This week, we’re remembering David Crosby; plus, we’re sharing a Code Switch episode about Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny.
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At the end of last year, the NPR Music team spent a lot of time thinking about Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny. His album Un Verano Sin Ti was one of our very favorites of the year (and one of the top records for All Songs Considered listeners, too) and “El Apagón,” a love letter to his island, was one of our favorite songs. I was fascinated by writer Isabelia Herrera’s year-end essay about the massive year Bad Bunny had — whether you measure that in streaming numbers, sold-out shows in venues like Yankee Stadium or his sheer impact in the pop landscape — and his simultaneous refusal to temper his political provocations or move to U.S. pop's center.
Christina Cala, senior producer for the NPR podcast Code Switch, has been thinking about Bad Bunny a lot, too. “I’ve been a Bad Bunny fan for a while,” she says. “He makes all the bangers. He defies norms and he is unapologetically himself.” Despite her fandom, though, Christina says she “hadn’t fully thought about what he means to Puerto Rico and how Puerto Rico really formed him” — until Code Switch started working on a new episode about Bad Bunny’s career, his music and how he has provided a global megaphone for Puerto Rican discontent.
The episode digs into how the political tumult and catastrophic natural disasters on the island, which have run parallel to Bad Bunny's rise to mega-stardom, have shaped his career. “Music can be such a potent tool for processing and catharsis,” Christina says. “Hopefully this episode helps people listen to him on another level; I know it helped us.”
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Crosby, Stills & Nash co-founder David Crosby died this week at age 81. A prominent figure of the free-spirited 1970s Laurel Canyon scene who helped make folk-rock mainstream, Crosby also had a creative hot streak in recent years. He added five solo albums to his catalog between 2014 and 2021 and toured frequently with the Lighthouse Band (with whom he played a wonderful Tiny Desk concert in 2019) and the Sky Trails Band.
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I’ve been a fan of Mexican-American musician and activist Fabi Reyna since she launched She Shreds, a magazine dedicated to women and gender-nonconforming guitarists. So I loved the conversation she had with Alt.Latino host Anamaria Sayre about how she got started as a guitarist, her collaborative process in the group Reyna Tropical and the way she remains guided by her intuition.
Tiny Desk
NPR
Soccer Mommy was originally scheduled to play a Tiny Desk concert on March 30, 2020. Sophie Allison’s performance was one of the first of many in-person Tiny Desks to get canceled — and she was the very first artist to perform a Tiny Desk (home) concert that month instead.
But now, she’s finally come to NPR HQ to perform behind Bob’s actual desk. She and her band performed a beautiful set with work from each era of Soccer Mommy's catalog.
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