Forest Hills Stadium already feels like a kind of time capsule. Tucked inside Queens, its Tudor-style cottages and intimate village-like pathways create the sensation of stepping into a storybook hidden inside New York City. On Saturday night (Sept. 5), that atmosphere became the setting for Rauw Alejandro’s own living storybook: a three-act performance that moved from the Puerto Rican roots and musical influences that shaped him to the superstar he is now — and the artist he is still becoming.
The show — Red Bull Chapters featuring Rauw Alejandro — was initially scheduled for one night. After that date sold out quickly, a second performance was added for Sunday (Sept. 6), giving the event an unexpected momentum even before its first chapter began. It also marked Red Bull’s first Chapters project centered on a recording artist, following the brand’s long history of building platforms around athletes, action sports and culture — including its influential Red Bull Batalla freestyle competition.
That distinction mattered. This was not simply a Rauw Alejandro concert with Red Bull branding layered onto it. The production asked what might happen when Rauw’s theatrical concert language met the brand’s appetite for movement, risk and spectacle.
One day before the show, Rauw told Billboard over Zoom that the collaboration was intended to merge “the world of extreme sports, the world of sports, with the world of art and music.” He added: “It’s literally Rauw and Red Bull. It’s not like Rauw Alejandro and Red Bull separately — it’s a fusion between the two worlds.”
The performance made that fusion visible. Its three chapters were titled “Inspiration,” “Momentum” and “Legacy,” turning his career into a past-present-future narrative. Rather than treating his catalog as a straight chronology, the show presented his evolution as a series of leaps: from family, island and sound; to global momentum; to the risks required to keep moving forward.
Rauw Alejandro performs during the inaugural Red Bull Chapters at Forest Hills Stadium on Sept. 05, 2026 in New York City. Credit: Taylor Hill / Getty Images
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Inspiration
The opening chapter began with images of the Caribbean Sea and the sun, accompanied by a narrated portrait of Puerto Rico as the place where mountains, ocean and city meet. The story connected Taíno, African and Spanish influences with salsa, reggaetón and rock — sounds that entered Rauw’s life through his grandfather, his own early ambitions and his father, guitarist Raúl Ocasio.
That history gained new resonance in Billboard’s interview, when Rauw spoke about growing up around his father and grandfather, both musicians. His grandfather was a trovador; his father played guitar, composed and introduced him to Elvis Presley, James Brown and other American oldies while salsa played in the family’s orbit. Rauw also recalled secretly buying his first reggaetón record as a child, at a time when the genre was not yet embraced by everyone around him.
“I grew up in an environment with a lot of musical variety,” he said. “I think that marked me a lot, and it’s reflected in my art.”
He opened the concert with “Santa,” his collaboration with Rvssian and Ayra Starr, dressed in a brown studded leather jacket, dark sunglasses and matching pants. After welcoming the audience to the inaugural Red Bull Chapters with him, he framed the night as an opportunity to share the experiences that had brought him to that stage.
The mood shifted between intimacy and showmanship. “2/Catorce” prompted a full-crowd singalong, while “Club El Calentero” lit the stadium in neon colors. In between songs, Rauw spoke about the uncertainty of inspiration — how a song can begin with a word, a melody or a rhythm that simply creates a feeling before its meaning becomes clear.
That idea became physical during “Tú Con Él,” his cover of Frankie Ruiz’s classic. Backed by a full band — including guitarists, a keyboardist and percussionists — Rauw delivered the song with an ease that made the homage feel less like a detour than a conversation between generations of Puerto Rican music.
Momentum
The transition into the second chapter introduced the production’s most overtly athletic language. A skateboarding structure rolled onto the stage as performers in Joker-like helmets executed tricks with fire blazing behind them. Later, daredevil motorcyclists performed wheelies and other stunts while Rauw changed into a black leather look with a rocker edge.
The action was not confined to interludes. Extreme-sports imagery — snowboarders, ice skaters and surfers — flashed across the screens as Rauw’s live performance continued, turning athletic risk into a visual metaphor for the decisions that propel an artist from one era into the next. The production’s narration asked how someone holds onto the hunger that first fueled them, and what it takes to leap into the unknown without knowing whether they will fly or fall.
That idea also connected to the musical openness Rauw inherited from his family. “My father taught me to be more open and to listen to more music,” he told Billboard Español. “I grew up with a lot of musical variety, and I think that marked me a lot and is reflected in my art.” In the show, that variety took shape through genre shifts, live instrumentation and reimagined arrangements.
Cosa Nuestra remained important context rather than the show’s central subject. The album — and its 2025 follow-up, Cosa Nuestra: Capítulo 0 — established Rauw’s interest in theatrical world-building, New York’s Puerto Rican history and the relationship between tradition and contemporary urbano. Red Bull Chapters expanded that vocabulary by making the act of taking a risk part of the narrative itself.
The performance then accelerated into the hits and collaborations that defined Rauw’s global ascent. “Todo De Ti” and “Carita Linda” were among the night’s biggest crowd reactions, while the live band gave the songs a muscular, concert-scale energy.
Rauw also used the second chapter to address the Puerto Rican diaspora directly. “There are approximately six million Puerto Ricans outside the island, while Puerto Rico itself has only three million,” he told the Forest Hills crowd. “Puerto Rico needs us — the people who are there every day, but also those of us who are here.”
Acknowledging that returning home is not always easy for people balancing family, work and personal struggles, he urged the audience to stay connected to the island. “We can’t allow them to slowly take away our beautiful island and keep what belongs to us — our culture, our identity,” he said. “We have to take care of Puerto Rico together.”
Legacy
For the final chapter, Rauw emerged in an all-white leather look: ’70s-inspired pants, chains, a vest and aviator sunglasses, his reddish hair styled into another distinct character. The change was more than a costume shift. It signaled a move away from biography and toward possibility.
Tainy appeared behind the decks as Rauw called for New York to make itself heard, while Chencho Corleone later joined him for “Desesperados,” one of the evening’s most euphoric moments.
The final act primarily explored the future of Rauw’s sound through a more futuristic visual language and a freer mixture of reggaetón, R&B, electronic music and pop. The concert’s production continually opened new doors — new colors, new characters, new arrangements — without abandoning the physicality that has always made Rauw one of Latin music’s most compelling live performers.
That forward motion also echoed what he told Billboard Español about what comes next. Rauw said October will bring several collaborations, including artists from Puerto Rico and international acts, but that “2027 will be completely Raúl” — a year focused on his own next project.
Red Bull Chapters ultimately worked best when it treated Rauw’s career as an unfinished experiment. The show used the familiar ingredients of his story — Puerto Rico, New York, the Nuyorican diaspora, dance, theatricality, genre-crossing and an instinct for spectacle — but placed them inside a structure that made transformation the point.
At Forest Hills, Rauw was not just revisiting the inspirations, hits and eras that brought him here — he was demonstrating that every new chapter requires another leap. “I’m still in a creative process after Cosa Nuestra, which was a huge tour,” he said. “I’m taking my time to find that inspiration again, to keep studying and see what the muse tells me is next — which direction I should go.”
