They scored both our first and second seasons of La Brega, el Podcast.  El show suena como suena en gran parte gracias a ellos– y la música que han creado para darle vida a nuestras narrativas. Y ahora, también son parte de La Brega: El Álbum.

[MUSIC - scoring]

Angélica Negrón y José Olivares fundaron Balún cuando eran estudiantes de universidad en San Juan. Su primer álbum salió en 2006. Since then, they’ve been developing their sound, su sonido único de dream pop y sonidos caribeños.

[MUSIC - scoring]

Angélica is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. She's made some incredible work for orchestras and has scored films and documentaries. 

José toca percusión electrónica, samples, loops, synths y más. 

Angélica y José me acompañaron en febrero e On Air Fest, un festival de radio y podcasts en Brooklyn. 

Take a listen. 

[applause]

  Alana: We joke sometimes that La Brega is the only podcast with a house band, but I think actually maybe balún is the only band with a house podcast, perhaps? Because you've all been doing your thing for longer than we have and I think we just like wanna match your energy. Entonces ¿qué es esa energía? ¿Qué es el sonido de Balún?

Angélica: ¿Qué es balún? es una familia.. Balún es estar en la brega todo el tiempo. Tener una banda entre diferentes lugares…It's how we met. It 's why we continue to connect with people we love. So it's about that kind of layered complexity of, of ni de aquí ni de allá, pero de aquí, siempre, también.

Alana: Yeah. Yo siento eso mucho con la brega también. Como que uno nunca sabe de dónde es. [laughter] Y ¿Qué es música puertorriqueña? Porque ustedes son una banda puertorriqueña… Right? Like you're a Puerto Rican band, but what does that even mean? Right? Because it's like as much salsa as it is reggaeton. Like what is Puerto Rican music?

José:  I think it's a lot of things. Puerto Rico is like a multitude of identities. So we have, you know, a lot of influences from like, all over the world. Like for us in Puerto Rico, when we created this whole sound that wasn't that much of like a framework or backbone for for us to support the work that we're doing. So that's why Angélica is saying that we're constantly in la brega. So I'm very excited about the covers album because you're seeing like a whole bunch of different takes on traditional Puerto Rican songs. So it's not necessarily like the genre per se, but I think it's more like the approach and what we bring to it.

Angélica: Yeah, it goes beyond style, genre… I think it's more of a sensibility. And I think in a lot of the songs you can hear that people are constantly bregando.

Alana: Yeah

José: Even Bad Bunny, he's constantly bregando.

Alana: Oh, big time. Yeah, yeah.

José: Always in La Brega. That, that's what I like about Bad Bunny. Like anywhere he goes, he's still a Vega Baja kid, which I, I love.

Alana: Yeah. I mean, in the first episode someone says that maybe maybe everyone's so good at all these different kinds of genres of music because they're always striving, like when you live on the margins, you have to do a lot of things to survive, like be really good at different things to survive.

Angélica: For sure, yeah. I definitely remember when I first started writing music, even in Puerto Rico, I heard a lot like, oh, your music doesn't sound Puerto Rican. And I was like, wait, what do you mean, that for me sounds like you don't look or you don't sound Puerto Rican.

Alana: Well they want like maracas or some bullshit, right? 

[laughter]

Angélica: Que le ponga sazón.

José: Oh, you're gonna get maracas…

[laughter]

José: our maracas.

 [laughter]

Alana: So it was, it was a no-brainer to approach you for La Brega’s musical sound in season one because you, you're so like kind of tropidarx, also that, that vibe. And Marlon Bishop, who's a co-creator sitting in the back over there from Futuro Studios, woop woop, he sent you this, this collection of words and I went back and I found the email, so I'm gonna read them out loud. Um, and so Cue 1: we would like bittersweet and nostalgic, pensive. 

Angélica: We got it.

Alana: [laughter]

José: Check

Angélica: Check, easy. 

Alana: Something that communicates complex emotions mixing together of pride and disappointment.

Angélica: Oh yes…

José: check check check check

[laughter]

Angélica: Every day.

Alana: So Qué creen? ¿Quieren escuchar ese sonido? El cue 1. Okay.

[MUSIC- Cue 1, Balún] 

Angélica: Cocteau twins con tiple.  

Alana: [laughter] Pero brutal, brutal!

Alana: So like what are those sounds? What are those instruments?

Angélica: One of the things that's really special about Balún is that it really is a family. And we're super lucky thatur family plays a lot of different instruments. So we have Nora who plays bass, but she also is an incredible cuatro and tiple player. We have like a very broad palette of sounds and we wanted to make sure that we maintained the balún sound, but that we also incorporated… so I mean, obviously, the cuatro and the tiple, it’s like it's just super traditional…

Alana: Super traditional

José: We have like, like departments. Like if you go to like a conservatory and there's like different departments. So, we have people who are in the folk music department, and then we have, um, other people that come from like an indie background like me and Raul, Raul used to be,  play in a punk band and then Angélica, like her classical side… what makes it interesting for Balún is that we let everyone's strengths comes through. Um, it doesn't matter who's the main song writer, everyone like owns that part of the music.

Angélica: I would say also that it… like having those words are so evocative and also so resonant to our experience too, is incredibly helpful. We're like, okay, we know exactly what we're gonna do. 

[beat]

Alana: Pero cómo es eso de hacer música para un podcast que es diferente para crear música para Balún? 

Angélica: I mean I spend a lot of time translating words and, and feelings into sounds, and it's a really hard process. And for this one, I think, for me, especially the fact that I'm not doing it by myself and now that I'm doing it with my family and my best friends, it's awesome. And I love spreadsheets. I made a spreadsheet. And I was like, okay, Nora. by this day you're gonna send us an idea. And we are thinking tiple here. Very differently than in what you do… Balún is a little more chaotic in when we're writing songs. And we keep saying like, we should do the spreadsheets for our songs too, maybe?

José: Imagine that, an indie band following spreadsheets?

[laughter]

José: It was fun, it was fun. 

Alana: Te puedo hacer una pregunta sobre la segunda temporada? Entonces, en vez de moods or vibes, enviamos esto. 

Okay, we asked for, for season two: 

“Bolero, art house vibe.” Unclear. [laughs]

“Early two thousands, tropical con salsa swing…” unclear. And “a dark merengue.” Has Balún ever done a merengue?

José: ​​No and I'm half Dominican. 

Alana: Oh, eso…

José: I've never done any meringue at all.

José: But the temp of the merengue is very fast, so I've done fast music, so that wasn't a huge stretch. Fast, merengue, okay. 

Angélica: We're super into the tropidark. When you said make it dark, we were like, okay… 

Alana: Marlon, make it dark.

[MUSIC - dark merengue, Balún]

Alana: So let's talk about the cover album project. You did a cover of the classic bolero, “Olas y Arenas” by Sylvia Rexach, so let's hear a little bit of the original…

[MUSIC - Olas y Arenas, Sylvia Rexach: “Soy la arena que en la playa está tendida, envidiando otras arenas”] 

Alana: So Sylvia Rexach, who's a great Puerto Rican composer. No sé cómo qué Angélica, ¿como que tipo de relación tenías tú con esa canción antes de este proyecto?

Angélica: Fíjate, obviamente, Sylvia Rexach: icono, leyenda. Incredibly intimidating to approach a song that, you know, it's so iconic and that we love too. So we thought a lot about it.

Alana: What, what were you thinking about?

José: So this particular song is like part of like a singer repertoire in Puerto Rico. So it's been covered like a lot of times… by a lot of different people, and they belt it out…

Angélica: It’s like a ‘let me show you all I can do with my voice’, which is… very different from my approach to singing. Um, so you know, when it's a song that's so beautiful. Also, you wanna make sure that not only you can do it justice, but also that we can find our entry point of like, doing a cover that still feels like us, that sounds like Balún, which took us a little while, but we, I think we got there.

José: Yeah we did….three versions before we go out to that version?

Alana: Should we hear it? 

Alana: All right.

[cheers and applause] 

[MUSIC - Olas y Arenas, Balún: “Soy la arena, que la playa está tendida, envidiando otras arenas…”]

[cheers and applause]

Angélica: It's very surreal to hear it right now. I'm like, wait, are we done with the mix, José? Did we send it? 

José: Final, final mix, version 1 A, B…

Angélica: Final final

Alana: Final final

José: 48k

Angélica: Final for real

José: Final for real

[laughter]

Alana: Your voice is beautiful in that. If it's a showcase of, you know, Puerto Rican musical vocal talent, I think you nailed it.

Angélica: Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's very sweet of you. 

[applause]

Angélica: Gracias.

Alana: Bueno ese episodio en particular es sobre como las playas de Puerto Rico, like the actual fight for the beaches and there is like, you can hear like an actual like sound, right, in it?

José: There's water all over the song.

[laughter]

José:  Like yeah, we started with more like an environmental approach,  Japanese ambient eighties stuff…

[MUSIC - Olas y Arenas, Balún: synths]

José: And then we kind of like introduce water sounds and then the whole percussion bits that you're seeing, they have water in them.

[MUSIC - Olas y Arenas, Balún: water sounds in percussion]

Angélica: And we were super inspired by not only the original song, but also this deep cut video of el Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, which is Sharon Riley, que es la hija de Sylvia Rexach… and it's like an art film. 

[SOUND CUE - Waves]

Angélica: And she's in the beach and then she sings the song. And it's beautiful. So I think we were like that vibe, that's where we wanna go.

Alana: ¿Y esa canción tiene alguna algún meaning para ti en 2023 que no tenía antes?

Angélica: Hmmm. Yo siento que hay, con cosas que son tan emblemáticas de lugares. You know, the beaches and then that can go really easy into the discourse of paradise and these idyllic views of a place. When I think about a beach, I'm not only thinking about the time that I'm just relaxing there, I'm really interested in how, with very simple words, you can get to other more layered meanings that… can also speak to other things that are not so idyllic that are happening to the people that live there. These lyrics, every time I sang them, like I just heard new things in them, there's so much in them. They're so rich. And also, like I was super scared as a kid of la arena. I mean, I would scream if I would, if my feet would touch the sand, something sensory. And so there's that in it. There's also, you know, all the recent struggles that we're having with people wanting to take our beaches too.

Alana: Y para tí José?

 José: Mi papá es un biólogo marino so like having, having…

Alana: Achó, de verdad?

José: And I've always lived in a coastal town, so having access to like olas y arenas has always been like a big part of it. And like Angélica said, the song coming, in this context… 

[MUSIC - scoring, waves]

José:… and like a, a big part of the film is that you're seeing like very Virgin Ocean front in Puerto Rico, this is like the seventies. And just, just looking at that imagery and being like, we're never gonna get that again. And now we're losing it at a much, accelerated rate, kind of gave it more momentum in our struggle to kind of like, document through song, like social political unrest that's happening in the island.

Even though the song is not directly addressing it. I just feel like we were happy to kind of like, put this at a time where olas y arenas is more important than ever. 

[MUSIC - Balún score and water sounds]

[BEAT]

Alana: Thanks to Angélica Negrón and José Olivares of Balun for joining me at On Air fest. And thanks to all the artists who put their love and energy into re-imagining these classic songs. 

La Brega: El Álbum is out now. You can listen wherever you get your music, so dale play. 

[MUSIC - Theme]

CREDITS

Alana: This episode was written by Tasha Sandoval. It was edited by Jenny Lawton and Marlon Bishop and produced by Tasha Sandoval and Jeanne Montalvo. Original art for this episode is by Chris Gregory Rivera. Y gracias totales a "Scott Newman, Jemma Rose Brown y Jenny Mills at On Air Fest y su ingeniero de sonido, Graham Galantro.

La Brega: El Álbum was mixed in part by Jeanne Montalvo and mastered by Oscar Zambrano at Zampol Productions. Our album coordinator was Laura Catana. Our publicist was Paul Dryden.

El equipo de la Brega incluye a Jeanne Montalvo, Ezequiel Rodríguez Andino, Joe Plourde, Joaquín Cotler, Liliana Ruiz, Tasha Sandoval, Mark Pagán, Maria Garcia, Victor Ramos Rosado, Juan Diego Ramírez, Marlon Bishop and Jenny Lawton. Fact checking this season is by Istra Pacheco and Maria Soledad Davila Calero. Our engineer for this episode is Stephanie Lebow. Our theme song is by ÌFÉ. Música original para La Brega es de Balún.

This season of La Brega was made possible by the Mellon Foundation.

And La Brega: El Álbum is sponsored by Marguerite Casey Foundation.

I’m Alana Casanova Burgess. Bai!

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