‘You Don’t Need to Be a Politician to Make Change’: PJ Sin Suela Refuses to Lose Hope

PJ Sin Suela has had one of the busiest years of his career.

The perennial fan-favorite in Puerto Rico started his career more than a decade ago on Soundcloud. His dynamic stage presence, charismatic personality, catchy delivery, and clever bars put him on the map early. By 2018, he was teaming up with Bad Bunny and charting on Billboard. He kept winning fans and building a as a thoughtful and affable rapper — and this year promised to be even bigger.

In January, he kicked off a string of collab singles featuring artists such as Nanpa Básico, Charlie Sepulveda, Goyo, and Sparrow & Barbossa among others. By July, he’d started hyping up Toda Época Tiene Su Encanto (Every Era Has Its Charms), his new LP, which dropped in September. A quick U.S. tour launched not too long after, and he returned to Puerto Rico to headline Festival de La Esperanza, the closing campaign rally of promising gubernatorial candidate Juan Dalmau, who received the support of young voters, and even Bad Bunny’s endorsement, ahead of the election.

On voting day, PJ worked as a coordinator at one of the many polling places across the island, and a week later, he was back onstage for his sold-out concert at San Juan’s Tito Puente Amphitheater. On top of all that, he’s also a practicing doctor, running a non-profit and doing monthly health clinics around Puerto Rico for communities in need. A busy year, indeed.

Still, not everything went as planned. The album was a hit, but Dalmau lost the election, dealing a blow to PJ and other Puerto Ricans who hoped for sweeping change in their homeland. 

But through it all, PJ is finding ways to stay positive and to keep inspiring others. “You don’t need to be a politician to make change,” he says. “You can start with yourself. I think there’s gonna be people there who will want to hear that, and I hope to motivate them.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone, he talks about how he’s handled the aftermath of the election in Puerto Rico and the U.S., the reaction around his new album, and what he hopes to offer fans going forward.

It’s after Election Day. How hopeful did you allow yourself to get?

Too much. [Laughs.] Man, I was positive that Puerto Rico had woken up and was as desperate for a change as I was. And I do think we did see that, in the younger population, not even from just 18 year olds, but literally 12 year olds who can’t vote were paying attention, and they’ve been living through this decline since María.

I woke up that day hopeful, and even at 10 p.m. when my shift [at the polling place] ended, I was still feeling hopeful. But it’s hard to go up against these parties that have been in control for 70 years. And they’ve broadcast for just as long this [fearmongering] about “communism” and losing citizenship or certain benefits if we vote for a pro-independence candidate.

That fear seems to really grab hold in certain groups, more than people anticipated.
So many of the older people here remember the Seventies, the Vietnam War, or the change to communism in Cuba, or the Cold War, and they carry that anxiety. [Our generation], they say “hurricane.” When [Hurricanes] Irma and María came, I only sort of protected my house. Now? I board everything up, because I lived that. And these older people, they’re the same way about that other stuff.

The day after the elections, with the [pro-statehood party] winning, after saying statehood and Trump were the only way forward, Mitch McConnell comes out and says they’re absolutely not giving us statehood. And I think in part that’s why they keep trying to sell our land, piece by piece. They know until Puerto Rico isn’t [mostly] people from the United States living here, Republicans will never make us a state. That’s why [in the leaked Telegram texts that led to the 2019 mass protests that ousted ex-governor Ricardo Rosselló] Edwin Miranda said “I saw the future. It’s so wonderful. There are no Puerto Ricans.”

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Do you remember any other time in the past when you felt as pessimistic and disillusioned because of politics or the news?
I’ve never cried as much over politics as I did [the day after the elections.] I worked as a coordinator at my polling place, so I was up from 5 a.m. to set everything up, and clocked out at 10 p.m. So, I was tired, but I cried as if I had just been dumped by my girlfriend of 10 years. But it’s because you’re in love with your country, and it’s a deep love, that a lot of people feel too. Today I’m fine, but yesterday, if I would talk to anybody about what happened, I’d start crying.

That’s why yesterday I wrote “There’s nothing to celebrate,” but people started telling me “Bro, there’s so much to celebrate. Look at all the young people who woke up early and went out to vote.” And they’re right, that’s a really positive thing.

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You mentioned working at a polling place, and you touched a bit on what you saw in that note you uploaded. Can you elaborate on the problems you saw that need addressing?
The voting system in Puerto Rico is archaic. We vote by hand, with five different sheets [of paper], half of them completely unnecessary — why are we doing mock votes for the U.S. president? I know people who wrote my name in! That makes lines longer and move slower.

We vote in rundown schools, with zinc ceilings in high temperatures. I had to call a buddy to bring packs of bottled water to give out to people in line, and even then, two of them fainted. I had to take care of them and send one of them to the hospital, I could barely find their pulse. There were lots of voting machine irregularities, and issues sending the results to the main hub via satellite. You have to scramble to extract the chips from the machines and take them physically to the main polling offices. I think everyone should do it at least once so they can see how it works and what goes on. 

It’s been two months since your album came out. How do you feel about the way your fans have responded to it?
It’s been beautiful. I’m really happy, man. This album is very special. I think it’s a timeless album, because of the variety of music and the themes it touches. Not only do I feel the guest artists, because of their musicality and personality, are timeless but also we talk about patriotism, self-love, and love in general, and you can listen to it whenever. It has reggaeton, rap, bolero, salsa, bomba, drum ‘n bass… It’s a fusion of all these genres, and I feel you can listen to it over and over.

We’ve played the album [on tour] at 12 different U.S. cities, plus Colombia and Chile, and after just a month people already knew the lyrics and had their favorite songs.

What’s been the most surprising reaction that you’ve heard?
“Escúchame,” with Chuwi,. People think it’s a love song when it’s actually a conversation with the land, and about our relationship with our country, which makes it even more relevant now. Lorén, the lead singer of Chuwi, is talking to me as the land, asking for help, to me or to all boricuas, singing about how she’s given us so much and we’ve forgotten about her. And I’m telling her that I haven’t forgotten, that I’m here for her. And I made a post [explaining the song] and a lot of people didn’t catch that, and they were saying “Now that I hear it, it makes me cry.”

Another one is “Como Antes,” which is like a bolero, and out of my comfort zone. I didn’t expect for it to become a fan favorite, but people who hear it tell me they identify with it. The message [is] of being in a relationship that you know doesn’t have a future but you hold on because you don’t trust there’s anything better after. You can apply it to many types of relationships that aren’t healthy, romantic or even family.

That brings me to my next question, actually. You’ve said you wrote “Amnesia” the day your grandfather died, and you mentioned in a previous conversation you didn’t always see eye-to-eye with him. Can you talk about that, and how that relationship applied to the themes of the album?
A lot of people think I’m the way I am because of my family, and my grandfather was the musician of the family. He was a gringo from Alabama who came to Puerto Rico and fell in love with a Puerto Rican woman. None of his family came for the wedding because they didn’t want him to marry a Puerto Rican. And he had Trump stickers on his car, and I’d rip them off. I got taken off family group chats because I’d talk about politics, and he’d call me and angrily yell “Stop talking about politics!” But I get along with everybody, and I learned not to talk about that around him.

I didn’t have a bad relationship with him, though. I’d say I got my extroverted side from him. Our family get-togethers ended with my grandfather drunk and playing Frank Sinatra songs on the piano. At restaurants he’d get up in the middle of dinner and start singing, and everyone would clap for him. He was a character. I wrote the song the day he died, but before I found out he’d died. I finished the song, and then my dad called me with the news. But I knew he was in the hospital, and the song talks about a love that scars, and it’s crazy because at one point I wrote “You follow me like a mystery / A ghost, a cemetery.” But I was ready for his passing. He lived life to its fullest. The week before he passed I stayed with him at his home, took care of him, bathed him, and had some really nice conversations with him.

Does the ephemerality of life make you see the world differently, not just in interpersonal relationships, but in a wider sense, with politics or your career. Does it give you a sense of urgency?
I live pretty passionately. I’m always looking to be free. Lots of people are after the “American dream,” or after money. I just wanna have freedom. I went through that phase of wanting to lock in and finish your education and get a career, but I’d say after the pandemic I realized the most precious thing we have is our health and our time. And that’s what I live for, health and time. Plus, how can I leave a positive footprint? That’s why I talk so much about social change, and do these health workshops. I feel it’s a duty, because I’ve been privileged, from my family to my music.

But as far as urgency, I think when you’re not living a lie and you’re honest, that makes it so you don’t have to get hung up on an age and you can be happy while life passes. That’s why every era has its charm… And I just live trying to make sure the next era is just as nice as the previous one. When people talk about why I’m not as big as X or Y artists, that doesn’t bother me, because I’m living an honest life.

Do you feel pressure now knowing that fans will be looking to you to make sense of what happened, or for a reason to feel optimistic?
I feel a little pressure, but I also think my concert will help people roll with the punches. And I’m gonna sing about social topics, but I also want a concert where people leave happy, and in love, and satisfied. Also Christmas is coming up, so there’s gonna be a lot of positivity. We’re not gonna have a VIP section; it’s all community, everyone together.

Obviously you’re not a politician, but you are a doctor, so I wanted your take on the very real danger that’s in play now of the Affordable Care Act and Medicare being potentially cut, due to Trump’s proposed policies.
I think it’s super dangerous. I haven’t read the specific policies Trump is pushing, [but] I know that federal laws affect Puerto Rico, and I know that we need more health care workers, and we need all health insurance plans to approve the few doctors that come back. Not a lot of people know that. Sometimes it takes six months to get that approval, and [some doctors] take patients for free in that time.

Cutting Medicare is insanity, especially with our high elderly population. Here, you go to the mountain towns, and there’s so many elderly people who get no assistance or help. There’s no specialists up there, and you’d have to travel an hour or more to reach one. And these elderly are alone; most of their family moved away after María. I met one who told me they were diagnosed with a tumor in their head, but hadn’t checked it out for a year because their appointments were for six months out and they had no transportation.

You’re a doctor, an activist, an artist, three roles with big responsibilities. How do you manage to balance all of them, physically and mentally?
I get asked this a lot. I always say there’s no formula. Over time, you develop the discipline. I’ve had months where I’ve had to dedicate the whole time to justr health work and separate myself from the music. And other times I go on tour and don’t do anything health-related, except check in on Mondays to make sure everything is going well with my foundation, where I’m the medical director. But there’s no formula. Discipline, consistency, and patience.

I have a schedule. Mondays, I have a call with my non-profit, scheduling our health clinics at least a month in advance. The rest of the week, four times a week, I come to the studio at 11 a.m. and dedicate 8 hours to produce or write music. Because that’s also my job: to write and create music. But discipline is important. LeBron is LeBron because he’s in the gym two to three times a day. All these successful rappers, that’s how they get to where they are. You can’t be like “Oh yeah, I’ll go to the studio once a week.” You gotta put in the time.