By: Aleyna Taber
Reggaeton – a Latin American music style – has increased in popularity over the past decade, becoming one of the most listened to music genres worldwide. A major artist who pushed reggaeton into the mainstream is Bad Bunny, who today is the third-most streamed artist on Spotify globally, with over 84 million monthly listeners. His new album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, which was released this January, represents a breakthrough in Latin music. As of today, the album sits No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart, and has scored five simultaneous Global 200 top 10 songs. This makes Bad Bunny the first Latin artist to top Billboard’s charts and the fastest male artist to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify for an album, which was achieved in only 13 days.
Bad Bunny’s spike in popularity challenges reggaeton’s criticism for being too vulgar, overtly sexual, and even even ‘culturally inferior’. Not only is he garnering interest in the genre for it’s unique blend of reggae, trap, dembow, and electronic rhythms but raising awareness of its deeply political roots. Current artists, including Bad Bunny, thus use its language as a vessel to communicate messages on politics, identity and nationality.
The Political History of Reggaeton
Reggaeton was born out of Panama in the late 70s and construction of the Panama Canal when laborers from what were then the British West Indies moved to the country for work. In turn, these workers brought music from their home countries which continued to live on through second and third generations of immigrants who translated Jamaican dancehall to Spanish known as ‘reggae en español’. During this same period, the growing popularity of Hip Hop in the United States spread to Puerto Rico, where musicians simultaneously started rapping in Spanish. The encounter of both these growing music genres was made in 90’s New York City, through the mixing of Puerto Rican and Panamanian artists. A version of the Jamaican dembow beat was recorded and taken back to Puerto Rico, where Spanish rap was transposed on Jamaican beats, forming a type of music called “underground”. This came to be known as reggaeton by the turn of the century.
Throughout this history, reggaeton was used as a means of resistance. During the 1990s, “underground” singers often came from low-income housing projects in Puerto Rico known as caseríos, addressing their difficulties of life as well as the violence caused by Pedro Roselló’s “Iron Fist Against Crime” policy in their songs. Forerunner of reggaeton, Ivy Queen, expressed how the style of music was “about how kids who were young or poor, Black or dark-skinned—kids who were discriminated against in every way—how we refused to be quiet.” Through provocative lyrics and infectious beats, reggaeton served as a spokesperson for the working class, as artists such as Tego Calderón used their songs to denounce racism and colonialism. For example, in his song “Loíza,” Calderón sings in his chorus: “Nunca va a haber justicia sin igualdad / Maldita maldad que destruye la humanidad / Porque protester va a quitarme la libertad / Si yo no reconozco su autoridad” (There will never be justice without equality/ Damn evil that destroys humanity / Because protesting will take away my freedom / If I don’t recognize their authority). Here, he explicitly denounces the institutional racism towards Afro-Puerto Ricans, dedicating his song to the predominantly black town of Loíza.
In fact, reggaeton was so subversive that in the 90s, the Puerto Rican police would regularly fine people they found listening to it, whether it be in a public space or in the privacy of their own car. In 2002, a Puerto Rican senator even managed to censor the genre for its violent and sexual content. But in 2004, the latin music style blew up with Daddy Yankee’s global hit Gasolina, which was less politically motivated and more commercial. The movement was especially propelled thanks to the Columbian city of Medellín’s mayor Sergio Fajardo who – while U.S. record labels failed to see the potential of reggaeton – flooded investment into the arts as part of his “social urbanism” policy to reduce violence in poor neighbourhoods. As a result of this governmental push, however, the music genre strayed away from addressing topics such as politics, violence and drugs, and became more focussed on sex and romance.
Today, reggaeton seems to be returning as a form of political expression and affirmation of identity. Leader in the music genre, Bad Bunny, is namely a proponent of this politicization of reggaeton. When Bad becoming first non-English-language performer to win artist of the year for the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, Bad Bunny said he “always believed from the beginning, that (he) could become great, that (he) could become one of the best singers in the world without having to change (his) culture, (his) language, (his) slang” testifying his resolution to make the international music industry adapt to his language as opposed to the other way around – a choice deeply political in itself.
The artist goes even further in his political activism. His 2022 album, Un Verano Sin Ti, not only achieved the milestone of first Spanish-language album to hit No. 1 on Billboard’s 200 best albums chart but addressed multiple political issues in Puerto Rico. Namely the song “El Apagón”, literally translating to“The Blackout”, called out the failures of the Puerto Rican government to address the recurring nation-wide ‘blackouts’ in Puerto Rico caused by the privatization of power grids. He calls out the governor Pedro Pierluisi, singing: “Maldita sea, otro apagón. Vamo’ pa’ lo’ bleacher a prender un blunt antes que a Pipo le dé un bofetón” (Damn it, another blackout. Let’s go to the bleachers and light up a blunt, before I give Pipo a slap). In his other song “Andrea”, Bad Bunny addresses the issue of machismo and violence against women, calling for women to “be given respect and for it to never be taken away” (“que le den respeto y nunca se lo quiten”) Nevertheless, being called his most Puerto Rican and most political album yet, Bad Bunny’s newest album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, is arguably his most political endeavour yet.
Debí Tirar Más Fotos: a love song to Puerto Rico
The entire album is constructed as a series of love songs to a lost lover. However, the lost lover runs deeper than the loss of a romantic relationship, representing instead the heartbreak Bad Bunny feels facing the rapid change of the place he loves most: Puerto Rico. The title itself, I should have taken more photos, expresses a yearning to “capture a historical record, one both political and personal, of Bad Bunny’s home.”
This personification of Bad Bunny’s homeland as a jilted lover is notably visible in the song “TURiSTA”, which uses the analogy of a brief romantic fling to portray the tourist’s relationship with Puerto Rico. The disenchanted artist sings: “En mi vida fuistes turista. Tú solo vistes lo mejor de mí y no lo que yo sufría” (“In my life you were a tourist. You only saw the best of me, not the pain I was going through”), sharing in an interview with TIME magazine how tourists only come to Puerto Rico “to enjoy the beautiful places, and then they leave and they don’t have to deal with the problems that Puerto Ricans have to deal with day-to-day.” The rise of tourism on the island has led to growing gentrification, widening economic disparities between locals and outside investors (primarily from the US). Luxury development projects are progressively pushing lower-income residents out of their neighbourhoods spurred by tax incentives such as those written into Act 60, which provides tax exemptions to businesses and investors that establish themselves in Puerto Rico. Since 2012, more than 4,286 applications of people wanting to become housing investors have been approved, with more than 35 % of them approved in the last three years. This has resulted in a 7% increase in median rent and a 23% in housing prices, while 43% of the local population lives under the poverty line. He therefore channels his heartbreak towards his homeland being stripped away from its residents.
In so doing, he also deliberately makes the personal political, fitting into the American feminist Carol Hanisch’s idea that personal experiences are integrated into a larger political context of power dynamics. This is exactly how Bad Bunny addresses the issue of gentrification of Puerto Rico in the short film that accompanies his album which begins in a domestic – more specifically, with an elderly Boricua man (played by renowned Puerto Rican filmmaker and poet Jacobo Morales) sitting at a kitchen table reminiscing how he should have taken more pictures of his past. The film then zooms outside the home and onto the streets of Puerto Rico, showing the changing landscape of the man’s beloved neighbourhood.
The transformation of Puerto Rican livelihoods is illustrated by the elderly man’s disillusionment walking through his neighbourhood. As he wanders the streets, American accents dominate and, when he finally arrives at the bakery, the cashier takes his order in English. He requests common local delicacies such as quesitos, which the cashier comically replaces with ‘American’ and even vegan cheese, which she ironically calls “a cheeseless quesito”, rather than the traditional papa cheese. The total for the order is an exorbitant $30 which the old man can not even pay in cash for. Unable to pay immediately, he protests that he knew the original owner personally. The only reason he is able to walk away with his food is because a young Puerto Rican man steps in to pay for him, giving him a symbolic “gracias a usted” (thank you) for his resistance to adapting to American culture.
Additionally, the stark contrast between locality and the intrusion of American presence shines through the music heard in the film. As the Boricua walks to the bakery, American heavy rock and country music invade the streets, replacing the “sounds of the neighbourhood,”he reminisces. The Boricua ultimately reclaims this Puerto Rican sound, by blasting reggaeton out the windows of his car, arguably much like what Bad Bunny is doing by amplifying and celebrating his Puerto Rican roots through his album.
In the song “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii”, he more explicitly tackles the issue of the Americanisation of Puerto Rico by taking an independentist stance against the United States, warning about the consequences of what would happen if Puerto Rico were to become part of the US the way Hawaii did. Since 1898, Puerto Rico has been an unincorporated territory of the US. Thus, Puerto Ricans have their own government but must still contribute to the American economy and pay federal taxes.Puerto Rico, therefore, arguably does not have sovereignty. Understanding this, Bad Bunny sings “Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa,” (“They want to take my river and my beach”), “Quieren el barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya” (“They want my neighborhood and for grandma to get out”), referring to the buying out of Puerto Rico’s beaches by foreign luxury complexes. He continues in his chorus: “Que no quiero que hagan contigo lo que le pasó a Hawái” (“I do not want them to do to you what happened to Hawaii”). The rise of tourism in Hawaii has made it the most expensive state to live in in the U.S, and the gentrification that accompanied this process has also resulted in the state having the highest ratio of homelessness per capita. Pushed out by high prices, 15,000 native Hawaiians leave their land every year, forced to migrate to mainland U.S. in search of better opportunity. The song “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii” therefore vocalizes a common worry amongst Puerto Ricans, as before the album’s release, Bad Bunny expressed his distress to TIME magazine saying: “they’re trying to take away my beaches, little by little: they keep coming and selling them.”
In his closing track “LA MuDANZA”, Bad Bunny defiantly declares: “De aquí nadie me saca, de aquí yo no me muevo” (“No one’ll kick me out of here, I’m not going anywhere”), “Dile que esta es mi casa donde nació mi abuelo” (“Tell them this is my home, where my grandfather was born”). Thus, he makes clear his music seems to be an act of resistance to the de-puertoricofization of the island, not only through explicitly opposing American presence but also through re-asserting Puerto Rican pride.
Bad Bunny considers Debí Tirar Más Fotos his most Puerto Rican album to date, including in its musical composition, which deliberately returns to local and traditional musicians and styles. He starts off the opener of his album with a sample of the 1975 hit “Un Verano En Nueva York” by the iconic Puerto Rican salsa band El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, which greatly influenced the sound of Latino music, especially salsa. Throughout the album, his songs are tinged with traditional Puerto Rican folk music styles, such as plena, jbaro and bomba which rely heavily on rhythmic percussions accompanied by folk stringed instruments. Bad Bunny also uses his album as a platform to uplift local artists such as Chuwi (featured on “WeLTiTA”), Dei V and Omar Courtz (featured on “VeLDÁ”), Pleneros de la Cresta (featured on “cAFÉ CON RON”), RaiNao (featured on “PERFuMITO NUEVO”). Additionally, Bad Bunny also amplified Puerto Rican talent by collaborating with the Escuela Libre de Música, a music school in Puerto Rico for musicians between the ages of 18 and 21, for the salsa components of the album.
The global reception of Bad Bunny’s album is also taking notice of such advocacy efforts. Professor in Music of Central and South America, Andrew J. Green, at King’s College London expresses how Bad Bunny’s recentering on Puerto Rican music “can also be understood as a landmark within a much wider recent trend in Latin American music”. Increasingly, Latin American artists are returning to local music traditions, as one of the biggest hits of 2023, Peso Pluma and Eslabón Armado’s “Ella Baila Sola”, was actually a “minimally produced acoustic arrangement of a so-called “regional Mexican” song.” Shortly after, Shakira also collaborated with regional Mexican bands such as Fuerza Regida and Grupo Frontera (who Bad bunny also collaborated with in his “un100xto”) for her songs “El Jefe” and then “Entre Paréntesis”. Dr. Green points out how this opting towards national and traditional music styles coincides with “a time of increased dissatisfaction with the United States”. Thus, musical revivalism and the rejection of hyper-globalized digital recording styles could be understood as a broader rejection of the United States’ increasing regional dominance. Thus, Bad Bunny’s new album “I should have taken more photos,” is not just a singular cry of an artist to return to his Latin American roots but a global one. The homesickness and heartbreak evoked is turned into a celebration of his national culture, effectively using this strength in cultural pride to draw global attention to the struggle for the preservation of his homeland and the memories that come with it. With the resurgence of reggaeton into the political sphere, perhaps the genre will not only raise international concern towards Puerto Rican independence in the face of the US’s weighing presence but also make listeners think about the contribution of their luxury vacations to the gentrification of so-called paradise-like destinations.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own, and may not reflect the opinions of The St Andrews Economist
Image courtesy of “De Los,” publication of the Los Angeles Times