This dissertation examines the historical relationship between the state and national culture in Puerto Rico as seen through the case of the entertainment industry, specifically live-music events production. The dissertation is located within two bodies of literature: critical post-colonial cultural studies of cultural industries and cultural policy, and cultural approaches to scholarship on collective action and state-civil society relationships in neoliberal contexts. The research design includes archival work and analysis of organizational material, supported by a cultural ethnography approach to semi-structured informant interviews and group interviews. The interviews focus on the historical development, cultural legacies, and practices of the entertainment industries in relation to musicians in Puerto Rico and links to the Latin American and Caribbean region, and translocal networks. Live-music events producers, musicians, and main institutional actors from the entertainment industry and the state were interviewed, and four state-sponsored live-music events were observed.