“DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOTos,” the most recent album by Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, famously known as Bad Bunny, shows the exponential growth of his way of creating music and invites listeners to reflect on the roots and history that shape our present.
Apart from creating catchy rhythms and lyrics, Bad Bunny addresses sociopolitical issues like the role of Puerto Rico in United States politics, gentrification, the importance of Puerto Rico in global culture and his own cultural legacy.
At first, Bad Bunny’s music can be seen as vulgar and incomparable to other reggaeton music. But it’s important to recognize that his idea of integrating the core cultural aspects of Puerto Rico, like salsa, into his songs is one of the things that’s great about this album. Bad Bunny shows the world how Puerto Rico has brought joy and music, embraces his country with his songs and demonstrates pride in being Puerto Rican.
The first song of the album, “NUEVAYoL,” starts with and integrates one famous salsa song from a globally-recognized salsa group, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico. This is not the only mention of salsa in the album: he refers to salsa legends like Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón and Tito Puente.
Bad Bunny integrates salsa rhythm into his songs without gutting the essence of salsa, achieving a modernization that invites the new generation to draw more attention to the origins of reggaeton music.
But granting Bad Bunny the true title of “salsa musician” would be an insult to true salsa artists. The reality is that he is one of the top artists in the world. Last year, he achieved being the third most-streamed artist globally. With this platform, he managed to generate a high exposition of salsa and bring attention to salsa rhythm.
With this new album, Bad Bunny shows that music like salsa should not be forced to change into modern music, but how modern music can and should integrate traditional rhythms to preserve and conserve the cultural values and knowledge of our past. With this, he embraces cultural traditions and sends a strong message of how people should defend their cultural background.
Many songs refer to the feeling that Bad Bunny himself or other Puerto Ricans can feel about their country. Songs like “LA MuDANZA,” “TURiSTA” or “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii” show the shared memories and feelings that people may have about the United States’ view toward Puerto Rico.
He sings about how he doesn’t want to leave the neighborhood and house where his grandfather was born, the importance of natural resources that could be endangered because of the carelessness of some tourists visiting the island and the feeling of uncertainty about the future of Puerto Rico.
Our background is built from memories and traditions that maybe we didn’t experience firsthand, but something that we recognize as our own and embrace. The message Bad Bunny uses in his album “I should have taken more pictures” is a way to tell us that we shouldn’t think about what we could have done, but what we can do now.
I invite American University community members to learn more about their cultural background. This will not only enrich the soul and mind, but it might open many new perspectives and points of view to problems we are trying to solve as changemakers.
Recognition is the first step: then you will be able to embrace it and feel pride about all the paths your ancestors have achieved. Bad Bunny, in this album, has achieved that. He showed where he was from and taught many people that Puerto Rico is not a “floating island of garbage,” as some believe.
The article was edited by Quinn Volpe, Alana Parker, Marina Zaczkiewicz and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks and Olivia Citarella.
