Young artistssuch as Bad Bunny and iLe have emerged as figureheads in the largest protests in the island’s history

On Wednesday afternoon, as 100,000 Puerto Ricans lined the grounds of the capitol, crowds surged in anticipation, snapping thin reels of yellow string designed to separate them from a makeshift speakers’ platform.

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Some screamed with excitement. Others continued the chant that has led these week-long demonstrations against the island’s governor Ricardo Rosselló: “Ricky, resign!”

The rally’s unofficial figureheads had arrived, winding through the crowd and clambering on to a white truck on which a speaker was mounted.

They were not politicians, trade unionists or survivors of the liberation movement. They were young Puerto Rican musicians and artists, some famous across the globe, and they were in San Juan to lead one of the largest protests in the island’s history.

Last weekend, the scandal-ridden Rosselló administration appeared to reach the end of its credibility after hundreds of pages of leaked text messages between the governor and 11 members of his inner circle revealed homophobic and misogynistic comments directed at political rivals and cultural figures, as well as messages mocking those who died during Hurricane Maria in 2017.

The scandal marks the low point of almost two years of corruption and mismanagement which has recently seen former members of the administration arrested by the FBI. It comes against a backdrop of sweeping austerity and privatisation imposed after Maria, as the island grapples with a decades-old debt crisis.

I’ve been waiting for so long for a massive awakening in Puerto Rico and I think we’re doing that right now iLe

Shortly before Wednesday’s rally three young Puerto Rican musicians – the reggaeton star Benito Martinez Ocasio, known by his stage name Bad Bunny, and two Grammy winners, rapper Residente and singer Ileana Cabra Joglar, known as iLe, released a quickly composed protest track that has been played more than 3.5 million times on YouTube, a number larger than the population of the island itself.

Afilando Los Cuchillos, or Sharpening The Knives, is a blistering attack on the governor’s record.

“Your apologies are drowned with rain water/ In houses that still don’t have a roof,” Residente raps in Spanish, aimed at Rosselló’s tepid apology for the messages, and a reference to homes on the island that have not been repaired since the hurricane.

“We are cutting like knives/ Sparkling up to the edge,” iLe sings, meaning cutting through the island’s corruption.

All three stood on a large speaker at Wednesday’s rally, surveying the thousands assembled around them.

“It was amazing to see,” iLe told the Guardian, at a nondescript recording studio in a San Juan suburb. “I’ve been waiting for so long for a massive awakening in Puerto Rico and I think we’re doing that right now and it feels incredible.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ileana Cabra, aka Ile, in a recording studio in San Juan. Photograph: Angel Valentin/The Guardian

Her voice was a little hoarse after hours chanting and singing with protesters the previous day. She had been on the streets every night since the scandal broke. Her collaborator Ocasio flew back from Spain to take part in Wednesday’s rally. He has since said on social media he will abandon recording plans to return to Puerto Rico as the crisis continues.

“I’m going to cancel everything,” he said in Spanish during a post on Instagram. “I’m going to put a pause on my career because I don’t have the heart or the mind to make music. I’m going to Puerto Rico.”

Corruption has blighted Puerto Rican politics for generations. Urgent, socially conscious music is not new either. Residente, iLe’s older brother, formed the multi-grammy winning group Calle 13 with his sister and stepbrother in 2004, producing politically provocative and often pro-independence hits for more than a decade.

For us, artists, athletes, even beauty queens have become a symbol of pride Pedro Reina Perez

So what is it about this moment, and this particular scandal, that has inspired such a broad and diverse coalition of protest?

“Our history has been based on humiliation and abuse and we’ve got used to it,” said iLe. “We trust too much in the government as a majority. But now the majority have seen with their own eyes that raw coldness, and that lack of appreciation and that underestimation of our own country. And that feels awful.”

The messages speak for themselves. In one, Rosselló refers to Puerto-Rican born New York City politician Melissa Mark-Viverito as a “whore”. In another, he refers to the firebrand mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, as “off her meds”. A senior administration officials says: “I am salivating to shoot her.”

But the message that seems to have stirred most outrage is one sent by the island’s former financial officer, Sobrino Vega, who jokes about the growing death toll associated with Maria.

“Now that we are on the subject, don’t we have some cadavers to feed our crows?” he wrote in a reference to government critics. “Clearly they need attention.”

‘A combustible mixture’

The protests have been marked by a lack of formal leadership. Events are announced by a range of groups on social media and have drawn varying attendance.

But, say observers, this group of artists holds a particular position in the island’s national imagination, their ability to galvanize amplified in the social media age.

Pedro Reina Perez, a Puerto Rican historian and journalist at Harvard University, said: “For a colonial people like Puerto Ricans, where political repression has been widespread, we have been deprived of national symbols. So, for us, artists, athletes, even beauty queens have become a symbol of pride. And when you mix social media with pop culture, and these leaked chats – you have a combustible mixture.”

It is not just artists producing overtly political music that have come to the fore in recent days. The superstar Ricky Martin was also on top of the speaker system on Wednesday. Martin was subjected to homophobic ridicule in the leaked chats. He is not usually a loud voice in Puerto Rican politics but he has also called on Rosselló to go.

The administration’s chequered record on LGBTQ rights has been thrust to the centre of the protests, the pride flag often seen flying next to the Puerto Rican. At one march early in the week a group of LGBTQ protesters dressed in silks and sequined outfits staged an impromptu dance party in front of the governor’s mansion.

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Ismael Casado, a 24-year-old queer person who lost their home during Maria, took a moment away from the party. “We are here representing queer people who have been abused and attacked verbally by the governor,” they said. “He trampled over our rights. Having Ricky Martin here, a recognized person, has leant so much weight to the community.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thousands attend a massive protest against governor Ricky Rosselló in front of the Capitol building. Photograph: Angel Valentin/The Guardian

There is hope that Puerto Rican politics may have been changed for good, despite Rosselló’s desire to hold on to power.

“I think this is the end of the bipartisanship Puerto Rico has been trapped since 1964, where the main two political parties have dominated an equal half of the electorate,” said Reina Perez, casting hopes forward to gubernatorial elections next year. “The time is ripe not only for a new party, but a different politics.”

As dusk settled over the cobblestone streets outside the governor’s mansion on Thursday evening, the air still smelled faintly of the teargas used to disperse thousands after Wednesday’s rally. iLe stood to the side of a newly assembled demonstration.

“We won’t be going anywhere until he goes,” she said, as drumbeats pulsed.

And then she turned around, disappearing into the masses.