Bad Bunny, a.k.a. Benito Martinez Ocasio, opens the 65th Annual Grammy Awards with “Después De La Playa,” his sixth charted song on the US Billboard Hot 100. The song “Después De La Playa” is a genre of merengue and mambo, successfully shown through the group of dancers wearing vibrant skirt colors, papier-mâché heads and the vibrant backgrounds and effects. The medley of his two songs, “El Apagón,” and “Después De La Playa,” were backed with a track of conga drums and brass music demonstrating the Latin culture within the song to the audiences.
Bad Bunny was nominated for three Grammy Awards: Album of the Year for Un Verano Sin Ti, Best Pop Solo Performance for “Moscow Mule” and Best Música Urbana Album for Un Verano Sin Ti. Although Bad Bunny and his music have always been well-known, his Grammy-winning album has acted as the bridge between Spanish-speaking listeners, his expected following and listeners who have different native languages. Throughout the year, especially during summer, Bad Bunny’s album was on repeat.
In Miami, my home, Spanish speakers are very prevalent within the community. Spanish music is played along with staple artists such as Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus or Drake. When moving to Tallahassee to attend Florida State University, I met people who don’t have one Spanish song on their playlist or do not even listen to Bad Bunny. This was a culture shock for me.
However, each time my friends and I did go out to a restaurant for a girls’ night, the one Latin album that was on repeat was Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti. It was a no-skip album. Simple. Whether you knew the words or not, the melodies and his voice within the songs resonated with you. Bad Bunny, as an artist himself, goes so much more beyond only good music.
Within the Latino community, he has displayed defiance towards traditional gender norms and has advocated on various social justice issues. In the year of 2019, Bad Bunny joined protests in his native country, Puerto Rico, against Governor Ricardo Rossello and produced and released a song to provide awareness known as, “Afilando Los Cuchillos.” Additionally, one of the melodies he performed at this year’s Grammy, “El Apagón,” acts as a documentary for Puerto Rico’s housing and electricity issues after Hurricane Maria devastated the country. He allows people from the country to speak about their experience and displays it in the music video.
One of the elements that allows Bad Bunny to demonstrate such a great extent of Latin representation within the music industry and media, is how he doesn’t feel the need to accommodate his native language by speaking in English if he is performing for an English-speaking audience. Through this, it allows for Spanish-speaking, first-generation kids in predominantly English-speaking countries to be proud of their roots. During his festivals, he encourages fans to show off their countries’ flags in pride. In his performance during Labor Day Weekend, he says, “Made in America, Latinos make America.”
Through his persistent advocacy and the way Bad Bunny presents himself, he challenges the machista stereotype of Latin men. As part of his previous album, YHLQMDLG (2020), he dressed in drag attire for the “Yo Perreo Sola” music. Then, when being invited on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show, he wore a T-shirt that said, “They Killed Alexa, not a man with a skirt,” highlighting the recent crimes on the transgender community by referring to a transgender woman murdered in Puerto Rico. His openness to gender norms and his support towards the LGBTQ+ community has inspired others, specifically men, to do the same as well.
Bad Bunny’s Grammy award means so much more than a recognition of his virality with his new album, Un Verano Sin Ti. It allows representation for the Latino community and for the social injustices in various other communities as well.
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