Pop music fans not living under Kid Rock-sized fedora know full well that Puerto Rican music is having a moment.
Ahead of this weekend’s Super Bowl Halftime Show, Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos picked up the Album of the Year Grammy award last Sunday—and this summer a band that helped him along the way plays its own headlining show in Ybor City.
Chuwi, which calls the island’s northwestern coast home, is credited on Bad Bunny’s “Weltita” (stylized “WELTiTA”), and backed Mr. Bunny for the song on every night of his hometown residency, which staged 31 concerts last year from July-September.
Known for its infectious, updated, blend of plena, salsa and bomba, Chuwi traverses not just Latin music, but jazz and pop, with ease (as evidenced on its NPR Tiny Desk last fall). Founding siblings Willy, Lorén and Wester Aldarondo work with bandmate Adrián López to bring many sounds from home into their music, much like another Bad Bunny collaborator Fabiola Mendez (a cuatro player who brought the jíbaro music of PR to Tampa a year ago at Gasparilla Festival of the Arts)
Support is yet to be announced (we vote for Katara and Milla Killa), but the gig is a punctuation mark for Crowbar, a legendary Tampa venue that will close before the fall after 20 years in Ybor City.
The show is one of three Florida concerts by Chuwi, which also plays Orlando and Miami after its Tampa gig.
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This article appears in Feb. 05 – 11, 2026.