POPSUGAR Celebrity

Introducing: Popsugar Pulse

Kelsey Castañon — Wed, 13 May 2026 05:50:04 -0700

Like many of you, I've spent weeknights aplenty sealed to my couch, remote in hand, gulping down the latest episode of "Hacks," or "Survivor," or "Beef," while simultaneously anticipating (and talking about) the next drop of "The White Lotus" and "Love Island." I've committed hours of my evenings to TikTok theories about fictional TV characters that don't exist, and have sent dozens of Instagram DMs alerting various friend groups to whatever celebrity soft-launch is happening at the time. This is all in part because I am, at my core, a pop-culture stan.

It's also the heartbeat of everything Popsugar stands for. For 20 years, this brand has been at the forefront of culture, helping shape conversations around what's new, what's next, and what everyone will inevitably be talking about two weeks from now. Our editors have always had our collective fingers on the pulse of the zeitgeist. Now we're making it official.

Introducing: Popsugar Pulse, our spanking-new digital cover series spotlighting the people, moments, and stories driving culture right now, from breakout stars on the cusp of celebrity to longstanding icons with a grip strong enough to make anyone care about things like Formula 1 or crochet or whether two actors looked at each other "too long" during a press tour. Through exclusive interviews, original photography, and social-first video moments, Pulse is where the conversation starts - or, at the very least, where it gets infinitely more fun.

For our very first Popsugar Pulse cover story, we spoke with Belmont Cameli and Ella Bright, burgeoning stars of the new Amazon Prime Video show "Off Campus" and TV's biggest heartthrobs you haven't met (yet). Based on the bestselling book series by Elle Kennedy, the show's got hockey, love triangles, and sex scenes that might make you blush. It also sits somewhere on the bench between "Heated Rivalry" and "The Summer I Turned Pretty," which is all to say: it's at the precipice of something big.

In a way, this cover series has been decades in the making. Back in the early 2000s, celebrity coverage often thrived on shame, rumors, and invasive scrutiny into people's most personal lives. Popsugar was born as the antidote to that: a celebratory, safe place to love what you love and feel good about that. To be unapologetically invested in the movies, music, TV shows, trends, and celebrities shaping culture with zero shame. Fandom has always lived here - the swooning, theorizing, yearning, perpetually-online kind - and that continues to guide everything we do.

So settle in, swipe along, and enjoy the rush of feeling plugged in to the best of what's happening right now in pop culture. The group chat is waiting.

With the remote I stand,
Kelsey

Step Inside Popsugar's Award Season After Party

Kelsey Garcia — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:06:53 -0700

For a city that famously turns in early, Los Angeles was out late last night for Oscars Sunday, with men in tuxedos jetting across the Sunset Strip, valet stands slammed, and a vast array of after parties taking place across the city. And this year, one was our own: Popsugar hosted an award season after party in partnership with Affinity Nightlife on March 15 at Skybar in West Hollywood.

Taking place at the rooftop bar of the Mondrian Hotel, the event was a raucous sendoff to that annual string of award shows ending, of course, with the Oscars. Notable attendees included "Love Story" actor Noah Fearnley, PS Fit favorite Tanner Courtad, "Love Island" alums Andreina Santos and Jeremiah Brown, as well as Chloe Veitch of "Too Hot to Handle" and "The Circle."

Stars stopped by the Popsugar lounge to answer questions about hidden talents and the Oscar-worthy aspects of their daily routines. For the latter, Santos shouted out her "booty workout" next to a stunned Brown. Meanwhile, Fearnley, who most recently portrayed Calvin Klein model Michael Bergin opposite Sarah Pidgeon's Carolyn Bessette, revealed he could see himself being a personal chef (if he wasn't, of course, a model-turned-actor playing a model). When these celebs were done with the hot seat, they picked up VIP gift bags full of goodies from Popsugar-favorite brands like NYX Cosmetics, Solawave, M&Ms, The Lip Bar, RTIC, Good Dye Young, Kosas, Uni, Eos, Sacheu, and more.

Back at the party, guests danced and enjoyed Popsugar Spritzes by the pool as Golden Reserve Caviar servers made their way through the crowd, equipped with blinis and bottles of crème fraîche at the ready in a holster. When you're out late on a school night, a little caviar - coupled with celeb sightings - doesn't hurt.

See photos from Popsugars Award Season After Party ahead.

Kelsey Garcia (she/her) is the lifestyle director at PS, where she oversees coverage across Balance and Health & Fitness. Kelsey is passionate about travel, wellness trends, and evolving parenting styles. Before joining the PS team as an editorial assistant in 2015, she interned at Elle and Harper's Bazaar, among other publications.

32 Legendary Musicians You Should Dress as For Halloween This Year

Britt Stephens — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 06:25:00 -0700

Choosing a Halloween costume is pretty much like choosing a new identity: it's one night to be whoever you want, and what's more fun than pretending you're a famous musician? Of course you could go more current and channel Beyoncé's "Cowboy Carter" Tour outfits, Taylor Swift's "Eras" Tour, or Sabrina Carpenter, but going back in time can be really exciting too - especially when it comes to paying homage to an iconic musician.

As far as musician Halloween costumes go, you'll be in good company. In 2017, Kim Kardashian and her sister Kourtney channeled Madonna and Michael Jackson with spot-on looks, while both Demi Lovato and Kim went as Selena Quintanilla in 2017. Beyoncé herself has often favored famous musician costumes for Halloween, dressing up with Blue Ivy and Tina Knowles as Salt-N-Pepa in 2016 and going as Toni Braxton in 2018. Other stars have paid homage to legends like Amy Winehouse, Cher, or Prince. But you don't have to be a celebrity in real life to choose to embody one on Halloween – that's the beauty of the holiday, which allows you to become whoever you want, whether that's a member of Kiss, Freddie Mercury, Aretha Franklin, or whatever musician you grew up loving.

If you're thinking about taking a trip down memory lane, keep reading for our iconic musician costume inspiration.

Faux Locs Have Become the Secret Weapon in My Curly Hair Routine

Sasha Merci — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 10:00:02 -0700

Growing up, my relationship with my hair was anything but simple. I was raised in a Dominican household where curly hair wasn't seen as beautiful; it was seen as something to fix, smooth out, and straighten. As a result, my family ensured that I visited the Dominican salon for regular relaxers and blowouts. It wasn't until 2016 that I truly began to embrace my natural texture. However, one of the biggest misconceptions about going natural is that caring for curly hair becomes easier once you stop straightening or using relaxers. Trust me, it doesn't.

I have 3C-type hair, which means my curls are tightly coiled and can be a little testy at times. There are days when my curls are absolutely perfect, and I feel like the most confident woman in the room. But let me be real, those times don't last very long. On a good week, I get maybe three days where my curls are in their prime. The rest of the time, it's all about moisture, styling, and making sure my hair stays protected. In other words, caring for curls can be a full-time job. It's not something you can do half-heartedly. It's not for the weak, which is why faux locs have become a major game-changer for me.

Faux locs entered my life as a way to save time and protect my natural curls. I needed a break from the constant maintenance of my curls, but I still wanted a look that was stylish and easy to manage. Faux locs gave me that. I can choose the length, style, and color to fit my vibe for the day. Plus, they're a lot easier to maintain than chemically straightened hair. I don't have to worry about humidity or rainy days interfering with my hair. I can wake up and know that my hair will stay intact for at least three weeks. I can say goodbye to frizz and embrace worry-free styling every day.

And as someone with a busy schedule, faux locs have become a lifesaver for me. Whether I'm heading to an audition, a comedy show, or a big event, I can rely on my locs to look great, no matter what. They give me confidence in a way that my curls sometimes don't, simply because I know they'll stay on point. Plus, faux locs are super versatile. I can try different looks without committing to something permanent.

Now, the cost of faux locs can be a little steep - I'm not going to lie. In California, they can run you around $600, while in New York, you might get a good set for around $300. But here's the thing: I've learned how to do them myself, which saves me a ton of money. It takes me about six hours to do them properly - four hours if I'm feeling lazy and don't care about how the back looks. But when I'm done, I feel like I've accomplished something major. It's one less thing I have to worry about for a few weeks.

Sometimes, I think about making faux locs a permanent part of my style. They're just so easy and low-maintenance. But then I think about my curls, and I can't imagine giving them up. I've spent so many years trying to embrace them, and now I'm finally at a place where I love them. I've come to realize that my curls are actually an integral part of my identity, and they are not something I need to change. So, for now, I enjoy the best of both worlds: curly hair for those days I want to feel unstoppable, and faux locs when I need a break.

Ultimately, what I've learned is that hair is an expression of who you are. Whether curly, straight, loc'ed, or anything in between, it's a choice, and for me, that choice is about feeling empowered and confident in whatever style I choose. And let's be real, as a Dominican woman in the entertainment industry, having the freedom to express myself through my hair is a power I'll never take for granted.

Sasha Merci is a first-generation Dominican American actor, comedian, and viral digital creator. She showcases over a decade of diverse experience in entertainment with roles in films like "Righteous Thieves" and "De Lo Mio," along with collaborations with renowned brands such as Target and Bumble. She shares her Bronx roots and passion for Latine culture by being vocal about mental health and navigating comedy.

Shakira's New Curly-Hair Line Is Redefining What It Means to Have "Pelo Bueno"

Johanna Ferreira — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 06:00:02 -0700

Show me a curly-haired girl, and I know immediately: that's someone who's had a complicated relationship with her hair. Curly hair is never just hair - it's a history of unlearning and relearning. Behind every curl is a memory, a myth, a story, and the journey of growing to love what once needed to be tamed.

Even Shakira - whose goddess-like curls are as iconic as her voice - has been there. After years of experimenting with treatments, products, and even collaborating with a pharmacist to develop her own customized formulas, the Colombian singer dreamed of a line that could serve other curly-haired girls - especially Latinas - who've long struggled to find products that truly meet their needs. Enter Isima, a new line of science-backed, innovative products made for curls, available only at Ulta.

Unlike most curly-haired Latinas - especially those from her generation - Shakira's struggles with her hair didn't stem from the cultural pressure to style it straight. While she occasionally wore a sleek style or fresh blowout, she mostly embraced her natural texture, especially when she began performing live.

"I guess I didn't have a choice, because when I'm on stage, I need to feel empowered - I need to feel true to myself," she tells PS. "I'm free. I cannot wear super high heels. I cannot wear a wig."

Shakira's complicated hair journey was brought on by the damage that came with coloring, heat styling, and treatments like Brazilian keratin.

She shares that her healthiest hair days were before she started coloring it - when she still wore her natural color.

"It used to be, believe it or not, really dark - almost black," she says. "[It was] very shiny and wavy. I had soft waves. I guess with years and hormonal changes, the texture changed quite a lot. It has become a little more curly, I would say, and even frizzier."

True Shakira fans who have been following her career and listening to her music since the "Pies Descalzos" and "Dónde Están Los Ladrones" days remember her long dark hair as much as we remember her red hair phase.

"I had decided to bleach it and make it bright red [and] obviously, to go from almost black hair to red - I had to really bleach it. So, my hair suffered a lot, and that was kind of the beginning of the end," she says with a laugh. "But it was still a very important part of my identity. That was around the time I did MTV Unplugged, and I did it with a kind of punkish, reddish hair that sort of represented an era and a period in life. The way I wear my hair has a lot to do with the way I feel. It has always been a huge part of my identity."

While many curly-haired women - including Latinas and Black women - proudly embrace the phrase "I am not my hair" (a nod to India Arie's iconic 2006 single), plenty of us also recognize the deep connection between our hair, our identity, and how we show up in the world. Shakira herself has admitted in interviews that cutting her hair into a short lob was one of her biggest regrets - she just didn't feel like herself. As a curly-haired girl with even tighter curls than Shakira's, I relate. Every time I've chopped my long curls into a lob, it's felt like I'm losing a superpower. It's women like us - Latinas like us - who inspired Shakira to dream up a line that truly understands and serves our hair's unique needs.

"Women like us are underserved, in a way," she tells me after complimenting my waist-long curls - a mix of 3B and 3C spirals.

I didn't always hear compliments on my hair; in fact, I grew up hearing I had "pelo malo." For those unfamiliar, pelo bueno ("good hair") and pelo malo ("bad hair") are terms rooted in colonial Latin America, dating back to the Casta system - a racial hierarchy imposed by the Spanish that favored proximity to whiteness. Coily and curly textures were often associated with the hair of enslaved Black people and deemed undesirable, a harmful legacy that has continued to shape Latin American beauty standards. But in the past decade, younger Latinas have begun to reclaim and redefine those terms, including Shakira, who believes good hair simply means healthy hair, period.

"Pelo bueno is hair that's bouncy - [it's hair] that is natural. [Hair] that makes you feel confident and that is healthy," she says. "So, it doesn't matter what texture your hair is. It just needs to feel like you give it some love."

"Pelo bueno is hair that's bouncy - [it's hair] that is natural. [Hair] that makes you feel confident and that is healthy."

With curly hair being especially vulnerable to dryness and breakage, Isima is focused specifically on deep hydration and repair.

"This is inspired by Latina women because in my community, there's so much diversity. In Latin America, you find all kinds of textures," she says. One of Shakira's favorite products in the line is the Súperbomba Triple Repair Peptide Mask ($38), a rich, deep-conditioning treatment that checks all the boxes. Formulated with patented nonapeptides, hydrolyzed soy and rice proteins, and a unique glyconabond complex, this product is designed to nourish the scalp, repair hair bonds, and deliver intense hydration after every wash. Shakira uses it once a week, leaving it on for five to 10 minutes, depending on her schedule.

And while countless celebrities have launched beauty brands, few deliver the way Isima does. Shakira truly thought through every step of wash day - a ritual she calls sacred.

"The day I wash my hair, I know I'll get at least five minutes of peace where my kids won't interrupt my shower," she says. "My assistant isn't allowed in. So, I need those minutes to really count."

From start to finish, she considered it all. Instead of offering just one shampoo, Isima includes two. There's Reset ($32), a clarifying shampoo that deeply cleanses the scalp without stripping the hair. Then there's Riquísima ($32), a hydrating shampoo infused with Mexican aloe extract that gently cleanses while replenishing moisture - ideal for following Reset.

Shakira is also the first curly-hair brand founder to launch a blue shampoo specifically for color-treated curls - a game changer, considering how harsh most blue and purple shampoos can be on textured hair.

There's also Suavísima ($32), a rinse-out conditioner so hydrating that I've been able to skip the hair masks on busy wash days and still have silky, soft curls.

For styling, Shakira likes to apply Curls Don't Lie ($32) - an appropriately named curl cream - on soaking wet hair, scrunching it in before sealing everything with Delicia Reparative Hair Oil ($36) for an extra boost of hydration.

"I know for some people it feels heavy but no, I need that," she says. "I think women like us need more. It's like the phrase - less is more. But it doesn't apply to hair like ours. We need more. We need more hydration, more moisture, more performance, more strength - all of it. "

The line also includes All In ($32), a restorative leave-in conditioner that can be used in place of the curl cream or layered with it for extra hydration. It's lightweight enough for looser waves but rich enough to deliver serious moisture. Then there's Iconic ($42), a scalp serum designed to hydrate, soothe, and balance the scalp while promoting stronger, healthier, and thicker strands.

As for the name Isima, let's just say it wasn't chosen at random. In Spanish, "ísima" is a superlative suffix that inspired the names of her shampoos and conditioners - as in riquísima (very rich) or suavísima (very smooth). Shakira brought that same level of thoughtfulness to the packaging: the shampoos and conditioners come with both pump dispensers and fully removable caps, allowing you to get every last drop.

As someone who grew up in Dominican hair salons, where I would get my curls blown out straight every weekend to hide any trace of texture, I rarely saw celebrities openly inspire others to embrace their natural hair. There was a specific way I dreamed of wearing my curls - long, flowy, and full of definition. But very few celebs at the time reflected that vision. The only ones who came close were Keri Russell in "Felicity," Jennifer Freeman, and, of course, Shakira.

So the fact that one of my actual hair icons not only launched a curly-hair line designed specifically for women like me but also sat with me and personally walked me through what products would work best for my spirals felt surreal. It was an honor.

"I have 30 years of a career making music, and I feel like I have a certain credibility. I want to make sure that these products deliver what they promise," she says. And honestly, the quality speaks for itself - it's clear she's been preparing her whole hair life for this moment.

Johanna Ferreira is the content director for PS Juntos. With more than 10 years of experience, Johanna focuses on how intersectional identities are a central part of Latine culture. Previously, she spent close to three years as the deputy editor at HipLatina, and she has freelanced for numerous outlets including Refinery29, Oprah magazine, Allure, InStyle, and Well+Good. She has also moderated and spoken on numerous panels on Latine identity.

A Bruja's Guide to Making the Most of Eclipse Season

Zayda Rivera — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 11:00:02 -0800

Eclipse season is a time of year when major shifts take place internally and externally. Indigenous peoples from the Americas, the Caribbean, and Latin America paid respect to the land, the sun, and the moon during this rebirth and transformation. Traditions practiced for thousands of years are honored, creating a powerful connection between the physical and spiritual world.

The interconnectedness of all things is a strong belief within many Indigenous groups as a way of life. Eclipse season is a time when that connection can be strengthened and confirmed to Spirit. The energy is powerful whether it's a solar or lunar eclipse, partial or full. Modern times have disconnected many of us from the interconnectedness of all things that are foundational beliefs of Indigenous peoples. We can regain it by honoring the spiritual traditions passed down through generations by our ancestors.

A total lunar eclipse on March 14 will follow the Full Moon in Virgo's peak and will be visible throughout the United States and South America, as well as parts of Europe and Africa. On March 29, we welcome a partial solar eclipse, which coincides with the New Moon in Aries. This creates an excellent time for manifesting and gathering in community with others to raise the vibration here on Earth.

What is a Lunar Eclipse?

A lunar eclipse is a dance between the sun, moon, and Earth. The Earth takes the lead, moving between the sun and the moon and casting a shadow on the moon. Lunar eclipses, whether partial or full, only occur during a full moon, which creates heightened energy on its own. Spiritually, lunar eclipses are respected as a transformative time. It brings the shadowy sides of ourselves to the surface to be healed.

What is a Solar Eclipse?

A solar eclipse is another kind of astrological dance when the moon leads, passing between the sun and Earth. Partial solar eclipses happen when the moon blocks only a portion of the sun. Whether the moon is blocking the sun fully or partially, it casts a shadow on parts of the Earth. The energy can be felt across our planet. Like a lunar eclipse, solar eclipses hold spiritual significance as powerfully transformative times. As the moon momentarily blocks the sun, we can honor the shadow work that is so essential to spiritual growth and healing.

What Indigenous Spiritual Rituals Are Done During a Lunar Eclipse?

Indigenous people often practiced deep introspection during lunar eclipses. Many traditions include fasting, abstaining from sexual activity, staying indoors, prayer, and meditation. Their stillness was a way to show respect to Mother Earth and the Great Spirit for the significant cosmic changes and renewals taking place during the lunar eclipse.

Palo Santo and Copal are great during this time. You can even mop your floors with a mixture of warm water, Florida Water, and Rue Water. Rue, or ruda, has been used for centuries to remove evil energy from spaces and people. It cannot be consumed but is quite powerful as a cleanser or in spiritual baños or limpias.

After your space has been cleansed of negativity, stagnant energy, and blockages to joy and inner peace, it's time to fill your home with gratitude and love. Consider gathering everyone who lives in the home together to meditate and pray. Hold hands in a circle and tune into the energy that is created. Deep breathing together and even long embraces can improve the flow of energy in your home, community, and the world at large. It begins within us and will naturally flow outward.

What Indigenous Spiritual Rituals Are Done During a Solar Eclipse?

Solar eclipses are honored and respected in similar ways to lunar eclipses. Some Indigenous groups believe staying indoors shows respect for the sun's symbolic death and rebirth during the eclipse. Other traditions include being outdoors during the eclipse and dancing under the sun in celebration of its life-giving energy or partaking in naming ceremonies to honor new life. When the moon casts its shadow over the light, engulfing the planet in momentary darkness, silence, prayer, and meditation occur until the sun's rays return.

In Western civilization, we often wear protective glasses to marvel at solar eclipses. But Indigenous traditions believe the opposite. As a sign of respect for this display of life's cycles between the light and the dark, Indigenous groups did not look up at it but instead turned inward to connect with it on a spiritual level and allow the energy of the eclipse to flow through them.

The upcoming March 29 partial solar eclipse would be a great time to celebrate as the sun shines and then revert into stillness as the moon casts its shadow. Think of yourself as a plant that has survived winter. You may have to prune the parts of yourself that have died or are dying. This could be old ways of thinking, patterns, or even people and places you may have outgrown. Dig deep to find the parts of you that are no longer needed and remove them so the other parts can grow strong and healthy. You could write a list celebrating your journey, who you are becoming, and what you need to let go of or remove to fully be reborn during the solar eclipse, which follows the March 20 spring equinox.

Herbs to Work with During Eclipse Season

Herbs act as allies during eclipse season. Whether you're using them as an ingredient in a spiritual baño or limpia, or sipping it in a tea, plants are intelligent beings. They can maximize the robust energy exchange that occurs between us and astrological transits. Here are some herbs to consider incorporating in your spiritual rituals:

Mugwort: to deepen meditation and enhance dreams.

Ginkgo Biloba: to strengthen spiritual communication with the divine.

Skullcap: to ease a running mind and deepen meditation.

Chamomile: to calm the nervous system and heal mother wounds.

Sage: for cleansing your space and yourself from blockages, stagnant, and negative energy.

Crystals to Work With During Eclipse Season

Solar eclipses are a great time to charge your crystals. After praying and setting intentions for your crystals, you can place them on a window sill or someplace outside. Holding them in your hands during eclipse meditations and prayers is also super powerful. Here are some go-to's for the eclipse season:

Black Tourmaline: for protection and to shield negativity within or from another.

Flower Agate: for a deeper connection to Spirit and to embrace new beginnings.

Sunstone: to amplify the sun's energy within your soul and build confidence.

Red Jasper: to ground and connect deeply with Mother Earth.

Selenite: for protection, clarity, and honoring your higher self.

Essential Oils For Eclipse Season

Our sense of smell can deepen meditation and assist in soul-journeying through aroma therapy. You can amplify your eclipse ritual by rubbing a little oil on your wrists, behind your ears, third eye, or heart chakra. You can also use incense or a diffuser if you prefer not to have it on your physical body. Here are five essential oils that act as a powerful support for eclipse season spiritual rituals:

Frankincense: to deepen spiritual connection and support along your life's journey.

Vetiver: for grounding and connecting to Mother Earth.

Peppermint: to calm the nervous system.

Patchouli: to enhance psychic abilities and honor your intuition.

Ylang Ylang: to combat anxiety, stress, and sadness and enhance feelings of joy.

Tarot Cards to Work With During Eclipse Season

If you are into tarot cards, you can display a card that coincides nicely with the energy of eclipse season. The card you choose to display acts as a symbol of your intentions for your eclipse spiritual ritual. Here are some examples:

The Hermit: to symbolize the need for an intentional pause and go deeply inward for spiritual guidance.

Death card: a representation of a symbolic death taking place within yourself, giving way to a new way of being and living.

The Moon: to reveal hidden emotions and illusions and dive deep into the subconscious mind.

The Hanged Man: to truly let go and surrender.

Prayer For Eclipse Season

Great Spirit, I pray for profound transformation and clarity during this eclipse season. I honor Mother Earth by quieting my mind and tuning into her frequency as the moon and sun dance in the sky. I am aware of the significance of this season and honor ancestral medicine as a way to find balance in my life and continue the traditions passed down through my lineage. I am one with the Earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars. By honoring the elements, I honor myself, you, Great One, and the constant shifts and changes that this life brings. As above, so below. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So, be it.

Zayda Rivera is a PS contributor. She has been a professional writer for more than 20 years. Z is a certified Reiki Master-Teacher, yoga and Zumba instructor, mindfulness and meditation guide, tarot reader, and spiritual mentor.

Bad Bunny's "Debí Tirar Más Fotos" Tells Puerto Rico's History

Miguel Machado — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 11:41:40 -0800

The opening track of Bad Bunny's sixth studio album, "Debí Tirar Más Fotos," which was released on Jan. 5, doesn't begin in the way many of us have come to expect typical reggaetón songs to start. There are no heavy synths underlining the intro, no plucky "wite" melody (how Puerto Ricans refer to the iconic melody sampled from Jamaica's "Bam Bam" riddim), and no pounding dembow bassline. Instead, "Nuevayol" opens with a sample from the salsa classic "Un Verano En Nueva York" by El Gran Combo, the first sign we are in for something different. And by the time the album's 17 tracks are through, we've been taken on a tour through Puerto Rico's rich musical history. This is Bad Bunny's most Puerto Rican and emotionally vulnerable album yet, where he uses the island's musical soundscape as a canvas to comment on its many sociopolitical issues while cultivating the musical terroir of Puerto Rico's future.

"Debí Tirar Más Fotos," which translates to "I should've taken more photos," comes at a crucial time for Puerto Ricans, both on the island and throughout the diaspora. With the same administration that has helped lead the island into corruption and decay about to take office yet again, there is no guarantee that our traditions or way of life won't be directly impacted. Such is the march of time, and the impact of over 500 years of colonization cannot be understated.

Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez, seems to understand this better than most. The album is framed loosely by the idea of the singer entering the new year alone, reflecting on a lost love, which can easily correlate to the loss of agency, sleep, and a promising future many Puerto Ricans are grappling with. Our beaches are slowly being poisoned. Our lands are being sold to crypto billionaires. And our lights still won't stay the fuck on.

Given these circumstances, it's not hard to see how the nostalgia of the past can serve as an escape. But Martínez, while his character might be drinking pitorro and reminiscing about an ex, isn't getting lost in nostalgia. He's using it to bridge the gap between the island's past and its future. While the opening track starts with a salsa sample, which shouts out Puerto Rican legends like salsero Willie Colón and the owner of the last standing Puerto Rican social club in NYC, Maria Antonia Cay (known as Toñita), the second song on the album, "Baile Inolvidable," sees Martínez harmonizing in his typical urbano cadence over the horns, keys, and typical salsa orchestration provided by Libre de Musica San Juan. This is followed by tracks borrowed from less commercial genres, such as bomba y plena, música jíbara, and bachata. However, while the sonic landscape of "DTMF" owes much to the island's past, the voices it features are primed to shape the island's musical tradition for years to come.

Puerto Rico's next big thing, RaiNao, is featured on the track "Perfumito Nuevo," a sexy, upbeat reggaetón number with pulsing, alternating dembow rhythms that are perfect for a day-trip across Puerto Rico's sunbaked carreteras. The very next track, "Weltito," calls in assistance from up-and-coming Latin jazz, tropical fusion quartet Chuwi.

Martínez might be a once-in-a-generation superstar, but he's always understood that he is part of a bigger musical tradition, one that includes greats like Hector Lavoe, Andres Jimenez, Olga Tanon, Big Pun, Tego Calderon, and many more. And with that comes a certain responsibility. Martínez knows that any artist he features will be springboarded into the spotlight, and he uses his platform accordingly to ensure that the tradition continues long after he's gone.

There's been a "recent back to the roots" movement sweeping across the underground scene in PR, with new artists experimenting with more traditional sounds, which the artists featured on the album, including Chuwi, Rainao, Omar Courtz, and Dei V are all a part of. Even Rauw Alejandro stepped up to embrace a more classic style and pay homage to the diaspora on his last album with a cover of 'Tú Con El" by Frankie Ruiz. So it's no surprise that after "nadie sabe lo que vas a pasar mañana," the trap masterclass that was his last album, Martínez's latest project would have him going in a more eclectic direction and using his platform to help push the island's sound in that direction.

But in many ways, Bad Bunny is also kind of an anti-superstar. Whereas being a pop star often means trading in a more cultivated sound for something that appeals to the masses, Martínez has done the opposite. The more his fame has grown, the more his musical trajectory has diverged from typical pop stardom, leading him down the path of auteur and activist similar to hip hop artist and rapper Kendrick Lamar. Similarly, as his fame has grown, his albums have become less accessible and more insular. "DTMF" is not an album that caters to outside audiences. It's not meant to appeal to tourists, something the artist touches on in the track "Turista," a cautionary tale about falling in love with the superficial but being unwilling to accept or live with a person's or, in this case, a place's imperfections.

But maybe the most impactful track on the disc is "Lo Que Le Paso a Hawaii." On it, Bad Bunny examines the similarities between Hawaii and Puerto Rico, how both were made U.S. territories in 1898 and how the transition from colony to statehood has served the American interests while raising the cost of living and marginalizing native Hawaiians. It is an eerily similar parallel to what Martínez sees occurring today in Puerto Rico: the influx of American ex-pats, the gentrification of cultural centers, and the government's push for statehood. It's no wonder the artist was brought to tears on a recent visit to San Juan. The album is filled with bittersweet sentiments like these.

If "Un Verano Sin Ti" was a love letter to Caribbean culture (Spanish and non-Spanish speaking alike), and "nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana" was an homage to the street life of Puerto Rico, then "DTMF" is a celebration of who we are as people, a testament to our grit, and our contribution to music as whole. Sure, the traditional genres are well represented here, but there are also touches of house and spoken word, which remind us of the roles we've played in elevating those arts.

Martínez is wielding nostalgia as a weapon here, taking aim at those who would see us pushed off our lands and erased from history, and he's doing it in the most Puerto Rican of ways: by making noise. And in the process, he's fully come into his own as an artist and visionary. And that vision puts his island and his people front and center in everything he does. As he says on one of my favorite tracks from the album "EoO": "You're listening to Puerto Rican music. We grew up listening to and singing this. In the projects, in the hoods. Since the 90s, the 2000s until forever."

Miguel Machado is a journalist with expertise in the intersection of Latine identity and culture. He does everything from exclusive interviews with Latin music artists to opinion pieces on issues that are relevant to the community, personal essays tied to his Latinidad, and thought pieces and features relating to Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican culture.

How Indigenous Artist Sophie Castillo's Ancestors Inspire Her Music

Ashley Garcia Lezcano — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 13:55:47 -0800

There's a reason Sophie Castillo's discography doesn't focus on one genre, one language, or any one rhythm. The London-born Colombian-Cuban is a multifaceted artist whose music is a testament to the cross-cultural environment she grew up in. You might recognize Castillo from TikTok, where her song "Call Me By Your Name" became one of her most listened-to tracks. Her ability to seamlessly blend Spanish and English over a bachata beat has undoubtedly earned the admiration of listeners.

Castillo began singing at the age of 3. While she was growing up, her Colombian mother and Cuban father, who were the first people in their respective families to immigrate to the UK, played only Latin music - specifically salsa. "My family was always playing a lot of salsa, so Grupo Niche, Fruko y Sus Tesos, Joe Arroyo, Celia Cruz," Castillo says. And her love of and talent for musical theater was recognized early. When Castillo was around 5, she performed in a school show and left an adult audience teary-eyed. This resulted in her mom and uncles placing her in an after-school drama program that allowed her to practice music and pursue acting, singing, and dancing. "This has been a lifelong dream of mine," the now 26-year-old says.

When she reflects on her childhood, the importance of Castillo's representation of the Latine community in UK media becomes clear. "I definitely had my issues as a kid growing up with not feeling represented," she says. As a result, she idealized Eurocentric features in Barbie dolls, films, and toys. Castillo says she didn't see herself in any of these areas growing up. "I never saw any type of Indigenous representation of Latina women," she notes.

"When I was a kid and didn't have the language to have those conversations, I had insecurities, but then as soon as I could express my feelings about that, I had a lot of support, and it really changed the way that I viewed myself," she continues. Castillo's advice for women who, like her, don't feel represented in the media is to "remember you have the features of your ancestors." She reflects on a beautiful sentiment she came across online: "You look the way you do because two of your ancestors loved those features in each other so much that they decided to come together and create a child. That child passed those features on, and eventually, they became yours."

Honoring the legacy of those who came before her has been crucial in Castillo's journey to self-love. When insecurities arise, she says she reminds herself, "Hold on a minute - I might have this nose or these eyes because one of my ancestors gave them to me."

Castillo has also learned to look inward when it comes to prioritizing her mental health and self-image. "What I've learned over time is actually just how much power we have within our own lives," she says. "I'm in control of my thoughts, my feelings, my mind. I can always change something to make myself feel better. I can always cheer myself up."

Pride in her heritage serves Castillo's confidence not only physically but also spiritually as she navigates her way through the music industry. "Being Latin American, our continent has gone through so much trauma as a land and our ancestors went through so much trauma, we need to honor them for what they gave us and how much they fought to survive in the midst of everything that they had to face," she says.

The influence of Castillo's Latin American heritage inspires the sound of her music - but most importantly, the influence of her ancestors serves as an inspiration for perseverance as she rises to stardom. She also credits growing up with Latine parents for several of her most important values. "There are many, but one of them is having that inner strength and general positive outlook on life - being able to pick yourself back up when you're down, dust off your knees, and continue," she says. This mindset is something "everyone in our family, and in a lot of Latine and immigrant families, have had to do."

These days, by weaving the language and sounds of her childhood into her storytelling, Castillo is able to honor these sacrifices and alchemize them. She weaves components of music that originated in Latin America with other inspirations to develop a unique sound and deeply personal voice. The result preserves cultural genres and introduces them to new audiences.

Through social media, Castillo has not only been building a platform for her music but also working to provide the representation she yearned for growing up. As she shares on her TikTok, she's patiently waiting to become a mainstream representation for "brown skin/Indigenous features women."

As she puts it, "A lot of girls message me or comment that they love that I look like them and their primas, and how they love seeing me with my features representing us in the music industry. They're rooting for me." And so are we.

Ashley Garcia Lezcano is an audience strategist, writer, and producer with a passion for highlighting Latine culture and stories. In addition to PS, her work has appeared in People en Español and Teen Vogue. As a first-generation Colombian American, Ashley is committed to authentically amplifying Latin voices and narratives.

Embracing My Inner Egoísta Fueled My Dreams in Comedy and Acting

Sasha Merci — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 06:00:03 -0800

Sasha Merci as Josefina in "La Egoísta" by Erlina Ortiz at Philadelphia Theatre Company. (Image Source: Mark Garvin)

Soy Demasiado, a special issue for Juntos, celebrates Latinas who are reclaiming what it means to be "too much." Read the stories here.

In a Dominican family, women are often raised to be the glue that holds everyone together. From a young age, we're taught to be reliable, dependable, and emotionally steadfast. Our role is clear: support the family, sometimes at the expense of our own dreams. In a culture that places so much emphasis on familismo - the idea that family comes first, always - I was raised to believe that my worth lay in how well I could build and maintain a nest for others to rest on. Following dreams that didn't fit into this vision for our family wasn't just discouraged; it was almost unimaginable.

For me, the journey of embracing my own dreams meant challenging the very foundation of those values. Choosing to leave New York and move to Los Angeles in 2018 to chase a career in acting and comedy felt like an act of rebellion. It was the most selfish thing I could have done - or at least that's how my family made me feel about it. They would ask why I'd choose this uncertain path, and whenever I missed family gatherings or drama erupted back home, I'd get calls suggesting that things would've been different if I had been there.

The decision to move and the aftermath were agonizing, loaded with guilt and self-doubt. Each missed holiday or family celebration was a reminder of the expectations I was defying. As the person in the family who would set boundaries, I became "the difficult one," the selfish one. At times I questioned my choice, but I believed that putting my dreams first would allow me to break a cycle and live a life that set a new standard for what a Dominican woman could achieve.

Because deep down, I knew that if I had stayed, the generational issues would've persisted. My absence didn't cause them; it allowed me to see them more clearly and validated my choice to carve a new path.

Of course, creating a new path for oneself isn't easy. Self-doubt creeps in, and generational trauma can convince you to believe the very ideas you're trying to break free from. But I realized that being perceived as an "egoísta" by people you love often isn't about malice; it's rooted in the fear of what failure might do to you. Parents, especially, want to keep us safe, and they were taught to survive rather than thrive. Life was meant to be taken seriously, with roles assigned to keep the family's ecosystem stable. But times are changing, and Latinas can be whatever they choose to be.

In my role as Josefina in a play I recently starred in called "La Egoísta," I found a striking reflection of my own life. "La Egoísta" was written by Erlina Ortiz, produced by the Tony Award-winning production company Edgewood Entertainment, and directed by Tatyana-Marie Carlo. I shared the stage with Maria Gabriela González, who played my sister, as well as puppeteer Marisol Rosea Shapiro. I am deeply grateful to have shared the stage with such talented people. This project taught me the importance of putting art first; it inspired, moved, and encouraged audiences to look within themselves to see what they might lack or need to become. Through Josefina, I came to understand the importance of embracing the "egoísta" within.

Josefina, like me, is caught in the tug-of-war between individual dreams and family loyalty. Familismo is a beautiful value rooted in love and support, but it can also be a burden, especially for women. For Latinas, these expectations often translate into an unspoken rule that our dreams come second. Men are encouraged to be go-getters, while women are expected to be nesters, always sacrificing for the family. I realized that while familismo is nurturing, it can unintentionally limit women from reaching our full potential.

As my career in comedy and acting took off, I had to make sacrifices that many wouldn't understand. I missed weddings, birthdays, and other family gatherings. Over time, I came to understand that my boundaries were necessary - not an act of abandonment, but an assertion of self-respect.

It took years, but I've learned to say no, protect my time, and prioritize my well-being and mental health over guilt. I came to realize that by sacrificing myself, I wasn't helping anyone in the long run. To be my best self and a successful comedian and actress, I had to give myself permission to pursue what felt right, even if it went against everything I'd been taught.

While some relatives have come to understand, others still don't. When I say no to big family events, their disappointment is palpable. I've been called "too much" for prioritizing my career, but I'm grounded by the knowledge that by being true to myself, I'm honoring my family in my own way. I want to show that a Latina can chase her dreams, create success, and still love her family deeply.

Playing Josefina taught me so much about the power of choice. "La Egoísta" gave me a chance to express the conflict many Latinas face: wanting to stay close to our roots while also branching out to pursue our dreams. Familismo is beautiful, but for it to truly serve us, it must evolve to support every family member's dreams. Women deserve the freedom to dream big, to move away if they choose, and to redefine what family means to them.

To other career-driven Latinas, I say this: don't be afraid to embrace your inner egoísta. Protecting your dreams and setting boundaries for your well-being isn't selfish. Your ambitions are valid, and your goals are worth pursuing. When we make space for our growth, we're not abandoning our families; we're creating a legacy that shows future generations that they, too, can follow their passions unapologetically. I'm proud to be a Dominican woman carving a new path, and I hope that by embracing my dreams, I'm helping others to do the same.

How the 2024 Presidential Election Could Shape Puerto Rico's Future

Miguel Machado — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 09:03:52 -0700

With both the 2024 Presidential election and the Puerto Rican Gubernatorial election rapidly approaching, citizens of the Caribbean island once again found themselves in a delicate position and in the headlines. Donald Trump's latest rally was filled with the kind of hate we've come to expect. However, Latinos and Puerto Rico were specifically singled out this time, with comedian Tony Hinchcliffe comparing the island to a "floating pile of trash" after commenting that Latines "don't pull out." Not only did these comments alienate Puerto Ricans, but they also seem to have bolstered support for Vice President Kamala Harris among the community, as only hours later, she received late-game endorsements from Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and current global phenomenon Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio - AKA Bad Bunny. And while the self-proclaimed "biggest star in the world" is no stranger to political action, prior to his endorsement, his efforts had been more focused on the heated race for the governor's seat on the island.

At the beginning of the month in Puerto Rico, drivers passing over the freeways of San Juan were greeted by a surprising political message that pulled no punches: "Quien vota PNP, no ama a Puerto Rico," which in English translates to, "Anyone who votes for the PNP doesn't love Puerto Rico." The billboard was accompanied by two others around the municipality with equally condemnatory messages for the PNP, the conservative Puerto Rican political party up for reelection for the governorship this November.

At first, the messages seemed like just another round of political gamesmanship by underdog challengers looking to turn the tide of the election against the incumbent. It was later revealed that the ads were Bad Bunny's handiwork. Fresh off the release of his politically charged single "Una Velita," the Puerto Rican reggaetonero was setting his sights on Puerto Rico's ruling party. And now, he's entered into American politics hoping to sway the other half of the equation that determines Puerto Rico's future.

But to understand what's at stake and why Bad Bunny's attack on the PNP and endorsement of Harris are so important, you have to understand what has been going on in Puerto Rico over the past seven years. In 2017, the island was decimated by Hurricane Maria. Almost 3,000 Puerto Ricans lost their lives, 97 percent of the island's power grid was destroyed, and the inept response by both the local and US governments saw emergency relief funds misallocated or outright blocked by the Trump administration.

Frustration from these events led to the ousting of disgraced governor and PNP poster child Ricardo Roselló in 2019. But the victory for his opponents was short-lived. Somehow, the majority of Puerto Ricans weren't tired enough of getting screwed over by their own government and elected Pedro Pierluisi, also of the PNP, as governor in 2020. All the while, the island's electrical grid has continued to falter. Blackouts continue to be the norm, sometimes leaving hundreds of thousands without power for days, and islanders have seen their energy costs soar. If you've been on TikTok lately, you've seen that island schools are in disrepair.

So, going into the 2024 elections, there is an undercurrent of frustration that has been boiling over for seven long years. And Bad Bunny is far from the only artist on the island using his platform to call for change. Artists like Residente and Rauw Alejandro have also been vocal about wanting to see the end of a two-party dichotomy of the PNP and PPD. Both artists support the newly formed party La Alianza, a leftist alliance between the two anti-colonial parties, the PIP and MVC. Others, like future superstar RaiNao, have taken to social media to animate the youth and give messages of hope while also shedding light on the fear-mongering and dirty politicking going on.

But even as they do, a greater question looms on the horizon because no matter who wins this election, Puerto Rico's future as a state, a colony, or an independent nation hinges on the island's relationship with the United States and whoever leads it. And that is an election that Puerto Ricans on the island can only watch and wait for the outcome. This is why Anuel and Nicky Jam coming out in support of Donald Trump - even going as far as to show up at his rallies - has been such a big deal.

Puerto Ricans on the island can't vote. But the diaspora on the mainland can. The policies that the president of the United States sets can have more of an impact on the quality of life on the island than the ones set by the local government. For example, in 2023, when a group of Puerto Rican journalists demanded that the Financial Oversight and Management Board - a US entity that oversees and approves matters related to the colony's budget - make information relating to financial reports, communications, and other important economic data available to the people, the US Supreme Court ruled that the board could have "sovereign immunity." It, therefore, did not have to comply with the request. While the board has reduced the overall debt by a large amount, it has done so at a high cost to the people, with austerity measures that have impacted public services, as well as federally funded healthcare programs across the island.

So yes, no matter what happens during the island's elections, nothing will change overnight. The US still holds a lot of the cards. But the PNP and PDP's grip on power has done nothing but dig the island deeper into debt, deeper into disrepair, and deeper into the pockets of foreigners who come giving nothing and taking everything. It has not provided any opportunity for a clean political slate. And if we can clean house, remove corrupt politicians, and put the country on a path forward, then we'll be able to negotiate our ultimate political fate from a position of power.

Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the world. Since 1493, we have been passed from one colonial overlord to another, our resources are taken to enrich everyone but our own citizens, watching as our sister colonies all achieved the reality of independence that has forever eluded us. These latest elections won't change the course of Puerto Rico's fate overnight, But in the long run, they will decide whether things get better or worse. With a Harris presidency, we get a Democratic President who is more likely to listen to a Puerto Rican base that largely tracks Democrats. A Trump Presidency almost ensures that the way Puerto Rico has been treated by its colonizer continues. Meanwhile, on the island, a PNP win basically ensures that Puerto Rican life continues on the downward spiral it has for decades. But should La Alianza win, it might not solve all of our problems. It might resolve the issue of our status. But it gives us a chance for progress, the chance to walk into a future written by Puerto Rican hands.

J Balvin Needed Time to Rest and Reinvent Himself - Then Came "Rayo"

Johanna Ferreira — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 13:34:23 -0700

About a year ago, J Balvin, whose full name is José Álvaro Osorio Balvín, told PS why he took a year to prioritize his wellness and focus on his family. The Colombian reggaetónero - who has become one of the biggest stars in musica urbano and the second most streamed Latin artist on Spotify - needed some time to recharge after the release of his 2021 album "JOSE." And it looks like taking time to slow down and be present with his partner of six years, model Valentina Ferrer, and their 3-year-old son, Río, has paid off. His latest album, "Rayo," reveals a newly energized Balvin. In this album, we see Balvin fall back in love with reggaetón, and reconnect with his younger self - the boy from Medellín who spearheaded the urbano sound in Colombia.

In terms of taking time to shift gears, Balvin says, "I definitely think I needed it." The artist has always been open about prioritizing his wellness and mental health and believes it's exactly what he needed to feel ready to get back in the studio. "I needed to rest and focus on my family and my son," he says. While Balvin might have paused in terms of working on a new album, he never stopped working altogether. "I was touring and doing festivals around the world. Not my own tour but I was touring in festivals, and it was great. It was beautiful," he adds. "But now that we are officially back with an album, it's a totally different vibe because I did this album without any pressure. I just went to the studio and had fun."

"I needed to rest and focus on my family and my son."

Balvin says that spending time with his family and just living life without the pressure of recording an album gave him a major creative boost. In just four months after returning to the studio, he recorded dozens of songs. "I was just going into the studio to do music. One day we were like, 'Oh, we got like 40 songs - we might have an album,'" he says. "That was the beautiful thing about this album. I didn't plan to make an album."

And it's true, "Rayo" is a reflection of how far Balvin has come. The word rayo translates to lightning, the name of his first car back when he lived in his hometown of Medellín as an emerging artist. Much like its title, the album is very much about Balvin returning to his essence. The artist says he went into it less concerned about streams and how it would perform and more dedicated to having fun in the studio, making music that excited him like in the early days of his career.

As he explains it, the album's name "reminds me of when I had my first car that my dad gave me with so much love and a lot of effort because we were going through a bad economic situation. But that car paved the way for me. We both paved the way in Colombia opening a new market of reggaetón. I used to sell my CDs in the truck and in the clubs and different concerts."

The album consists of songs like "Lobo" with Zion, which radiates 2010s reggaetón vibes. Tracks like "Swat, "Gangster, "Gaga" featuring Saiko, "Origami" with Ryan Castro and Blessd, and the hit single "Polvo de tu Vida" with Puerto Rican reggaetónero OG Chencho Corleone are sure to become club bangers this season. Balvin also included a few of his signature melodic tracks where he shows off his vocal skills, like "Cosa de Locos" and "3 Noches."

"It's modern, but I didn't lose my DNA," Balvin says.

One thing that's also been a throughline of Balvin's life is spearheading community initiatives. In 2022, he was honored at the United Nations Latino Impact Summit for his commitment to helping break the stigma around mental health issues that exists in the Latine community. He has also continued to dedicate himself to his Vibra en Alta foundation, which provides education and support for the Colombian youth. So it only makes sense that he recently partnered with Cheetos as their newest ambassador for their ongoing "Deja tu Huella" campaign, which supports young Latines in pursuing their career dreams.

"We want to help the new generations to be better and guide them the right way, because there's a lot of wasted talent that they just don't know where to go," he says. "And we'd like to super-serve them and tell them we're going to help you with your dream, and that's what we're here for."

This October, Balvin will headline Billboard's Latin Music Week while also introducing Cheetos's latest Deja tu Huella ambassador. The ambassador will have the opportunity to hit the road on a three-stop community college tour and be provided with resources to support them throughout their studies and career.

While Balvin might be returning to his own roots with this new album, empowering younger artists is always a key goal. "I'm happy to be there and share my point of view of music right now and what I think might be the future sound and, of course, keep introducing the new generation in music," he says. "It's been part of my DNA to work with new talent and if I can help them to have more exposure. I just do it with love and not thinking about someone [having] to give me back."

Balvin has clearly poured into himself, his family, and his community - an act that has revitalized him. Now, with his latest album, Balvin seems more alive and ready to reinvent himself than ever before. As one of the pioneers who paved the way for the reggaetón wave in Colombia, he has not only cemented his own legacy as a leyenda within the genre but also made room for the next generation.

"I feel, of course, more mature and more connected with myself and really embracing and grateful for what we've done for the culture," he says. "I know that I don't have to prove myself anymore. It's more about having fun."

Jessica Alba Brought Her Mexican Heritage Into All Aspects of "Trigger Warning"

Johanna Ferreira — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 12:00:02 -0700

It's been a while since we've seen Jessica Alba leading a film - in 2018, she pivoted to focus on her billion-dollar sustainable brand The Honest Company, which she stepped down from as chief creative officer in April. But in her latest movie, "Trigger Warning," Alba not only returns to the screen; she also makes a rare appearance as a Latina lead of an action flick.

In the movie, which was released on Netflix on June 21, Alba plays Parker, a US special forces commando stationed overseas who takes a trip back to her hometown after learning her father has died (which she later discovers was caused by a murder). The "Dark Angel" and "Sin City" actress, who also worked as the film's executive producer, says she made sure every detail behind her Mexican-American character was as authentic as possible.

It's no secret that Latines are major moviegoers and yet remain underrepresented on-screen. According to UCLA's 2021 Hollywood Diversity Report, Latines accounted for only 5.4 percent of movie leads and 5.7 percent of actors in any onscreen role that year. When we dive into specific genres that many Latines enjoy - like horror, rom-coms, and action films - the representation is even lower. But Alba's return proves how much we need to see more of this.

"I feel a lot of the times when you see women in this genre; we're either the damsel in distress or we're the male version of a badass woman - pretty emotionless [with] pretty stoic one-liners, wearing completely impractical clothes in action," Alba says. "And I just feel like it was so nice to play someone with wild hair who wears vintage [clothes] and cowboy boots, and it just felt very feminine and very human. Like someone who can be your neighbor and your friend."

The actress, who is half Mexican, says she took from her own experiences to bring all those layers and cultural nuances to Parker's character. Viewers can see it reflected in everything from the music-like the classic folk song "La Llorana" featured in the film-to the clothing choices.

"There are certain movies where I feel like our culture is represented, and many where it's not done right."

"When we were talking about it, I was really like, the music just has to be right. There are certain movies where I feel like our culture is represented, and many where it's not done right. I was like, I just want this to feel and just have that little bit of flavor so that it feels really right with what's going on right now," Alba says. She adds that she made a Pinterest board of the vibe she was going for with Parker's clothes, and the costume designer, Samantha Hawkins, and the director, Molly Surya, helped bring the whole vision to life. "Between the three of us, we really got to shape her and give it that nice kind of grittiness and realness."

But there was perhaps a deeper reason Alba's performance feels so convincing. The movie centers on loss, and if Parker's grief and devastation seem real, that's because Alba herself was grieving the loss of one of her own relatives when she was shooting the film.

"Weirdly, my grandfather passed away around the time that I was shooting the movie, so I was genuinely grieving him, and it was a very cathartic experience to be able to do a lot of that reflecting and grieving alongside Parker," she says. "A lot of my family photos are actually in the movie, so I really did get to infuse a bit of my family in the movie."

You can especially see Alba's touch as executive producer in one scene where Parker finds herself navigating an uncomfortable conversation with an ultra-conservative and racist senator played by Anthony Michael Hall. He mocks the term Latinx while giving Parker a pass for being a likable Mexican among many in the town.

"I don't know how that scene came to life exactly, but I loved it, and it took on a life of its own with Anthony Michael Hall, and I was sitting in that seat … in like all of Parker's ancestors' earrings and clothing because it's all vintage and lived in," she says. "And for this ding dong to sit there and try to reduce us and kind of be so disrespectful in an offhand way, it all landed. This thing kind of all clicked with that scene. It was like this is a flavor I had never seen in a movie."

The film, which has been positioned as a franchise starter, made Netflix's No. 1 spot over the weekend - proving that authentic storytelling is resonating with audiences. And while Alba is no stranger to action films and doing her stunts, "Trigger Warning" truly aligns with her longtime dream of becoming a Latina action hero.

How Erik Rivera Uses Comedy to Heal and Help Others

Miguel Machado — Mon, 06 May 2024 07:00:03 -0700

For Mental Health Awareness Month, we asked Latine comedians and creators we admire how comedy has supported them in overcoming trauma and confronting life's most significant challenges. Read the pieces here.

Erik Rivera's life is good. Joining our Zoom session from his Los Angeles home, the writer, actor, and comedian is all smiles beneath a worn baseball cap. Maybe it's that sunny weather Angelinos are always bragging about. Or maybe it's the fact that he's worked hard to achieve what he has now: a respectable career, a stable marriage, and two wonderful boys. Either way, the contrast between where he once was and his current status isn't lost on him, even if it is lost on his kids.

"My kids have no idea how good they have it," the comic says with a laugh.

Growing up as the child of a Puerto Rican father and Guatemalan mother in New Rochelle, NY, Rivera knows the value of a dollar all too well. He spent his younger years navigating between his parents' immigrant sensibilities and the pressures of American life. Unsurprisingly, that dichotomy is something that Rivera has been able to mine for comedic gold, incorporating it into his stand-up along with other aspects of his life, like his interracial marriage and what it's really like raising two boys. But, despite a lifelong love for stand-up, comedy as a career wasn't something that Rivera saw in the cards.

"When you come from immigrant parents, you don't know that that's a career. You're hammered into the usual, like doctor, lawyer, and told, 'Do something that's consistent and brings in consistent money,'" Rivera says. So Rivera planned to attend Pace University to pursue a degree in communications. Then 9/11 happened.

"[After 9/11], they reopened [the school] because they had been using the campus as a triage center. And I remember going back, and it was just this eerie feeling. There was soot everywhere. We're watching trucks bring debris out daily. Kids were just not feeling comfortable," Rivera recalls.

In an attempt to escape the morbid atmosphere, Rivera and a friend went to a comedy club, which they were shocked to find packed.

"People wanted to forget," the comedian says plainly. Then, the idea came to him to organize a comedy night on campus and give his fellow students the opportunity to come together and heal through laughter.

"Stand-up comedy is such a pure art form . . . no matter what you're going through in your day, you come out to a show, and for an hour and a half, those problems you have, you leave them at the door, and you have a good time," Rivera says. "Yeah, they'll still be there [when you leave], but you get to relax and release."

But while helping others through their trauma by organizing comedy shows was great, a part of Rivera wanted more. As a kid, he'd seen John Leguizamo's "Mambo Mouth," which immediately sparked something in him. Here was somebody from his culture, talking about things he could relate to. Now, as an adult, organizing stand-up nights and rubbing elbows with comedians, he has had the chance to tell his own story and use it to help people come to terms with theirs.

"I remember there was one night sitting [at a comedy show], and it was the first time I saw how the rabbit was pulled out of the hat. Like, I saw the setup, I saw the punchline, I saw how the guy was leading the audience one way and playing with their emotions of feeling frustrated, of anger, and releasing it with laughter," he says."I was like, 'I think I can do this.'"

A month later, he was onstage at a club called Hamburger Harry's in Times Square. For most of us, the thought of just jumping into the deep end like that would be unfathomable. But for Rivera, it's what makes stand-up special. It's not just about telling jokes, but about putting yourself out there - exposing your pain and hardships in service of the audience.

"Look, you can get up there and write jokes; there are amazing joke writers out there," Rivera says. "But [the real connection comes] from the vulnerability. Yeah, we find it through stereotypes, but there's also that vulnerability of 'hey, this is happening to me,' and people can relate to that."

For him, comedy is an outlet, a way to explore certain aspects of his life that aren't always neat or pretty, whether it's his mother-in-law suggesting having a Mexican mariachi band for Rivera's rehearsal dinner or making a point to keep the fridge stocked with guacamole just for him. Exploring these issues on stage allows him not only to process them in a healthy way, but also take the audience on the journey with him.

This is why stand-up comedy has traditionally been such a path to success for oppressed or marginalized communities. Our hardships can make for a good laugh that helps lighten the load we carry. But channeling that pain can be tricky. Rivera admits he's made the mistake of trying to explore certain traumas before the wounds have fully healed - specifically, his father's passing from Parkinson's disease.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, when I first started doing that story on stage, it was dicey. I wasn't ready to start talking about it," he says.

But then something beautiful happened. The more Rivera worked on the material, the more he refined the story about his father, and the more people started coming up to him after his shows to thank him and tell him they were going through something similar.

"Anytime you're going through something, you feel like, 'I'm the only one going through this.' We're all going through it; it's just that nobody talks about it," he says.

For this reason, writing has become a part of Rivera's healing process. Even if he hasn't gotten the distance from what he's going through, even if he can't see the funny just yet or isn't ready to bring it to the stage, his mind is always working it over on the chance that someday he'll be able to share it. He journals frequently, seeing it as a kind of "map" of how he gets through difficult times. The comedian also mentions the important role running plays in helping him process his thoughts.

"Everybody should have some kind of quiet time or meditation or something to get you out of your own head and your own space," Rivera says.

Whether it's working through material on stage or running in the fair weather of Los Angeles, Rivera has his. Throughout our conversation, he exudes a kind of self-assuredness that comes from working on his bits, which is actually him working on himself. Now, he's ready for what comes next, even if it's not necessarily comedy.

"You always have to evolve, man," he says."You have to do everything, you have to write, you have to direct. The more tools you have in your toolbox, the harder it is for them to say no to you."

Rivera does all of that. During the pandemic, he wrote an animated show he's looking to shop around in the future. And while he still loves comedy and shares that it will always be how he heals and helps others heal, he also admits that there are more ways to tell the stories that matter.

"Having kids changed my perspective on everything," he says. "Watching television and not seeing the representation there, where my kids aren't even seeing themselves . . . now I've sort of pivoted to, let's write these next TV projects so we can see ourselves there."

Rivera wants to see more than just the stereotypical Latine narratives about "border crossing trauma" or "we gotta save the taco shop." He just wants to see regular shows about Latines as regular people with regular problems, working through those problems the same way he has and continues to do.

"That's my next goal in life, to make these shows that people can laugh at and watch together and vibe with and just happen to have Latinos in them," he concludes.

Julio Torres's "Problemista" Shows the US Immigration System Is a Relentless Maze

Johanna Ferreira — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 10:00:02 -0700

We live in a society that insists if you work hard, you can probably achieve the goals you've set for yourself. But "Problemista," the first feature film by writer and comedian Julio Torres, which is now in theaters worldwide, poses the question: is working hard always enough? Loosely based off of Torres's own immigration experience, the film follows Alejandro, an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador struggling to make his dream a reality in New York City who loses his job and desperately needs to secure a sponsor to stay in the States. Even after taking a freelance assistant gig with an erratic art critic named Elizabeth (played by Tilda Swinton), Alejandro (played by Torres) finds himself in one of the most relentless and nightmarish mazes of American bureaucracy - the US immigration system.

"I think that I've always been fascinated with how soulless and how isolating bureaucracy can be, and I think different people experience that differently," Torres tells PS. "This is the way in which I experienced it. But the term 'American dream' wasn't really a term I was thinking about when writing this. I just wrote something that I felt was true and that felt honest - emotionally honest."

Before his days writing "Saturday Night Live" skits, landing his first HBO standup comedy special "My Favorite Shapes," and writing and starring in HBO's "Los Espookys," Torres, like his film's protagonist, went through his own nightmarish immigration journey. He left his native country of El Salvador and moved to New York to pursue his dreams of being a filmmaker and enrolled in The New School, where he studied film writing. As an international student with no work visa, Torres relied on on-campus jobs or occasional, low-paying odd jobs he'd find on Craig's List. The limitations that came with what he often refers to as the "invisible bureaucracy guardrails within the US immigration system" left him feeling hopeless and isolated.

But Torres wants to make something clear to viewers - he didn't create this film to fill a diversity quota or even with the intention of creating a film that represented the experience of a Central American immigrant (a narrative we don't often, if ever, see). He created this film to simply mirror his own experiences.

"It's sort of what happens when different kinds of people get to make movies; you get to hear all these different kinds of stories," he says. "It's not like I set out and thought about, 'What's a list of interesting topics?' This is just something very close to me, and I really honestly was not thinking about how universal or relatable or not relatable the movie would be. I just made it and felt it could go either way. But people seem to be connecting with it."

It's a similar approach many other Latine actors, writers, and storytellers have been trying to take. They don't want to take on roles or create films for the sake of representation. Writing films or shows or taking on roles marketed as "Latine" projects often comes with the pressure to represent an entire community and the risk of coming off as inauthentic. These days, Latine actors and storytellers are more interested in creating art that mirrors or speaks to their real-life experiences, with the hope that it resonates with audiences - regardless of their background.

"Not just diversity like cosmetically - not just like for the poster," Torres says. "Just diversity of thought. Diversity of opinion. Diversity of experience. Diversity of styles, too, because movies for the longest time or sometimes still feel like they're all the same. And it's because we're abiding by the same rules. But different parts of the world tell stories in different ways and so I've actually been reflecting a lot about that . . . I feel like this movie is so full of stuff and it's maybe because that's a Latin American/Central American sensibility."

As someone who has experienced what it means to work hard and still hit a wall because of a broken system, Torres deeply relates to and empathizes with the frustration that comes with being an immigrant living in the States. If audiences take anything away from the film, he hopes it encourages both curiosity and empathy for folks in similar situations to Alejandro.

"Sometimes I feel like I made the movie, and now people should open it like a little treasure chest and take whatever they like. And if they don't like anything, they can go ahead and close the treasure chest," he says. "But if I can be a drop in the bucket of just advocating for empathy and encouraging people to look at those around them and try to think about their perspective - not only would they gain some context in terms of where other people are coming from, but it would help make life feel a little less lonely."

Johanna Ferreira is the content director for POPSUGAR Juntos. With more than 10 years of experience, Johanna focuses on how intersectional identities are a central part of Latine culture. Previously, she spent close to three years as the deputy editor at HipLatina, and she has freelanced for numerous outlets including Refinery29, O Magazine, Allure, InStyle, and Well+Good. She has also moderated and spoken on numerous panels on Latine identity.

Tell Me Más: Bodine Talks New Album "Quemo Lento" and Growing From Hardships

Juan Arroyo — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 06:27:02 -0700

In the music video for her piano-driven interlude "Bambi," Bodine poses in the middle of a dense forest, artistically garbed in assorted animal bones as she croons over the black and white footage with an ear-catching voice that straddles mezzo and alto ranges. The visual doubled as an announcement video for her sophomore EP, "Quemo Lento," which dropped last month. Still, if anyone got the impression the project would hinge on somber instrumentals, her other tracks quickly proved them wrong. The follow-up singles "No Me Quiere Más Na'" and "Nalgaje" present a saucier and more liberated version of Bodine. But who is the real Bodine? Is it the contemplative, artsy soul hinted at in the first track, or the one who takes pride in homaging vedette Iris Chacón and singing catchy odes to booties? The answer is unsurprising to those who know her - she's both.

Born in Amsterdam, Bodine Koehler Peña and her family relocated to Puerto Rico when she was 8, and that's where she spent her formative years. After a brief stint in a Catholic elementary school in Old San Juan, she enrolled in the Escuela Especializada en Ballet Julián E. Blanco. The institution offered an opportunity to learn both traditional courses and dance.

"We trained from 7:30 in the morning until 11:30, and then took a shower, [ate] lunch, and had academics until 5," she says. Bodine doesn't hesitate to refer to herself as having been a "wild child" during her early teenage years, spurring her mother into finding another outlet for all that energy.

"I never followed rules," she says, slyly grinning. "And my mom was like, 'Wow, I have to find things for her to do, to really keep her off the street.' I was making too many friends too fast."

Her solution wasn't far away: an old piano they had in the house often grabbed Bodine's attention. "I would always sit down and play some disparates," she laughs. Noting her interest in music, her mother got her formal piano classes at San Juan's Department of Art and Culture. Soon after, her grandfather helped cover the costs of enrolling her at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, where she eventually took courses in piano, songwriting, and opera singing.

During this time, Bodine gained what she today calls a "survival instinct" that she's harbored ever since. Her family relied primarily on public transportation, but the surplus of classes she was taking meant her days ended late. She and her mother would walk dimly lit streets and bridge underpasses to bus stops, often paying with coins they had scrounged up. Far from the façade of the carefree, impossibly beautiful model that came later, Bodine looks back at those days as tinged with uncertainty and worry. To hear her tell it, her ambitions were born from a desire to protect her family, whom she saw was sacrificing so much for her.

"It was a necessity. The way it came to me, it was not even me really looking for it," Bodine says. "I was just like, 'I have to take care of my mom.'"

Her most significant break came at the young age of 13 and resulted from a spur-of-the-moment decision. As she tells it, on an inspired whim, she walked into the Calle Loíza offices of notable Puerto Rican fashion designer Harry Robles and declared herself his next model. Her spunkiness and confidence impressed Robles, and the very next day, she had the gig. This was the first step on the path that led to her becoming Miss Puerto Rico and participating in Miss Universe 2012 in front of millions.

While she tries not to dwell on her years as the reigning Miss Puerto Rico and her experiences afterward as a budding model in New York City, especially in light of the more upbeat and optimistic flavor of "Quemo Lento," she shares that that phase of her career created an arc that has molded her into who she is today. She's proud of the work, but readily admits she took the opportunity because of its benefits.

"The reason I got in there was they told me, 'Hey, you will get some money. You will get a car.' And I needed [to pay for] school, I needed a car, I needed to buy books, I needed to help my family," she says. What came after her participation in Miss Universe was another deck of cards, one that didn't turn out in her favor. According to Bodine, these days, women who are successful in pageants go on to appear in TV shows or receive greater opportunities for their careers. But in her time, she says, "it wasn't like that."

"I had to provide for my family, for myself, and so I had to leave and hustle."

She continues: "You finish, and then you're like, 'I need work, I need an income.' So I had to go get that. I had to provide for my family, for myself, and so I had to leave and hustle."

Bodine doesn't water down the disillusion she felt. "It was a lot. I had a lot of people around me [those days]. I had a lot of 'friends' around me. And the truth is I was 17, 18, 19 when all this happened," she says. When she returned to fending for herself, reality became a cold splash in her face. "That's when you know who your friends really are. I had no support. All my 'friends' were not my friends. And that gets really lonely. That was lonely, and very disappointing, and very heartbreaking."

The sometimes toxic negativity from the press and public that threatened to overshadow her reign was also disheartening. These days, she tackles it in a more holistic manner despite agreeing that the media's hyper-focus on "messy" celebrities tends to be cruel.

"It is cruel. And I think I just knew that it was part of the process. When you're in the public eye, you need to understand that you just need to really be passionate about what you want in your life and speak to that, because no matter what, there's always going to be negativity," she says. "There's always going to be people who try to push you down."

Even back then, Bodine was aware of the particular vitriol reserved for women, especially young women, who were scrutinized more than the average person and were given less leeway and grace to make mistakes. She's thankful she got through it, and more so that there is accountability now that didn't exist back then.

"I think all women were in a situation where they were completely vulnerable. And hey, bad timing, I guess. I think today not everybody can say whatever they want about particular women," she says. "Back then - this is before the #MeToo movement - you could say anything and everything. And I'm sure a lot of girls experienced that, not only in my world but in [other industries]."

Her post-Miss stint as a model was also rocky and uphill at the start, owing to that same lack of support. "I didn't know anybody. I had no agency. I applied [and] everyone said no to me. I applied to more than 20 agencies, from the most deep dungeon ones to the top. And they all said no," she says.

The situation became so dire it began to resemble an absurdist comedy at one point. "I remember I was so stressed that I had so much acne all over. I was so stressed I literally grew a beard," she laughs. "I was so desperate for work that I went to the booker, and I'm like, 'Listen to me. I need a job. I need to get booked. I'll do anything. I could do [a] Proactiv campaign. I can do anything, I can do even Gillette.'"

As fate would have it, she did eventually get signed, and steady work began to arrive. Still, the phantoms of her past and her survival instinct never went away. Twelve years and two albums later, Bodine looks back on what has led her to today with a mix of gratitude and melancholy. "Celos," her underrated first EP, was imbued with a darker sound, even when it was trying to be a joint that could still pass as sensual and club-worthy. The reason for that is clear in hindsight.

"It was a time I was really depressed," she shares. "I was about to . . . stop being in the industry." She ran into the same roadblocks that had pestered her for over a decade since her pageant days. Namely, people trying to box her into a persona that was nowhere close to who she felt she was. It's a big reason she's maintained being an independent artist so far.

"I didn't submit [to industry pressure]," she says. "So that project was born from a place of restarting all over."

She's still striving to grow as an artist, and just as oysters create pearls from irritants that invade their system, Bodine sees everything she went through as a process that has made her more formidable than ever as a woman and a creative. She credits meditation as one of the most significant tools that helped her harness her experiences positively, saying she took it up early in her career because "there was a lot of waiting time" to indulge in it. But she also says she feels thankful for her art when it comes to shooting down any criticism or negativity.

"I feel protected by music. I think that music, my work, will always talk for me," she says. "Quemo Lento," with its varied offering of genres and eclectic guest artists, tells the world that she's feeling much more optimistic.

"I'm in a good place - happy and really proud, and finally doing what I've actually wanted to do my whole life. I wish I were here before, but I just know it wasn't my time yet," she says. "I had to go through this whole thing to help my family and change my circumstances. And it was tough, but we're here now."

It might've been a slow burn, but she's made it and is ready for what's next.

Juan J. Arroyo is a Puerto Rican freelance music journalist. Since 2018, he's written for PS, Remezcla, Rolling Stone, and Pitchfork. His focus is on expanding the canvas of Latin stories and making Latin culture - especially Caribbean Latin culture - more visible in the mainstream.

Melissa Barrera in "Abigail" Is Proof We Need More Latines in Horror

Johanna Ferreira — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 06:25:02 -0700

The lack of Latine representation in film today is disappointing when you consider Latines accounted for 29 percent of moviegoers in the States in 2020. And here's a fun fact you probably didn't know: Latines also represent 26 percent of horror movie audiences, compared with 20 percent for other genres, according to a recent survey. Still, there's a marked lack of Latine actors starring in horror films. But Melissa Barrera's career has been challenging that. The horror and suspense queen has starred in several films within the genre in just the past few years, including "Scream," "Scream IV," "Bed Rest," and "Your Monster."

Her latest role is as Joey in "Abigail," a gory vampire film released April 19 about a group of criminals assigned to kidnap the 12-year-old daughter of a crooked millionaire. Like a lot of Barrera's roles, Joey isn't your typical in-your-face Latina character. She's a war veteran with a dream to reunite with her son; she's a character who could have been played by any actor regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender but whom Barrera beautifully made her own.

"I've always thought that movies should be an accurate reflection of what the world looks like, and so I think as a community we've kind of been missing in that regard," Barrera says of the lack of Latine representation in Hollywood films. "We've kind of been pushed to the side and relegated to smaller roles in all genres but specifically in the horror genre, too. . . . So, it's nice for me as a Mexican woman to be able to get roles that weren't necessarily written for somebody like me, but they believed in me enough and gave me the opportunity. It's my favorite kind of representation, honestly."

Before diving into suspense, drama, and horror movies, and after her early career days in Mexican telenovelas, Barrera starred in films and shows that were heavily marketed as Latine projects, like her roles as Lyn in the Starz drama series "Vida," created by Tanya Saracho, and Vanessa in Lin-Manuel Miranda's "In the Heights."

But those films, she says, were difficult to get off the ground. "Movies that have all Latino leads don't necessarily do well at the box office all the time. It's always been a conundrum of: what is the thing we have to figure out?" she says. "When something is marketed as the Latino thing that everybody should watch and support, it does two things, in my opinion: It turns off a lot of people. Because it's like you don't tell me what to do. You don't tell me what to watch or support. And then it also puts a lot of pressure on the project to represent the entirety of the community - which is impossible to do."

It wasn't until Barrera started taking on roles in films and series that weren't marketed as Latine projects that she really started to see her career take off. We have started to see more Latine stars take on roles in horror films, like Jenna Ortega in Netflix's "Wednesday," Justina Machado in "The Horror of Dolores Roach," and Jaden Michael in "Harlan Coben's Shelter" and "Vampires vs. the Bronx." Barrera's characters stand apart, though, as she's often the lone survivor who makes it in the end.

"I think audiences really appreciate that kind of representation. It's an honor for me to be able to do that and fight for those kinds of roles," she says. "I usually gravitate and am attracted to roles that don't say 'Latina' in parentheses."

A perfect example of this was Barrera's role in "Scream" and "Scream IV," where she played Sam Carpenter, a character who wasn't originally Latina but was reimagined that way once she signed on.

"The father of my character is white. But they were like, why not? She could have a white dad. Her mom could be Latina. Why couldn't she be Latina? And so, I appreciate creatives that have a vision and can look further out and outside of the box," she says. "I think that's lacking in the industry, but fortunately there are people like Matt [Bettinelli-Olpin] and Tyler [Gillett] that give opportunities to people like me. I feel very fortunate, and I feel very honored, and I'm happy to represent. And I will continue to fight for more spaces for us and bring people with me."

Unfortunately, the Scream franchise fired Barrera last year after she made headlines for calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, which has so far killed over 33,000 Palestinians and 1,139 Israelis.

But the proud Mexican actress has refused to let the situation hinder her focus or her desire to advocate for others. Since the dismissal, Barrera has not only stood her ground in speaking out against what's happening in Gaza but also remained committed to her craft, landing lead roles and creating the type of representation she herself has always wanted to see in film and television.

"Even though Joey wasn't written as a Latina, I'm glad I got to play her, and I'm glad that I got to play a veteran, because there are so many Latinos in the Army, and so it's important to illustrate that reality as well," she says. "I do feel very lucky that I get to play these roles and I get to create more space for more people like us, because that is the goal for me. There are roles that are going to be written for Latinos, but if we just stick to the roles that someone has decided are going to be the only roles for us, then things are never going to change."

"Gordita Chronicles" Finally Gets a Second Life on Tubi, Hulu and Disney+

Johanna Ferreira — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 15:00:02 -0700

According to new McKinsey & Company research, there are over 62 million Latinos living in the United States who not only account for more than $3 trillion of GDP but are also avid consumers of film and TV. US Latinos account for 24 percent of box office ticket sales and 24 percent of streaming subscribers. Yet somehow, there still aren't enough Latines behind and in front of the camera even though our viewership doubles when we see ourselves represented on or off screen.

Today, we still don't have enough TV programming that accurately represents us - and the few shows that have been created for us and by us, like "Vida," "One Day at a Time," "Promised Land," and "Gentefied," were eventually all canceled despite their popularity. Among these many cancellations was Dominican American creator Claudia Forestieri's beloved "Gordita Chronicles," which was released in June 2022 on HBO Max and was canceled after just one season. Despite having a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, Max removed it from their platform altogether, breaking the hearts of fans and the creators who brought it to life. Now more than a year later, the 10-episode series is getting a second chance at life as it returns to not one but three streamers: Tubi, Disney+, and Hulu.

"After over a year of hoping and praying for the show to get a second life, it was like having Christmas Day three days in a row. [I] still can't believe it," Forestieri tells PS. "First, we found out about the show streaming on Tubi, which was like the answer to all my prayers. Then we found [out] we were also going to be on Hulu, and I could barely believe it. Then, last Friday, the day the episodes went on Tubi and Hulu, I got this photo from one of our actors showing me the show was also on the Disney+ platform, too."

"Gordita Chronicles" included Zoe Saldaña and Eva Longoria's backing as executive producers, and it is one of the rare TV shows that represents the Dominican American family experience. For years, the only Latine family shows available either depicted Mexican American stories, like "The George Lopez Show," or occasionally the Puerto Rican or Cuban narrative. That was part of Forestieri's inspiration behind creating the show. She wanted to develop a program inspired by her own life growing up as a gordita and a Dominican immigrant navigating life in Miami in the 1980s - something that touched on important themes around immigration, the pressure to assimilate to American culture, as well as Dominican family values and traditions. Colombian American Brigitte Muñoz joined forces with Forestieri as the first Latina showrunner and creator duo.

The show also featured an impressive cast, including Olivia Goncalves, who played the show's protagonist, 12-year-old Carlota "Cucu" Castelli, Diana Maria Riva, who played the mom (Adela), Juan Javier Cardenas, who played the dad (Victor), a Dominican of Italian descent hence the last name, and Savannah Nicole Ruiz, who played Cucu's older sister, Emilia.

But despite its high ratings and continued support from the community, the show just couldn't survive the brutality of Hollywood. Its cancellation caused so much outrage among Latine viewers that fans eventually went on to create the #SaveGordita digital campaign across social media in hopes that another streamer would pick it up. Forestieri believes the reason why Latine shows constantly get canceled is because streamers and networks don't allow them the time to really build their audience.

"If you take a show off a platform too fast, you don't give it a chance to build an audience. In the '90s, 'Seinfield,' which is my favorite TV comedy of all time, didn't initially do that well," she explains. "I don't even think it did that well by season two. I think it was season three when it started becoming a hit, but the network believed in the show and gave it time to find an audience and grow into this phenomenon."

Forestieri, who has written for shows like "Selena: The Series" and "Good Trouble," started her career as a journalist working in Spanish-language media. The cancellation of "Gordita Chronicles" left her frustrated by the lack of transparency behind the decision to cancel the show. Streamers rarely provide show creators with data or analytics on how a show performs, according to Forestieri.

"My career started in media working at Telemundo, and we had what they called overnight ratings . . . you'd see what percentage of the audience you have. There was more transparency with numbers," she says. "That system wasn't perfect either . . . but what I loved about that system is any TV station could have access to those ratings and you could immediately see if a show was being watched or not. Now with the streamers, they keep that info very close to their chest."

But, as Forestieri explains, Sony believed in the "Gordita Chronicles" and has for the past year been working hard to find another platform for the show to live on.

"I'm so grateful to all the streamers who saw the value in our show and paid to have it on their platforms and to the wonderful distribution team at Sony who made it all happen," she adds.

The show's second chance at life gives Forestieri and fans not just hope for a second season, but reinforces that Latine storytelling matters. In fact, during the time that "Gordita Chronicles" has been off the streamers, Forestieri has not only been fighting hard to get it back on a streamer, she's also been working on new show ideas - all centered around Latine narratives.

"Personally, for me, I feel that the timing couldn't have been better, because I am in the middle of pitching a reboot of the 'The Nanny' called 'La Nanny.' We're in the middle of pitching that, which I'm really excited about," she says. Forestieri shares that the show which she created with comedy writer Shawn Wines, is set in Manhattan with a Dominican American single mom who was raised in Washington Heights but currently lives in the Meat Packing District as a divorced fashion designer with her two kids. "It's these themes of new arrivals versus first and second generation. It's kind of going to be the same tone as 'Gordita Chronicles," she adds.

Forestieri wants to continue to create shows that make Latines feel seen with accurate representation and thoughtful storytelling, and she also wants to counter negative stereotypes about Latines, particularly Latine immigrants. She believes now, more than ever, our stories matter and deserve to be seen on screen.

"I just think erasure is the worst thing you can do to a community - to not see them. It really affects your psyche growing up," she says. "Our contributions need to be felt on TV, film, and more. Sometimes it feels like one step forward and two steps back. But there's a lot of us fighting the good fight, writing good scripts, and developing really good TV show ideas and putting our heart and souls into it because we love it and we know at its best it can really touch people."

"Gordita Chronicles" season one is available now to stream on Tubi, Disney+, and Hulu. Check out the trailer below:

Johanna Ferreira is the content director for POPSUGAR Juntos. With more than 10 years of experience, Johanna focuses on how intersectional identities are a central part of Latine culture. Previously, she spent close to three years as the deputy editor at HipLatina, and she has freelanced for numerous outlets including Refinery29, Oprah magazine, Allure, InStyle, and Well+Good. She has also moderated and spoken on numerous panels on Latine identity. .

Don Omar's "Back to Reggaeton" US Tour Shows How Far the Genre Has Come

Johanna Ferreira — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:00:02 -0700

As reggaetón continues to dominate the music charts, the genre's legends, including Daddy Yankee, Tego Calderón, Ivy Queen, and Don Omar remain more relevant than ever for their roles in shaping a movement that originated in Puerto Rico and eventually went global. But Don Omar's comeback has been a long-awaited one. The leyenda known for his early 2000s hits like "Dale Don," "Sácala," and "Salió el Sol," has officially returned to the scene with his "Back to Reggateon" US Tour, produced by CMN. The tour not only marks his highly anticipated return to the stage but also beautifully celebrates his two-decade-long career and its impactful contributions to the genre.

On Saturday, March 9, Don Omar took to the Barclays Center stage to perform a sold-out show that left the audience filled with joy and nostalgia. Most importantly, it proved that 20 years later, his music still hits. The Puerto Rican reggaetónero has been slowly making his way back in the game since 2021, dropping singles that led to his 2023 LP "Forever King." His new music has been an impressive blend of his signature early 2000s reggaetón with the modern sounds that have been taking over the genre. But his current tour, which kicked off in Reading, PA, on March 7, speaks to the way the community has continued to honor and celebrate the OGs who pioneered the movement.

It's so easy to forget the originators behind a trend or a movement and focus on the big stars of today, like Bad Bunny, Karol G, Young Miko, or J Balvin. But today's reggaetón and Latin trap fans know to pay their respects - that much was clear at Barclays, which was filled with fans who uttered all the lyrics to the majority of Don Omar's two-hour set list (especially when he rapped his greatest hits, like "Pobre Diabla" and "Mayor Que Yo 3").

The show also made it clear that both reggaetón's OGs and its current stars are crediting others and their contributions to the genre's popularity. Don Omar did a few tributes throughout the night, including performing "Gata Gangster" and "Desafío," during which he shouted-out Daddy Yankee as a legend.

"[Daddy Yankee] dedicated 35 years of his life to reggaetón. I don't have anyone to argue with anymore," he said jokingly, alluding to their previous feud.

During his performance of "Entre Tú y Yo," Don Omar shouted-out Luny Tunes and other Dominicans' contributions to reggaetón, which often get overlooked.

While the show and the tour celebrate Don Omar's two-decade-long career, in many ways it also pays homage to the genre, its beginnings, and the evolution of what it's become today. Seeing Don Omar's rise - an Afro-Boricua artist from Puerto Rico who kicked off his career when reggaetón was banned by the Puerto Rican government - also speaks to how far the genre has come.

"Thank you for making my dream come true. I was a high school dropout, a church pastor, and in the best moment of my life, you allowed me to be Don Omar," he said while closing the show. "I have made so many mistakes in my life, and at my age, it is clear to me that having made mistakes is what has me where I am today because, from each one of them, I learned. I learned that on this planet, no one has the key to heaven. The only key to heaven is your direct relationship with what is in heaven."

Johanna Ferreira is the content director for POPSUGAR Juntos. With more than 10 years of experience, Johanna focuses on how intersectional identities are a central part of Latine culture. Previously, she spent close to three years as the deputy editor at HipLatina, and she has freelanced for numerous outlets including Refinery29, Oprah magazine, Allure, InStyle, and Well+Good. She has also moderated and spoken on numerous panels on Latine identity. .

America Ferrera Didn’t Win an Oscar, but Her Monologue Will Live on For Latinas

Johanna Ferreira — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 12:30:03 -0700

There's a reason why we're still talking about America Ferrera's "Barbie" monologue months after the blockbuster was released. While presenting the Best Supporting Actress award during the 2024 Oscars, Rita Moreno gave an emotional speech about Ferrera, who was nominated for her role of Gloria in the pink-filled film. While Ferrera didn't wind up taking home an Oscar - the award instead went to Da'Vine Joy Randolph for her role in "The Holdovers" - Moreno's speech left folks in the audience trying to understand why.

"America. Your powerful Barbie monologue is perhaps the most talked-about moment in the most talked-about movie of the past year," Moreno said. "Your words and the passion with which you delivered them about the most impossible standards females must try to live up to galvanized not only women but everyone with a pulse."

Even the way Moreno pronounced "America," with a Spanish accent and in a sing-song-y voice referencing her iconic role in "West Side Story," was powerful. It made the statement that women like Ferrera are just as American as anyone else living in this country.

By now, many people have seen Gloria's impactful speech in which she tells Margot Robbie's Barbie the truth of what it means to be a woman. She breaks down all the impossible and contradicting expectations that are constantly placed on women.

The moving monologue pulled at the audience's heart strings because it put in plain terms what women have had to endure for centuries and in today's still very patriarchal society. The fact that this speech was delivered by a Latina actress playing a Latina character made it resonate that much more for me. For any woman who holds intersectional identities, society's impossible expectations become that much more impossible.

As Latinas, we're told we need to be thin regardless of if we've had children or not and regardless of any health issues we might have. But we also need to have big boobs, a big butt, and wide hips - hence why plastic surgery is so popular in our communities. We have to be strong but we also are expected to be submissive, especially with our partners. We're told we need to lead and carry everyone from our spouses to our children, but if we pour into ourselves, we're selfish. We're supposed to be beautiful and sexy enough to make any man lust over us, but if we're too sexy, we're sluts and we deserve whatever disrespect men throw at us.

While we still very much live in a patriarchal society, I am proud to be a Latina living in a time where we are finally encouraged to love ourselves and recognize that despite the unrealistic expectations that are constantly placed on us, we are in fact, enough. I am proud to be living at a time when women are finally throwing those oppressive expectations out the window and giving less f*cks about existing to please the male gaze. We are loving ourselves regardless of our body shape or size. We are embracing aging and recognizing our worth, even if that means being "boy sober" or refusing to allow the biological clock dictate our lives.

Ferrera ends her powerful speech saying, "I'm just tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll representing women, then I don't even know."

While the patriarchy has continued to exist since the "Barbie" movie came out and since Ferrera's monologue went viral, I am proud of the impact it has had on so many girls and women. Sometimes all it takes is having our experiences explained right back at us for us to decide we're no longer giving in to the pressure.

Ferrera might not have taken home an award Sunday night, but like the true artist and changemaker she is, she left a mark with that speech that is already creating shifts in our culture. Her performance is just one step forward toward future generations of girls and women not having to experience the impossible expectations that have given us so much grief for centuries. That's worth more than any Oscar in my book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBqlDWHkdHk

Johanna Ferreira is the content director for POPSUGAR Juntos. With more than 10 years of experience, Johanna focuses on how intersectional identities are a central part of Latine culture. Previously, she spent close to three years as the deputy editor at HipLatina, and she has freelanced for numerous outlets including Refinery29, Oprah magazine, Allure, InStyle, and Well+Good. She has also moderated and spoken on numerous panels on Latine identity. .

Rep. Pramila Jayapal's Journey Is "Every Immigrant's Story"

Rep. Pramila Jayapal — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 05:00:03 -0800

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, of Washington state, is known for being an outspoken advocate of social justice, reproductive freedoms, and immigrants' rights. Ahead of International Women's Day, we wanted to hear more about her own immigration story and her message to young voters in a crucial election year. Read it all, in her own words, below.

It was a dream of my parents to give me the opportunity of education in the United States and everything that would provide, so they really made that ultimate sacrifice. I don't know if any of us really understood what a sacrifice it would be, because I would never end up living on the same continent as them again. Now, decades later, I understand what that meant, and I'm very, very grateful. I think it's part of what drove me as a teenager - I was only 16, I was here by myself and in a brand-new country, trying to make my way on my own - I think I have this sense of, I have to pay it forward, I have to be successful, I have to make sure I make my parents' sacrifice worthwhile. Maybe it's every immigrant's story.

Immigrants are huge to building this country. They're doing all types of jobs, from low-skilled to high-skilled. But if you look at how families survive, if you look at the food that people eat, the hotels or restaurants that they eat or sleep in, if you look at domestic work, care work, across the board, so much of this is powered by immigrants and immigrant women. The level of deep resilience, courage, and contribution to community, family, and country that immigrants bring - I see how that contribution is really not recognized in policy and that the other side puts immigrants through so much nasty rhetoric. I feel that even Democrats don't always stand up in the way we should for immigrants, without whom we literally would not be able to function as a country.

I know we say that it's incredibly important to vote in multiple elections - we certainly said it in 2016 and we saw what happened when Donald Trump came in and worked to destroy everything we hold dear, including our democracy. And he's back. So the stakes are incredibly high. And at the same time, I know it is deeply frustrating for young people in particular to look at how screwed up the world is and to feel like somehow maybe they can't make a difference. And the message I have is: you absolutely can make a difference. We don't have perfection in our democracy, we don't have perfection on our ballots, but we do have progress. And the most progress is made when people use their voices and use their votes to demand better.

We don't have perfection in our democracy, we don't have perfection on our ballots, but we do have progress.

I think this is going to be a very tough election, and I've come out strong for a cease-fire. I think the Gaza war is an issue that people feel are deep moral issues. So I know there's a lot of work to do. But I also know that what we got done in the first two years of a Democratic White House, barely Democratic Senate, and a Democratic House was kind of incredible. Because of young people, we got the first gun legislation passed in decades. Because of young people, we got the biggest investment ever in climate change. There's so much more I could go through. It's not to say we're done, it's to say that people can make a difference, that it matters who controls Congress. And it matters to get more of us who are women of color, immigrants, Gen Z into Congress who can help to shift from the inside as well as the outside.

I'm inspired every day by my grandmother, who is an incredible woman who got a high school education and married very young and would still go out there and do things that just weren't done. A woman who would go out there and play tennis in a sari. She's passed, but I still feel her presence with me. Also women whose shoulders I stand on, and for me, Sojourner Truth is a really important figure in my life because of who she was, because of the courage she had to speak truth to power, and because she was fundamentally shifting public perception of what was possible. She's incredibly important. And then the third is - I have been on the streets and in civil disobedience protests, getting arrested with undocumented women and immigrant women from all over the world, and I bring them into every room with me. The joy, the courage, the resilience, the risk I take - it reminds me every day that what I'm doing is nothing compared to what they're doing, and it gives me the courage to keep fighting.

- As told to Lena Felton

Lena Felton is the senior director of features and special content at POPSUGAR, where she oversees feature stories, special projects, and identity content. Previously, she was an editor at The Washington Post, where she led a team covering issues of gender and identity.

Gabriela Berlingeri Is Focused on Self-Love - and Her Jewelry Line Celebrates That

Juan Arroyo — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 07:17:32 -0800

Even for those who seek to be the center of attention, the spotlight often comes with a heavy price. In a world where gossip rules much of the mediasphere, even non-celebrities can end up caught up in the maelstrom of intense public attention. Especially if they're closely associated with someone famous and recognizable. Gabriela Berlingeri experienced that, and to a degree very few can relate to, during the time she dated one of the most famous people on the planet - Bad Bunny.

The story of how Berlingeri and the Latin trap artist had a chance meeting and started up a relationship back in 2017 has become part of his lore. The two were together for several years and even collaborated on a handful of songs. She was even shouted out in "Acho PR," a single off his latest album "Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana."

The details of when and how the relationship ended have been kept close to their chests, in tune with what was already a highly private romance. And while media outlets have covered every last one of Bad Bunny's moves in the last year, Berlingeri has immersed herself in her passion project - her jewelry line, DiciembreVeintinueve. Named after her birth date, the brand has also aided her in discovering new and healthy perspectives on self-love and life beyond a high-profile relationship.

Raised all her life in the beachy Isla Verde neighborhood of Carolina, Puerto Rico, Berlingeri has always counted herself as close to nature. She describes her family as one filled with "creators," a trait that she feels proud to follow.

"My grandmother makes stained glass, my dad designed all his tattoos, plus he loves painting. My aunt is an architect. My family has been quite creative," Berlingeri tells POPSUGAR. "The act of making something yourself, with your hands, is amazing."

In her case, Berlingeri gravitated toward jewelry. "Lots of people say they can't sleep with their jewelry on, but I always sleep with them," she says. "I wake up, and even if I'm not wearing anything else, I'll have my jewelry on me."

Her interest only increased after she worked alongside a local jewelry designer and learned how to craft pieces herself. In 2019, she began to plant the seeds for what would eventually become DiciembreVeintinueve (or D29, as it's also known). The brand launched in November 2020 following pandemic-related delays, and since then it's churned out beautiful necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings, and more, all made in-house by Berlingeri and her team using locally sourced materials.

Berlingeri says she has long-term ideas for collections but prefers to be inspired in the moment when it comes to individual designs. When asked how she comes up with them, she says: "It's very random. I'll sit down, go over what pieces I have at hand, put on my AirPods, and start linking them together. It's like building a puzzle."

This month D29 is releasing its Valentine's Day collection with pieces such as the Nabelle "Unicorn" Necklace, and a two-piece "Thelma and Louise" Necklace to share between best friends. This year's theme is dedicated to self-love, healthy friendships, and the important bond between one's mind, body, and spirit when you begin to focus on you. Last July, they dropped the Rhea Collection, a line inspired by the colors of Puerto Rico's natural basins, rivers, forests, and beaches. It was an idea that suddenly sprang to Berlingeri only a few months ago. She decided to take a road trip around the island to look for further inspiration. It shows in a variety of the pieces - just look at the green tourmaline stones that make up the collar of the Medare Necklace, which she points out can represent not only the green of the flora but also how river and ocean water can sometimes take on a green hue.

"The stones we use in our collections are natural, semiprecious," she shares. "I've had lots of beach inspiration before, but this time I wanted to include more of the rivers and forests. Puerto Rico is known for its beaches, but we have many beautiful rivers and I wanted to capture their colors."

Another piece, the Casa Necklace, shows a palm tree in the foreground and a mountain range in the background, which reflects a view many locals live with every day - the coast on one side and the central mountains on the other. As Berlingeri puts it, "Lots of people will relate because we're a small island. Getting to a beach is not that hard, although I know there are vicissitudes." She recalls a news report she saw once about communities in the highest points of Puerto Rico, where people had gone their entire lives without leaving their towns. "There's lots of poverty in Puerto Rico, up in the mountains, more than people realize," she adds. "There are families living there who have never seen the ocean, and they have no way [to visit the coast]."

As she speaks candidly and enthusiastically about this collection and future projects, including soon expanding D29 to sell bathing suits, her excitement is palpable. She's surrounded by a dedicated all-women team of people she considers close friends, including head designer Shelby Díaz Esquerdo, who spearheads the waste-conscious One of One initiative, which reuses discarded elements to create one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces.

Berlingeri knows escaping attention for whom she was with in the past will take a while, but she's adjusted her life around what helps her ignore the noise and move forward with her goals.

"What's most important for me right now is maintaining myself happy and at peace," she says. "You have to push through a lot in order to feel well and stable. And I want to create things that fulfill me, and focus on my work."

Berlingeri is putting that into the theme of her new line, too, framing it around the idea of having her customers buy Valentine's Day gifts for themselves.

"I'm in an era of: love yourself! It's a great moment to say, 'I'm going to get this for myself,' during this season of consumerism, [which was] created to make you spend money."

"I'm in an era of: love yourself! It's a great moment to say, 'I'm going to get this for myself,' during this season of consumerism, [which was] created to make you spend money," she says. "It's a great opportunity for someone to think about themselves for the first time and not think about other people."

Building up D29 and making it successful was exactly the kind of healthy distraction Berlingeri needed the last year, adding that it was "100 percent" a form of therapy for herself.

"I get [to the office] and I'm happy. To me, getting here frees me from everything else; it keeps my feet on the ground - busy," she says. "Sometimes I have days off and think, 'What do I do?' I don't want to depend on anybody to make plans." Right now, she loves to go to the beach by herself; she knows special spots where she can have privacy, avoid overeager fans, and simply enjoy the surf.

That's what this whole era is about for Berlingeri: focusing on herself, what brings her joy, and what makes her excited about the future. And that's never too much.

Although one of designer Coco Chanel's famous quotes goes, "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off," Berlingeri begs to differ. "I'm sorry to Coco Chanel, but more is more," she laughs. More work, more happiness, more time with friends, and all for the sake of no one but herself.

Tell Me Más: Neysa Blay’s Sobriety Journey Has Transformed Her as a Music Artist

Juan Arroyo — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 13:00:03 -0800

When indie rock musician Neysa Blay sat down to start writing songs for her new album, "Nada es Suficiente," she found herself in an unusual predicament. She'd been sober for nearly a decade at that point, putting considerable distance between her turbulent past and the more placid present. "I'm really good at writing when there's chaos and noise in my head, and when things are kind of bumpy," she says. But now she'd overcome so many of her inner demons. "How do I learn how to write from a good place?"

The LP, which drops in May, bridges the gap between her innate rebellious spirit and the more conscientious Blay that has emerged over the past few years. Previous singles, such as the softer "Te Gusta/Me Gusta" and no-nonsense "Quise Que Fueras Tú," toggle between vulnerable and headstrong; she might be rough, but her heart is undoubtedly open. Her newest track, "Úsame," channels 1980s hair metal in its sound and visuals. But to get to where she is now, the budding rock star had to survive a difficult road.

Raised in the beach-friendly town of Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, Blay's adolescence was marked by an inner tug-of-war between the love she has for her hometown and the constraints it imposed not just on her career, but on her as a person. As an openly gay woman who recognized her orientation very early on, she felt hampered by the societal mores of her surroundings.

"That created a lot of angst because I didn't understand why. I felt like a part of me had to pretend. The town all of a sudden would become too small for me," she shares. As time passed and she grew into her teenage years, the colors of Cabo Rojo began to take on a different shade. "I remember [being] young, free, happy, fulfilled, and then I started growing up. [And a] sense of doom started falling in," Blay adds.

Her only respite then was music, which she began to explore between the ages of 8 and 10 after seeing students who were taking music classes out of an office space her father rented to a local music academy. From there she began to take guitar and singing lessons, which didn't surprise her parents who noticed during her younger years that she had a knack for song.

"[They] would play a lot of boleros, and I would love that music," she recalls. "They'd hear me singing along and they'd be like: 'There's so much passion there. There's so much emotion. You're not a 40-year-old chasing a married man.'"

As she grew older, the encroaching pressure of how she was expected to live her life was beginning to push her towards volatile spaces. As with many people who go down the same path, Blay found herself searching for ways to abate the anxieties that were overwhelming her. This led to what would become a years-long stretch of substance abuse that would nearly derail her relationship with her family, with partners, and her career dreams.

For nearly seven years, Blay spiraled through a life almost entirely dominated by extreme drug and alcohol use. She moved to San Juan, where she found herself in circles that directly and indirectly encouraged her lifestyle. She would attempt to lean into her music but found herself unable to.

"Because of my addiction, I wasn't functional, so I couldn't do gigs. I wouldn't show up. I would miss a lot of opportunities."

"Because of my addiction, I wasn't functional, so I couldn't do gigs. I wouldn't show up. I would miss a lot of opportunities," she says. She admits to crafting unreasonable ideas about how to become a working artist - ideas spurred by the effects of her vices. "I had a very distorted idea of what [pursuing music] would look like. I thought I could be singing while pumping gas and somebody would discover me. I had a very romanticized fantasy vision of how you do this."

Eventually, she hit what she refers to as her "ultimate emotional bottom".

"I was very broken. I lost everything. I couldn't keep a job . . . My parents had just kicked me out of the house, and they had stopped any financial help," she says, adding how she had also just gone through a breakup as well.

That Christmas she was invited over to her parent's home, where she was given an option: enroll in a wilderness therapy program and try to overcome her addictions. As Blay tells it, she felt "beat" at this point in her life, and accepted, deciding she had nothing else to lose. "That was a Thursday. Saturday, I was flying out."

She recognizes what stage of the addiction cycle she was in at this time, and how difficult it was for her loved ones to get her there. "Dealing with an addict, it's like you can't save them, you can't rescue them. But when the time is appropriate, you got to let them hit that bottom," she reflects. "If you take a person that's unwilling into treatment, [the help is] going to go in this way and out this way. You don't want to get better, and you kind of have to want it for yourself."

Looking back, Blay credits wilderness therapy with saving her life. As opposed to rehab, which she says can sometimes be "cushy," wilderness therapy is an outdoor program of intense activities for people suffering from behavioral disorders and substance abuse that include hiking, camping, and more, with the goal of "enhancing personal and interpersonal growth."

"They broke me and then built me back up," she confesses. "When you go in they don't tell you when you leave, which is different from treatment because when you go to treatment, you're like, 'I'm going to do 30 days,' and you're already one foot in, one foot out . . . Here [there's] no future information. I don't know when I'm getting out. I don't know what we're doing today. I don't know where we're hiking today. And that really helped release a sense of control of my life."

After three and half months, she was finally deemed ready to leave the program. From there, she spent another three months at a treatment center in Chicago, to underline the progress she had made. Eventually, the day came when she was told she could relocate to wherever she wanted. "I'm already thinking in my head, what do you really want to do? Music. Music has always been in the background. Music has always been the priority," she says.

She convinced her parents to trust her to move to Miami, despite it being as they called it, the "cocaine capital." Initially living in a treatment center followed by a halfway house, Blay soon found herself in her own apartment, with a job, going back to school, and getting around with a scooter.

"I was pretty much learning how to be a person; how to be a normal, functioning human being. And I think it was one of the greatest experiences," she says.

In 2017, she connected with Sam Allison, an engineer at the iconic Criteria Recording Studios, and recorded "Veneno," her first official single. That song made its way to experienced producer Marthin Chan, who became a fan and produced her debut EP, "Destrúyeme."

Songwriting and working on her craft while sober opened up an entirely new world of possibilities for Blay, who says "All of a sudden I was able to finish things, and not stop because anxiety was too crippling."

Not too long ago, she chose to move back to Puerto Rico, settling back in Cabo Rojo. She jokingly referred to it as "returning to the scene of the crime." But there were earnest reasons behind the decision as well. Her relationship with her parents had grown stronger and more accepting since they saw how much she'd grown in the last decade and even embraced her new partner as well.

But for Blay, there was another, deeper reason: "I wanted to tackle the sense of not belonging, to tackle the feeling of, as a lesbian, I'm not welcomed and loved in the community. I wanted to tackle all of the negatives. I wanted to take that narrative, change it, and own it," she says. "I wanted to create new memories. I came with a mission of reclaiming Cabo Rojo for myself." Her first gig after moving back? Onstage at Cabo Rojo's Pride celebration, with her father in attendance supporting her.

Before that was a creative sojourn to Mexico City, where she teamed up with producer Felipe "Pipe" Ceballos and cooked up "Nada es Suficiente." Making this album, years into sobriety, was a learning experience. She realized the way she accessed and channeled her emotions had changed considerably. Where she once wrote from a place of a chaotic mindset and "spitting fucking venom," she now approached the same scenarios from a contemplative, self-reflective angle.

"I think that's been one of the biggest changes in sobriety in terms of creativity," she says. "I've grown and I'm also allowing my songwriting to grow along with me on this journey of being a good person."

Juggling the responsibility of maintaining her sobriety while also working through the anxieties of being an independent artist, without the privilege of self-medicating, has led Blay to incorporate new tools she hopes to share with others. She's a proponent of DBT, or dialectical behavioral techniques, which allow her to face anxiety in healthier ways.

"There's simple stuff like realizing when you're anxious and how it's manifesting, and taking ownership of it by self-soothing. Self-soothing can be taking a nice hot bath for 10 minutes. It can be some breathing exercises," she shares. "And then there's… radical acceptance, [which] is when you have to accept that things aren't under your control. And I love the word radical. Because it is. It's just, 'Shut the fuck up. You're not in control. You have to accept that this is the way that things are. You can either cope with it, accept them, or you can just spend the whole day trying to fight something you can't.'"

It's a rule that sums up her journey so far-one that led her to emerge from darkness and now points her on the path toward making her longtime dreams a reality.

"With time, what I have learned is that whenever I'm feeling anxious or fearful, that's the direction I have to run towards. Right now in my life, I see the anxiety and I'm like, 'Buckle up," Blay says. "That's where we got to go.' Like, 'Oh, this is terrifying. I have a lot of anxiety.' Okay, keep fucking going. This is where you need to be."

POPSUGAR: First celebrity crush?

Neysa Blay: Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz" 💖

POPSUGAR: Favorite mocktail?

Neysa Blay: Ginger beer, lime juice, mint leaves and soda water

POPSUGAR: Favorite beach in Puerto Rico?

Neysa Blay: Playa Buyé on a weekday at 9 a.m.

POPSUGAR: Three artists you have on repeat right now?

Neysa Blay: A very gay playlist: Charli XCX, Troye Sivan, and Slayyyter

POPSUGAR: Favorite mantra?

Neysa Blay: "If they can do it, so can I."

POPSUGAR: Favorite guitar?

Neysa Blay: Gibson SG (played by Angus Young)

POPSUGAR: Dream collaboration?

Neysa Blay: Marilina Bertoldi

Ivy Queen Is Manifesting 2024 to Be Her Year

Johanna Ferreira — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 14:00:00 -0800

The legendary Ivy Queen - often referred to as the Queen of Reggaetón or La Caballota - once said in an interview, "In the life of every woman, there's a point when you blossom and when you flourish." And for Ivy Queen, after decades of cementing her place as a pioneer of the genre, that time is now.

Born Martha Ivelisse Pesante Rodríguez, Ivy Queen first became recognized in the reggaetón scene back in the '90s, when the genre was still considered underground. She was the first female member of the all-male rap collective formed at the studios of The Noise, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And her first live performance - where she rapped "Somos Raperos Pero no Delincuentes" ("We Are Rappers Not Delinquents"), wearing what would then become her signature style of oversized jeans, a T-shirt, braids, and long acrylic nails - launched her on a legendary career. She has since created music that has empowered generations of women, inspiring today's reggaetón feminist wave and artists like Karol G, Becky G, Natti Natasha, RaiNao, Young Miko, Villano Antillano, and more.

Today, La Caballota is in her blooming era and finally receiving her much-deserved flowers. Just look at her accolades in the past few years, from hosting Spotify and Futuro Studios' "Loud," a podcast that reveals the true history of reggaetón, to being honored at the 35th edition of Premio Lo Nuestro with the Premio Lo Nuestro Legado Musical Al Genero Urbano Award last year, to receiving the Icon Award at the Billboard Latin Music Awards for her contributions to the male-dominated genre.

We recently caught up with Ivy Queen backstage at San Juan's Distrito T-Mobile right before rehearsals for Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest in Puerto Rico. The reggaetonera looked more peaceful than ever with a white candle lit right in front of her. Ivy refers to herself as a very spiritual person, and she doesn't go anywhere without a vela blanca. (In October, for example, she appeared on NPR's Tiny Desk and lit a candle during her performance that had an image of Bad Bunny on it.)

"The vela represents light and those that have passed," Ivy Queen tells POPSUGAR. "For instance, my father passed away, and I feel his spirit is always with me. My father was a musician. He used to play guitar . . . when he passed, I was at a concert and I had this feeling before when I was taking a bath [earlier that day], that I had to visit him at the hospital. Through my mind I kept saying, 'Wait for me, wait for me, please papi, wait for me.' I just had that [intuitive feeling]."

Ivy explains that the candle also serves as a spiritual tool she uses to cleanse any space that she enters to protect her energy. It was something she learned very early on in her career, as she navigated a genre and a world that was entirely dominated by men.

Part of that navigation came via the stars - literally. In the early days of her career, Ivy started diving into astrology to understand her strengths and her weaknesses as she moved up in the music industry. "I learned the elements. I learned my birth chart. I asked my mother what time I was born," she says. "It was around the '90s, [and] I used to love Walter Mercado. Every time his show would come on, they'd show the wheel and I was like, what the f**k is this? So, I started to learn my sign and I was always ruled by my sign. I know it's a water sign. I know what signs don't match when it comes to business."

Ivy's sun sign placement is in Pisces; her moon is in Sagittarius; and her rising is in Scorpio.

"With the Scorpio, I have to protect my energy," she says pointing to the white candle. While Mercado was one of the only mainstream figures at the time who had an entire program dedicated to Latine spirituality and astrology, he wasn't the only one who inspired Ivy's spiritual journey.

"My favorite artist was Celia Cruz. She came from Cuba, which is one of the houses of the spirits. It comes from Mother Africa - la madre tierra. So literally I learned watching these people," she remembers. "Walter was also a Pisces. I was like, let me see if he only talks about the good parts of that sign because he's a Pisces but no. These are stuff I wish that they taught us at a young age to embrace. You know the moms and abuelas that were curanderas - I was raised by that."

At 51, Ivy Queen looks better than ever. Her skin is still youthful and radiates from within. Her long blonde extensions hit past her hips. Ivy also still sports the long and artful acrylic nails she's become known for, but her most noteworthy trait is how she carries herself with grace, confidence, and poise. She credits her spirituality to playing a huge role in how she's learned to embrace her divine feminine energy.

"You have to attract the energy," she explains. "If you feel like you're all f**ked up, vieja y jodida [old and messed up], your body will react to that. La mente es bien peligrosa, pero tambien es bien poderosa [the mind is very dangerous but it is also very powerful]. Like, [it's about] how are you going to use your powers, you know?"

It's no surprise that Ivy is a big believer in the law of attraction and manifestation. For her, that comes in the form of writing and praying - to God, to the Angel de la Guarda, and to her ancestors. La Caballota has also learned to be still and pay attention to the signs. This year, she wants to finally check some major goals off her bucket list.

"I will be touring [this year]. I wanted to start in Puerto Rico because I'm from here. Then I announce the tour in the US - the dates," she says. "And then I decide if the story of my life is going to be a series or a movie. I will be producing it."

Right before Ivy Queen rang in the new year, she already noticed some signs confirming that 2024 is going to be the year she spreads her wings and sees all those goals manifest into reality.

On Dec. 30, her daughter landed in Puerto Rico, a day before Ivy Queen performed at Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve, and gifted her a monkey plushie with a little hat and the Puerto Rican flag. The reggaetonera decided to take the plushie with her everywhere for good luck, and at the beach, she noticed a black and white feather that appeared out of the blue. She also noticed a crow standing on a branch right behind the plushie. For her, these were all signs.

"I was asking for 2024 [to be the year] I need to elevate. I was asking the spirits like Venus because she's the Goddess of love, I was asking for signs . . . send me a sign," she says. "I see it as maybe the feather is a sign that I'm flying to another step. I want to be moving a lot, and birds, they go everywhere. So, I pay attention to signs and I put my own meaning behind it. I took it like, OK 2024, I'm going to be busy and I'll be doing well."

Considering la reina's track record for manifesting all the career milestones she's set for herself, we have no doubt that 2024 will be the year of Ivy Queen

Tell Me Más: Lúconde Fuses Theater and Urbano in Her Debut Album

Juan Arroyo — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 12:00:04 -0800

Many popular musicians have created fictional alter egos as a way to explore new sonic avenues that they wish to experiment with. David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, David Johansen had Buster Poindexter, Lady Gaga spent a whole season as Jo Calderone, and the less said about Garth Brooks's Chris Gaines era the better, but it certainly happened. For them, it's a kind of performance art - an expression of their interest in stepping out of their comfort zone and giving the endeavor a theatrical flair as well.

The debate about whether these could be considered merely publicity stunts is valid, but for some artists, there's a true creative desire to inhabit these personas. For Adriana Rivera, a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, it's a culmination of her dream to merge two artistic outputs that have long fascinated and inspired her: music and acting. From this desire and its manifestation, Rivera set herself aside, and in her place emerged Lúconde and their debut album, "La Actriz: Acto I." The EP is a magical collection of alt-perreo, conscious boleros, and progressive Latin soul. As Rivera explains, "Lúconde is basically the mother personality that serves as a vessel for other personas (or faces, as she calls them) to emerge." For that reason, she invites listeners to call her by either name.

Lúconde is an artist with lots of ideas, who has been searching a long time for a way to express them. A child of dancers from reggaeton's early roots, when it was known as "underground" - her mother was a background dancer for Vico C, while her father danced for Ruben DJ - she grew up in a home that valued both music and performance and the overlap between the two. Lúconde was enrolled in ballet, where dance and expression are inextricably intertwined, and sang in her church's chorus, where she began to discover her voice and test its limits and range.

Not soon after, she was convinced by friends to audition for her school's drama club. In a prescient twist, the monologue used for the audition belonged to a role about a character suffering from dissociative identity disorder.

"I remember researching a lot. I remember practicing [the monologue] alone at home. I had no training whatsoever, but I remember clicking with that a lot," she says. "There was a lot of that process that clicked with me very deeply, and I remember thinking, 'OK, I love music and I've always been involved with music, but I think [acting] is going to be something that I'm gonna dedicate myself more to.'"

For "La Actriz: Acto I," Lúconde reached back and channeled the lessons from her days doing theater. She recalls being taken by the way acting helped her to connect with her inner thoughts and widen her view of the behaviors of people around her.

"I learned [to] not take things at face value, which is something that I feel like I'm actively studying within myself and society - just looking at things from different perspectives," she says. "There's always more behind someone, which I also think in acting that's what you [search for]."

During the downtime that enveloped the world in 2020, she began to think about how she could fuse her interests. She began to write, thinking on topics that were close to her. She began to flesh out the overarching concept of the EP and conjured up what would become the roster of alter egos that embody each track: La Malasuerte, Näia Kiyomi, Lilu, Miss Quinn, Bo Aracnia, Adela, and Nina Sorei.

Executing out such a far-out idea for a debut EP was a risky proposition, but she was determined to bring it to fruition. Through mutual contacts she got in touch with Gyanma, an indie fan favorite who produces projects for himself and others out of his own studio, called Alas. Whatever trepidation he had about the ambitious ideas she presented evaporated as soon as he put her in front of the microphone.

"From the beginning, I recognized it was a very unique concept," says Gyanma, who produced every track on the EP. "Throughout recording and producing the music, every track kept evolving, and when we listened to the final album put together, we knew it was something very, very special."

As a companion to the album, Lúconde produced, directed, and starred in music videos for the tracks. It's here that her different personas can truly be appreciated. La Malasuerte, a trickster changeling that occupies every frame of "Macacoa" with mischievous intentions. Näia Kiyomi, heavily inspired by Jennifer Check of the movie "Jennifer's Body," enacts empowered, violent revenge in "6eis." Lilu and Bo Aracnia both break the rules in favor of righteous anarchy in "Bendito Caos" and "Tus Cartas Póker," respectively. In "El Frío del Alba," Adela reflects on the long, sordid history and pain that women have carried throughout the struggle for bodily autonomy, especially in the face of eroding abortion rights.

"This is very autobiographical. What I'm doing is just taking the Stanislavski technique of acting and transforming it into a philosophy of life, because that's who I am," she says. "I feel like acting saved me. Acting gave me so much perspective of life, of people, of society, and of myself. That's kind of where it all starts, because with each character I'm showing different sides and different aspects of myself, and the actor studies the gray area of life, the gray in people."

When talking about her future, Lúconde foresees more projects in the same vein as "Acto I." For now, she doesn't see herself dabbling in more mainstream songs divorced from this album's conceit. In fact, she's already brainstorming which personas she'll utilize again, and new ones to introduce as well. As the album's title implies, it's simply the first act of what will slowly unfold as a larger all-encompassing project.

"This project is synonymous with where I am in life right now. I feel like I'm still in the midst of becoming. This project is a lot of the younger, naive aspects of myself," she says.

She intends to fully expand the visual side as well, founding her own production company where she'll be able to control that aspect of development as well as help other artists with their own projects. "La Actriz: Acto I" was an effort that took a long time to come together, but for Lúconde it has been worth everything she invested in bringing it to life.

"Once I knew that I wanted to be La Actriz in the music industry, I had a direction," she says. "For me that's really important; I've always [felt] like I have to have some idea of who I want to be. In that sense, now I realize how lucky I am to know who I am a little bit. I still feel like I have a long way to go, but I've always had the vision. I've always nourished that. I've always protected that."

The strands that link the light and shadow inside every human being - and the way they can bring people together under better understanding and empathy - are what Lúconde wishes to underscore.

"Everything is connected: our spirituality, our physicality, our mind, our emotions. As an actor, my body, my mind, my emotions are my tools. The more familiar I am with myself, the better human I will be. That's what I'm trying to explore with music. I always say, 'Through my work I am whole,' because I get to express all of these different aspects of myself." It's a passion project that not only makes her feel fulfilled, but hopefully finds fans who'll also appreciate the different levels of creativity that make it up. "I felt like I wanted to be a creator, and I feel like music allowed me to do all that. And I realized I didn't have to sacrifice my identity as an actress. Maybe I could just be La Actriz."

POPSUGAR: What is your favorite word?

Lúconde: Curiosity.

POPSUGAR: What is your favorite quote?

Lúconde: "You don't have a right to anything in this life, but there's nothing you can't achieve."

POPSUGAR: What is your favorite play?

Lúconde: "No Exit" by Jean-Paul Sartre.

POPSUGAR: What is your favorite movie?

Lúconde: Well, I love "Black Swan." It used to be "The Pursuit of Happyness." I think now, "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

POPSUGAR: Who is your favorite fictional character?

Lúconde: Raven from "Teen Titans."

POPSUGAR: What are you listening to these days?

Lúconde: Gesaffelstein, Belén Aguilera, and "Scarlet" by Doja Cat.

POPSUGAR: What person comes to mind when you hear the word "inspiration"?

Lúconde: My grandfather. We were very close, and he would talk to me about many things. My favorite quote is something he'd always tell me.

POPSUGAR: Do you prefer to be the hero or the villain?

Lúconde: I prefer to be the villain that becomes a hero.

Indigenous Activist Michelle Chubb on What We All Lose When History Centers White Voices

Michelle Chubb — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 10:25:03 -0800

Michelle Chubb, also known as Indigenous Baddie on social media, is a model, activist, and public speaker who brings mainstream media's attention to the beauty of and challenges facing Indigenous communities. Chubb is a Swampy Cree member of Bunibonibee Cree Nation, and ahead of Thanksgiving, she shared how many Indigenous communities approach the holiday.

"A lot of us don't respect it as an event to celebrate because of the history," she said, referencing the fact that the narrative of the 1621 Thanksgiving feast has long been dominated by white voices and leaves out the fact that cooperation between European colonists and Indigenous communities was short-lived, giving way to violence and massacres of Indigenous tribes in the years that followed.

Chubb also shared what it was like to grow up Indigenous, how we can all be more respectful of Indigenous communities, and more. Read it all, in her own words, below.

I grew up in the city, and I'd visit the reservation in the summer and winter. And when I had the opportunity, I'd see differences between the city life and the res life. There was a big difference between the care of the people. There were more resources in the city versus what people have available on the res - healthcare, for instance. Or the high food prices on the res or in remote areas - it's really, really expensive, so a lot of the people depend on hunting and fishing to survive. I've seen that difference.

I think everything portrayed in the media growing up was wrong.

When I'd come back to the city after visiting, I would feel bad, having seen the people on the res struggle to survive, to actually live. Seeing that, I wanted to make a difference, but I didn't know how I wanted to express that when I was younger. When I had the opportunity with TikTok, I wanted to use my platform to amplify the problems that we have. And that got me speaking about big companies taking resources from Indigenous communities when they're at their lowest already, or amplifying the problems we have in the city as well, because living in the city isn't necessarily better for Indigenous people. I remember growing up in Winnipeg, and there would be a lot of news reporters talking about a missing Indigenous woman, and I would be like, "What, again? This happened last week." Being an Indigenous girl growing up, I was scared. I didn't want to be one of those missing people. So I started amplifying that also, because it's a struggle for Indigenous people.

I think everything portrayed in the media growing up was wrong. How history books portrayed us - they told the white part of the story, not the whole history. I was never taught about residential schools or the buffalo massacre. I had to take a separate course in high school to learn all about that stuff. Meanwhile, in social studies class, you only get a paragraph or two about Indigenous peoples.

And on a more personal level, every Halloween, I'd be asked to be Pocahontas. Growing up, I respected her as a woman, because she was basically one of our first missing and murdered Indigenous women. But also in school, there would be people touching my hair without asking and saying, "Oh my god, your hair is so long." I think that's different culturally, because even during powwows, when I'd wear my regalia, people would ask before touching my regalia or taking pictures. I think so many people don't respect boundaries.

I think it's all about educating ourselves to become more informed, especially with Indigenous culture, because again, media can portray us in ways they want to paint us. In reality, there are a variety of Indigenous people around the world, and we all have similarities - but we all are different in ways that make us unique in our own tribes and cultures.