MC’s MUSIC LOUNGE: Bad Bunny walks the walk with Puerto Rican residency boosting the local economy

Bad Bunny is one of the few artists today who walks the walk as much as he talks the talk. He has achieved new heights of mainstream worldwide success that very few other Latin artists have and he is using it to empower the culture that raised him. His hometown is also the reason he fell in love with music, and his latest album released earlier this year borrows from those sounds that informed the artistry that we hear all over the charts. This past week, Benito kicked off his 30-date residency in Puerto Rico that is being credited with boosting both the Puerto Rican economy and general spirit of the population. Puerto Rican officials are estimating that the residency is expected to help give them a $186 Million boost and create 3,600 jobs. Plus, he’s released a new single “ALAMBRE PùA” to coincide with the residency and all-around homecoming – there really is no place like home.

Benito’s residency is appropriately titled “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí” – which directly translates to “I Don’t Want to Leave Here”. The string of shows commenced on July 11th, is expected to run until September 14th, and has already attracted some famous faces, including the artist who many consider to be the one who passed the torch of worldwide Latin success to Benito: none other than Ricky Martin. Ricky of course had his own golden era in the late 90s when “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and other hits dominated pop charts. Having him present on stage dancing along with Benito feels symbolic and celebratory. The show itself sees Benito performing 35 songs across a two-hour set. He has brought his love for Puerto Rico to the world but he makes his music with Puerto Rico in mind first. Benito’s latest album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is filled with lyrics about Puerto Rico and its cultural traditions and history and now he’s bringing the music to life in a historic way. The music video to the new single “ALAMBRE PùA” continues with the tradition of Bad Bunny paying homage to his heritage as well. The video was shot during the opening shows of the residency and contains local landscapes as backdrops and set pieces honouring different cultural traditions. It’s also worth noting that the first nine of thirty shows from the residency were reserved specifically for Puerto Rican residents, with the remaining shows being open for public purchase. All shows as predicted are sold out – the Bad Bunny reign is only getting stronger.

Next week, we get the second single “Sugar Sweet” from Mariah Carey’s upcoming album Here For It All. The diva just took to socials earlier this week to officially announce the project which drops September 26th, and as you can imagine I have been having a hard time keeping myself together ever since. This MC is about to have the time of his life thanks to Mother MC.

This week, we have new music from Bad Bunny, Joyner Lucas & Ava Max, Jessica Simpson, Travis Scott with Tyla & Vybz Kartel as well as a viral pick from 2012 that has been on the rise for over a year now. Plus, a new underground R&B artist from Toronto who has just released one of my favourite slow jams this year.

Listen on…

MC’s PICKS OF THE WEEK

“ALAMBRE PùA” by Bad Bunny

When Bad Bunny is not taking over the world stage and boosting local economies and just generally making the world a better place through his art and such, he’s in the studio cooking up nasty beats that we can all dance and get sweaty to. “ALAMBRE PùA” translated to English is “Barbed Wire” and the song is about how the woman in his life has his heart wrapped in that wire; basically, she’s got him in a chokehold. He raps about wanting to make a baby with her and that he was sad he didn’t record their final encounter. His last album was all about his regret of not taking more photos after all, but he never specified if any activities were off limits for those photos, and sometimes some activities are just so euphoric you must capture them – I love me a freaky man lol. This is especially true if the man you are with is as charming and sexy as Benito – give me the camera. The song coincides with his historic Puerto Rican residency and feels like the perfect continuation of the musical era that he is currently in: melancholic yet also romantically hopeful. If you were hoping to see Bad Bunny live but you don’t live in Puerto Rico, fear not because he will be bringing his show worldwide in 2025-26 to multiple territories except the USA and Canada, which feels like a crime but also, I don’t blame him. North American audiences are always the first to get the big shows and Benito has shown that his intention is to spread the love to all fans around the world, not just the ones who always feel it.

“PBT” by Travis Scott, Tyla, Vybz Kartel

In a move that has now become kind of synonymous with Travis Scott, he dropped his newest album a few days into the music tracking week, therefore derailing the original frontrunner for the #1 spot and swooping in to take it as his own. I’m referring to Justin Bieber of course whose latest album Swag was pushed to debut at #2 after Travis released his latest project JACKBOYS 2 a few days later. Travis pulled a similar move when he released an older album onto streaming the week of Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet release – Sabrina was able to come out on top, but it was a close call. “PBT” is one of the strongest tracks on the new album and sees Travis stepping into his dancehall bag. I have openly never been the biggest Travis Scott fan (mumble rap just isn’t for me) but this is a groove that I 100% can get behind. PBT in the context of this song stands for “Pretty Brown Thing” which has many fans making the connection to Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” – a song that Travis himself has featured on past playlists of his, further confirming the inspiration for the song. This is Travis’ first collab with the dancehall legend Vybz Kartel but it’s his second with Tyla whom he worked with on the remix to her hit “Water”. Extra points are in order for Tyla who has been serving banger after banger all summer long - we love to see the girls working it.

“Ray Liotta” by Kenya Jade

One of my favourite things about being a music nerd is when I discover an underground artist creating quality music independently without the restrictions of the major label system. Kenya Jade is an R&B artist out of Toronto and has been crafting moody, romantic tunes for the last couple of years. Her latest drop, “Ray Liotta”, is a sultry and emotionally reflective R&B gem as Kenya looks back at the woman she became while waiting for her man to get his sh*t together. Since the song dropped last week, it found its way onto my Spotify release radar and I have not been able to stop listening to it, you may as well inject it in my veins at this point. In a recent post to her socials, Kenya mentions how this new track is only the first of many more to come – and I am tuned all the way in.

“Fade” by Jessica Simpson

The second phase of Jessica Simpson’s comeback to music is in full force and she’s putting the promo into high gear, plus she’s got a fierce new hair colour to help usher in the era. Nothing says fierce and confident like a honey blonde hairdo, a departure from her usual platinum tresses. “Fade” is the first single from her second EP of the year Nashville Canyon Part 2 and is a confident proclamation of independence. Jessica sings “I won’t be around watchin’ you fade on me” over an Americana-esque beat that is reminiscent of the bluesy country-rock of the mid-80s. The great thing about Jessica making music this time around is that all the noise around her has silenced, and the only focus at this point is the actual music. Sure, the trolls online will throw in a comment here or there (which for someone at her level of fame is inevitable) but for the most part, the only ones who are speaking on Jessica at this point are her fans and the ones who have been patiently waiting all these years for her to find her voice again – and now, she has. Whether or not the current genre that she is exploring is your thing, I think it’s safe to say that we can all just appreciate that she is finally at a stage where she can express her creativity the way she sees fit and not how some man in a suit in a corporate office says she should. Jessica is set to perform the track live for the first time on Wednesday morning’s taping of the TODAY Show where she will be the musical guest for a free outdoor concert – very 2008 of her, but also on brand. The last time Jess performed for an outdoor televised concert she had busted her vocal cords, so this is a redemption that is 19 years in the making. The first half of Jessica’s Nashville Canyon project dropped earlier this year to positive reviews from fans and music critics.

“Tear Me Down” by Joyner Lucas, Ava Max

Joyner Lucas has just released his third studio album ADHD 2, a sequel to his debut album ADHD which was released in 2020. Joyner is from Massachusetts and while he hasn’t cracked the top of the charts on a Kendrick Lamar level, he has made enough of a name for himself where he’s attracted a devoted following and the new record features collabs with T-Pain, Blackbear, Ava Max and more. The new single “Tear Me Down” with Ava is a traditional hip-hop/pop collab with Ava singing the hook. It’s cute, it’s emotional, it’s catchy – but it’s the music video starring and directed by Regina Hall that really has audiences intrigued. With lyrics like “why would you go tear me up just to take me down?” the song and video follows the story of a tumultuous relationship that causes as much emotional destruction as is does fulfillment. Sometimes when you’re in the throes of it, it can be hard to differentiate the two – a somber topic that produces an emotional vocal. While Joyner’s new single and album are strong, it’s his current rap beef with UK rapper Skepta that has been dominating the headlines recently, when Skepta’s latest single “Friendly Fire” calls out Joyner for his comments on UK rappers. This of course was incited by Drake’s recent comments about UK rappers being better than American ones. Yet another rap beef with Drake involved in one way or another – why am I not surprised. On the one hand, it must be frustrating to put your heart and soul into a body of work only for it to get completely overshadowed by a gossip scandal; on the other hand, you tell me a better promotional tactic than a rap beef.

MC’s VIRAL PICK

“Champagne Coast” by Blood Orange

This one has been gaining traction on social media and streaming platforms steadily since summer 2024 and throughout the entire of 2025 – it even earned its first ever RIAA Gold certification back in January. “Champagne Coast” was first released in August 2011 as part of his debut studio album Coastal Grooves, an album whose intention was to highlight the glamour of the New York streets in the 80s. The song first picked up steam when it hit #1 on the TikTok Viral 50 last July and it simply hasn’t left the charts ever since. You can attribute the initial rise in streams to generic TikTok trends, but its longevity of more than a year on the streaming charts can only be attributed to the sheer genius of the song. This week however, the songs virality has finally led to an exciting new chapter in Blood Orange’s career (more on that in a bit), hence why it receives the spotlight this week.

Dev Hynes made a name for himself as an innovative new wave/pop-funk artist under the moniker “Blood Orange” all while also producing for other artists over the years, like Mariah Carey and Solange Knowles. Usually when a song gets some virality, it fizzles out over the span of a few months but we’re more than halfway through the year and “Champagne Coast” is still pulling strong streaming numbers with an average of 870,000 daily streams. The numbers have continued to stay so strong and consistent that it helped speed up the process for Dev Hynes’s recording of his own follow-up studio album after more than six years since his last. The new album Essex Honey is due August 29th and the first two singles “Mind Loaded” and “Somewhere in Between” are out now – you may even call this a Blood Orange summer.