The “La Milla de Oro” rapper, Álvaro Díaz, recently performed at the Música con Cultura Fest at Bahía Urbana in San Juan,PR last week along with artists such as Ana Tijoux,Siete Nueve, and Velcro with his band Lado Ve.
Unfortunately Díaz’s performance didn’t go quite as planned due to technical difficulties and even more unfortunate than that, the two most recognized newspapers in Puerto Rico, El Nuevo Día and Primera Hora, decided to take this as an opportunity to make headlines and highlight this talented young hip-hop artist in a negative light. Both newspapers claimed that the crowd was “Boo-ing” Álvaro and they even said that his lyrics were sexist and male chauvinist. That accusation actually sounds like a joke because in the majority of his songs he expresses his appreciation for women.
After reading all of the negativity coming from the media, Álvaro took to his Instagram (@alvaritodiaz) to clear things up:
https://instagram.com/p/1W6WjQKAji/
One of the great things about Díaz’s crew is that he always has someone filming his performances. Unfortunately for El Nuevo Día and Primera Hora, César Berrios, as well as some of Álvaro’s fans, captured what really happened at Bahía Urbana on April 10,2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo2naP1Cw68
You can see in the video that the audience was actually loving and enjoying every minute of this spectacle. Could there have been a few people who didn’t like the music? Yes of course, but doesn’t that happen everywhere? Aren’t people human? Aren’t people allowed to have their own opinion? Aren’t people allowed to have to roll with the punches and work with what they’ve got? Shouldn’t local media praise the fact that despite technical issues, Álvaro Díaz was still able to put on a great show for his fans? But the main question really is, shouldn’t local newspapers support local artists?!
It’s baffling to see how an emerging artist from Puerto Rico, who by the way was ranked the best latin MC at SXSW 2015 by Pulso Beat, can’t get support from the local media yet can receive so much love and appreciation from other outlets such as LA Weekly, Remezcla, Noisey and NPR.
It’ll be interesting to see if the media in PR will have anything to comment on the video evidence of what went down during Díaz’s performance. So far they’ve been quiet…coquí..coquí.
At the end of the day, there is no such thing as bad publicity and the way “el negrito con actitud” has handled the situation is to be admired.
Álvaro Díaz is currently working on his album Díaz Buenos Díaz Malos, set to come out sometime in summer.
enigmaticnomad.net 