La Brega is a podcast series co-created, produced, and hosted by journalist Alana Casanova-Burgess, which focuses on sharing real stories about Puerto Rico’s history, politics, culture, activism, and more — both local and diaspora.
It had a widely successful debut season in 2021, co-produced by WNYC Studios and Futuro Media, which received acclaim from publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. A second and more ambitious season followed in 2023, covering the social and cultural impact of the music from the archipelago, and even included a fire soundtrack to go with it.
But later that year, the show was canceled by home studio WNYC Studios, and Casanova-Burgess was let go along with other staff. But what could’ve been the death knell for the popular show had a surprise twist up its sleeve.
“We all lost our jobs, but that same day that we got laid off, Futuro Media [applied for a grant] for season three” from the Mellon Foundation, says Casanova-Burgess. Once approved, Futuro bought out WNYC’s half of the show’s rights, and got to work on a 3rd season.
Like thousands of others around the world, it seemed the universe with its whims was also a fan of La Brega.
This month, its 3rd season has arrived, and the theme of its eight episodes is “Champions.” Casanova-Burgess and her team put together a roster that includes episodes dedicated to figures and unheralded icons who have tasked themselves, wittingly or unwittingly, to elevate Puerto Rico’s standing on the international stage.
“I think La Brega is like a community. We’ve worked a lot with Angelica Negrón from Balún and she told us something once, that she felt like La Brega was a place where you bump into people you know,” says Casanova-Burgess. “We work and collaborate with so many different people that it feels like a physical space. And so the question for us was how do we keep that going? Keep being ambitious but still ground it in people and good stories, and especially ground it in Puerto Rico?”
During that brainstorming session, they found an answer and the chosen theme. “We started thinking about these spaces where Puerto Rico is a country; spaces where Puerto Rico is recognized as a country,” she says.
The season features stories following Olympic competitors like boxer Alberto Mercado, beauty pageant contestants like reigning Mr. Mundo Danny Mejía, baseball stars, United Nations advocates, and more. The common thread being how all these figures in one way or another represent Puerto Rico onstage — not the United States, but the island itself. There is even an episode dedicated to Puerto Rico’s national musical instrument, the cuatro, which gained worldwide attention with Luis Sanz’s performance in Bad Bunny’s now-seminal “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii” song.
Casanova-Burgess recognizes the challenges that came with producing this season and finely threading all these episodes together within the same thematic through line. “[How do we] treat the cuatro as a character?,” she asked herself about that particular episode. “It’s not like the cuatro goes off and has an adventure.”
As with every season, Casanova-Burgess and the La Brega team not only share information with their listeners, but through the process learn a lot themselves about the topics they cover. This season, one of the most eye-opening for Casanova-Burgess was when they tagged along with two groups, one pro-statehood, one pro-independence, that presents the case for a formal decolonization of Puerto Rico at the United Nations in New York. They’re given only three minutes to speak, a fact which Casanova-Burgess contrasts with the hours of preparation and travel they must endure for that opportunity.
“That episode is like a tragicomedy,” she says. “[There was a] very deep, deep sadness there, but I think what surprised me was I left with a real sense of admiration for these people who go and do give three minutes… because at the end of the episode someone says, ‘Well, if they gave me one minute, I would go.’ You know? Like, what are you supposed to do? Not show up?”
Casanova-Burgess hopes the season, like previous ones, opens up discussions in Puerto Rico and abroad about who is really standing up for the country beyond its borders, and the tribulations they face when doing so, due to the political and social factors.
“There are so many Puerto Rican champions, and so many stories of people who have been very proud to fight for Puerto Rico in different arenas,” she says. “And it does sometimes feel like when you tell someone you’re Puerto Rican you are somehow standing in for millions of people. So, okay, it feels like that but what is it to actually do that?”
Season 3 Episodes 1 and 2 of La Brega are out now on all platforms, and Alana Casanova-Burgess confirms the gears are already in motion for more episodes in the near future.
