Concert Review: As Es El Mundo De Eljuri
It is a really scary time to be a Latino in America: not that it ever was not. My grandmother would talk about the times she would cry herself in alley ways because businesses did not want Porto Ricans, and New York was an island with the capacity to segregate before it became a battleground for The Segregator In Charge to attack. That tension is undeniable as it quaffs through our air and news, but if there is one thing that Latinos are going to do to combat our injustice….. it´s make art.
Eljuri was playing at her usual playground: Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. Frankly, they are a perfect match, as The Public Theater is known for being revolutionary and unique in its artistic presentations. For God´s Sake, Hamilton premiered there. Playing off her acclaimed, new album, Asi Es El Mundo , Eljuri proved why … low-key… she kind of feel like our modern-day Santana: an artist whose own revolutionary stylings have made him eternal but never the most name-dropped for comparisons. Yet, Eljuri serves the same level of talent, vision, and tenacious ¨F The Man¨ energy that in Woodstock would have been considered home and welcomed, but now feels urgent and necessary. Where are the advocates, the revolutionaries, the heroes?¨
I have been to a few Eljuri shows, and she NEVER FAILS, but I think what she needs is YOU: the reader. Recently, on TikTok, there has been a discussion on how the industry is dying and artists, like Benson Boone, are being dissected as way more talented than what their sugar pop factory image allows. Yet, if there is one thing an institution can do… it is be reborn. People crave artists like, Eljuri, but its hard to get what you need, when the world tells you that you should want something else. Her new record and refreshing personality tapped into an upcoming pulse that is going pummel ¨The Industry¨, while at the same time, save it: it has perspective.
Eljuri will never not say her political opinion, news flash is does not like oranges, now will she never not crack a joke or lead a guitar riff. She has a PERSONALITY that, by God, is exceptionally talented, and people miss that. While I love the manual setting on any app or gadget, I do not always like it in my artists, and that is what mainstream music is missing or refusing to let in: identity.
