La Brega

La Brega: El Álbum began when Alana Casanova Burgess of WNYC and Marlon Bishop of Futuro Studios — co-creators of the critically-acclaimed La Brega podcast— came up with an idea. For season two, they would focus on one of Puerto Rico’s most recognizable exports: its music.

Each episode of Season 2 of the podcast is based on an iconic Puerto Rican song, using those tracks as a starting point for deep explorations of issues like displacement, sexual freedom and race. The next step was to commission an album to accompany the podcast.

Each cover on the album takes a song from Puerto Rico’s past and reimagines it for Puerto Rico’s future. “Preciosa” is transformed by Xenia Rubinos from a bolero to a R&B track full of diasporic longing. Ana Macho brings a trans-queer perspective to Willie Colón’s “El Gran Varón.” Mireya Ramos & Velcro transform a classic merengue into an amapiano banger.

RaiNao and ÌFÉ turn the freestyle classic “I Wonder If I Take You Home” into a conversation between the Puerto Rican diaspora in the 80s and San Juan’s hip Santurce district today. La Tribu de Abrante brings Afro-Puerto Rican bomba to “Las Caras Lindas,” Tite Curet Alonso’s ode to Blackness. And tropical-meets-indie band Balún reimagines Sylvia Rexach’s “Olas y Arenas” as a song about the fight to save Puerto Rico’s beaches today.

La Brega: El Álbum is sponsored by Marguerite Casey Foundation
Season 2 of La Brega is made possible by The Mellon Foundation