Poor Bunny has achieved a milestone that extends beyond music and struck a political nerve in the United States.
Two weeks ago, Bad Bunny solidified his status as a cultural force by winning the Grammy for Album of the Year with “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” becoming the first artist to win the award with an album entirely in Spanish. He then followed that achievement a week later by headlining the Super Bowl halftime reveal, performing exclusively in his native language. This unprecedented double win subverted the historical dominance of American cultural norms.
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, known professionally as Bad Bunny, is technically a U.S. Citizen, but also a product of a territory often treated as expendable by the mainland. This sentiment, according to reports, reflects how many in the U.S. View the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. In 2024, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe reportedly said at a Donald Trump rally that “there’s literally a floating island of trash in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
Amidst a rise in anti-immigration and anti-Latino rhetoric in the United States, Bad Bunny has crafted a discography that serves as a history lesson, reclaiming space for Puerto Rico. This theme is most prominent on his sixth studio album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” released in January 2025.
Understanding the album’s political dimension requires understanding Puerto Rico’s history. The island was a Spanish colony from 1493 to 1898, when the United States gained control after the Spanish-American War. In 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. Citizenship through the Jones Act, and in 1952, the territory became officially a “Free Associated State.”
In practice, however, Puerto Rico remains a non-incorporated territory of the U.S. Residents are U.S. Citizens but cannot vote in presidential elections, lack voting representation in Congress, have limited access to federal benefits, and are excluded from key economic decisions. Puerto Rico, in the 21st century, continues to exist as a colony under a different name.
This reality deeply impacts Bad Bunny’s generation. Born in 1994, he belongs to what many call the “crisis generation”—young people who grew up during economic recession, witnessing budget cuts, school closures, and mass migration from the island.
In 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated the island’s infrastructure, exposing the fragility of its power grid and leaving millions without electricity for months. It was in this context that “El Apagón” (“The Blackout”), a track from his 2022 album “Un Verano Sin Ti,” emerged, accompanied by a short documentary.
Both the song and film denounce the privatization of the power grid and the tax incentives that attracted foreign investors, driving up the cost of living and accelerating gentrification. “I don’t seek to leave here / They should be the ones to leave / They take what belongs to me,” the lyrics state.
Further solidifying his political stance, Bad Bunny released “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” which he described as his “most Puerto Rican album.”
The album’s opening track, “Nuevayol,” begins with a shout-out to New York City, which became the primary destination for Puerto Rican migration throughout the 20th century. The sample from “Un Verano en Nueva York,” a classic salsa song by El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, bridges decades by transforming the 1970s salsa into a dembow beat—a central rhythm in contemporary reggaeton—creating a sonic timeline that illustrates how Puerto Rican identity has been rebuilt outside its territory.
In “La Mudanza,” Bad Bunny directly references the political repression of the 20th century, recalling that people were killed for raising the Puerto Rican flag—a reference to the Gag Law of 1948, which criminalized nationalist symbols under American rule. It was this prohibited flag, in a lighter shade of blue, that Benito displayed at this year’s Super Bowl. “Here, people were killed for raising the flag / That’s why now I take it wherever I want.”
The song goes beyond physical relocation, addressing displacements caused by an economic model that forces residents to leave the island. “Nobody can take me from here, I’m not leaving here.”
The album’s most forceful statement comes in “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii,” where Bad Bunny draws a parallel between Puerto Rico and Hawaii, both territories annexed by the United States in 1898.
The singer warns about Puerto Rico’s future, reinforcing criticism of attracting wealthy investors and converting affordable housing into luxury properties for tourism—as happened in Hawaii. “They want to take my river and also the beach / They want my neighborhood and for my grandmother to leave.”
The singer encapsulates the recent diaspora of young people forced to migrate in search of a better future. “You can hear the farmer crying, another one has left / He didn’t want to move to Orlando, but the corrupt people kicked him out.”
This message extends beyond the music. For each track on the album, Bad Bunny released videos with explanatory texts about key moments in Puerto Rican history, written by historian Jorell Meléndez-Badillo. The videos, which have garnered millions of views, function as a public history lesson spanning from Spanish colonization to the current economic dependence on external funds.
In the short film accompanying the album, filmmaker Jacobo Morales wanders through a neighborhood unrecognizable, dominated by new residents and businesses catering to foreigners. The imagery reinforces the central question of the track—what remains of a country when its inhabitants can no longer live in it?
