Remezcla

The Rebirth of Bomba y Plena Among Puerto Rico’s Youth

Ashley Rivera Mercado — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 14:27:15 +0000

Bomba and plena are experiencing a powerful rebirth among Puerto Rico's youth. And it's thanks to these cultural centers.

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14 Afro-Latinx Artists You Can Support on Bandcamp This Juneteenth

Richard Villegas — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 14:50:07 +0000

Throughout 2020, Bandcamp has emerged as the undisputed MVP of outreach aimed at independent musicians affected by the Covid-19 crisis. Among tepid responses from music streaming giants, Bandcamp instead opted for relinquishing all sales revenue the first Friday of every month, since March, ensuring the highest possible amount of income reaches the artists that need

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In Puerto Rico, Protest Music Becomes Essential Part of a New Movement Against Corruption

Raquel Reichard — Fri, 19 Jul 2019 17:41:43 +0000

In Puerto Rico, folk genres like bomba, sung and danced by enslaved Africans as a form of rebellion against slave-owners, and plena, a traditional musical styling impoverished jibaros sung to bring attention to their social ills, indicate that music has always been a part of the island’s centuries-long resistance movements. Today, as the Puerto Rican

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In Puerto Rico, A New Generation of Women’s Plena Groups Are Raising Their Voices

Raquel Reichard — Thu, 18 Apr 2019 14:58:22 +0000

“Que cosa brava, que cosa bella, estar rodeada de mujeres pleneras,” sing the women of Plena Combativa, one of the few all-woman groups performing the Puerto Rican folk musical tradition on the island, outside a tiny wooden house in the rural northeastern town of Ceiba. They’re playing the pandereta plenera and güiro under the searing

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