Editor’s Note: This story is an excerpt from WBUR’s weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
In less than a year, Fabiola Méndez found herself playing NPR’s famous Tiny Desk not once, but twice.
First, she performed her own music for a Tiny Desk Concert that dropped in September, Hispanic Heritage Month. Her next appearance happened on April 7 as she accompanied one of the most famous artists in the world, Bad Bunny. The video has already reached 8.7 million views and counting.
“It’s been a lot of calls, a lot of messages, a lot of emails and of course a lot of support and love from not only my family and friends and artistic community, both in Boston and Puerto Rico,” she said, “but also, new fans and new people that are discovering my work.”
Méndez is a Boston-based Puerto Rican musician, composer and educator who plays traditional folkloric music on the cuatro, the 10-string national instrument of Puerto Rico that resembles a classical guitar. She said her first Tiny Desk was more nerve-wracking.
“ They hit record and it’s basically a live show so it’s recorded nonstop from beginning to end,” Méndez said. “It’s probably the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life because it’s so intimate. You don’t have any monitors. What you are hearing as a performer is the live sound of the space.”
Still, she and her bandmates found their groove, thriving in a space where they had to really listen to each other, play softly and be present.
Advertisement
By her second appearance, she was able to ease into the moment. The musicians arrived the day before to rehearse and Bad Bunny spent time with everyone, eating snacks and talking. She said he was super kind and relaxed. In the video, as Méndez played a brief solo, Bad Bunny watched and smiled, saying in Spanish, “puedo estar to’ el dia escuchando es.” In English: “I could listen to that all day.”
“He is so down to Earth,” Méndez said. “Something I love about him is that he keeps his Puerto Ricanness so true and sincere.”
She first met Bad Bunny in November, backstage at a performance on the island. Rapper Residente and singer-songwriter Kany Garcia, two of Puerto Rico’s most well-known performers, were also there.
“ I was like, ‘Oh my God, I cannot believe this is happening right now,’” she said. “It was kind of this starstruck moment of being with all these artists that I have admired that are just here, just chilling and making music.”
By January, Bad Bunny’s people reached out and she found her way back to NPR headquarters to record the concert the following month. She hoped the performance and Bad Bunny’s star power would work in her favor, leading people to learn more about her music. It worked. (The comments on YouTube say as much.)
“People from other places sometimes tell me, ‘ I close my eyes and you brought me back home.’ And they’re not from Puerto Rico,” she said. “So, you know, the power of traditional instruments and how they speak beyond our physical divisions and just how they connect with the core of our humanity.”
As a young woman, she would see cuatro players from previous generations making a living, but not necessarily having the opportunity to put their art out into the world.
“ This time that I’m living [in] and the fact that I’ve been in Boston for the past 10 years, I have no doubt that’s definitely opened many doors within the music industry in the states and the world music scene and the folk music scene,” she said. “[I’m] living the dream that I didn’t even know I had, it’s just a blessing.”
Success is collective, she said. Her community is ever present. She uses the cuatro to teach the island’s history of colonization and resistance. Her instrument is made of two different types of wood, both native to Puerto Rico.
“The fact that I have this piece of wood that was born and that was made in this land and that I carry everywhere I go, and that is close to my chest. It vibrates as my heart and my lungs vibrate with it.”
Her next performance is this Saturday, April 19 for the “We Black Folk: Cultural Crossroads” at CROMA Space in Arlington Street Church. In the coming months, she’ll be in Maine, Puerto Rico, Western Massachusetts and New York over the next several months. And then in August, Méndez and her bandmates will embark on their first European tour, which kicks off in Norway.