Bad Bunny, or Benito if you’re cool, released his newest album on Jan. 5, titled DeBi TiRAR MaS FOTos. This 17 song album shocked audiences with its political undertones but mostly has thrusted a space of appreciation for culture. As someone who grew up with a sister who once had all of us fight for Bad Bunny tickets, I am not new to his music at all but this album truly felt different from his past work. To me, it felt like Bad Bunny had felt a duty to his people and his culture to create an album that felt more like a love letter to Puerto Ricans rather than just music.
A few days before releasing the album, Bad Bunny released a short film of the same name on Jan. 3. This short film followed an older Puerto Rican man who was talking about the past and sharing pictures with his friend, a toad named Concho. Midway through their discussion, the man decides to go to the local bakery for some food. On his journey there, the film demonstrates the changes and gentrification that has happened to the island, specifically the Americanization of its communities. The bakery is even worse with the delicacies changed to better suit the American tongue, and even the cashier is responding to the old man in English instead of Spanish. At the end, the man is talking to Concho about how he never hears Reggaeton, a traditional Latin American music style, anymore. Concho then asks to see more photos to which the man replies that he didn’t take many pictures but will show Concho the ones he has and try to explain the ones that he didn’t.
If I’m honest, this short film did bring tears to my eyes. I’m not even Puerto Rican, nor have I even ever been to the beautiful island. However, it isn’t hard to understand the hardships that must come when seeing your home, a place that you have grown up loving, change due to the desires of outsiders. This album comes at a very troubled time for Puerto Ricans, whose home has been recently called “a pile of trash in the ocean” by MAGA supporters, and whoes island has been taken from them and taken over by White Americans wanting to escape to an island paradise. Yet they don’t want to take the time to learn the culture, they want to change it to fit them. Which is the exact opposite of the expectations placed on immigrants moving to the U.S.
TikTok user Fernando Cortes made a video which focused on the gentrification of Oaxaca, Mexico. She brings up how Canadian and American migrants move to these countries because for them it’s “cheap” and they move there with others so that they don’t have to learn the local language and can push out locals. On the other hand, migrants moving from Mexico to the U.S. don’t have the money or the power to push out anyone, and they are moving there to escape poverty or war.
One of the songs on the album, “LO QUE LE PASO A HAWAii,” is truly bringing the conversation of the damage gentrification has on native communities. In the song, Bad Bunny sings about how he doesn’t want what happened to Hawaii to happen to Puerto Rico. For those who are unaware, Hawaii has suffered through terrible violence and gentrification at the hands of the United States. Hawaii now is one of the most expensive states to live in, pushing out many natives and separating them from their roots.
I found this album to be such a powerful and inspiring piece of art. Bad Bunny isn’t shying away from the difficult conversations that are needed to have especially as more and more land is taken away from the natives of Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, we are very far away from Puerto Rico gaining back their land and freedom. But if more people have the strength and courage to have these conversations Puerto Rico and other majorly gentrified communities can get back what was taken from them.