In the wake of Bad Bunny, Puerto Rican identity regains its color

In the Caribbean, dance and music are the balm of wounded souls. Sorrows dissolve in a vibrant burst of laughter that fuses tears, helplessness, frustration, relief, and joy into a single celebration. And let's face it: for the past thirty years, dancing reggaeton has also been a great comfort.

Today, a cultural phenomenon has taken hold in Puerto Rico. This event, of international significance—as it is the ^No. 1 album on streaming platforms—is being experienced in a very intimate way on the island.

In Puerto Rico, we are attached to the autobiographical genre (people tell their lives to strangers at the slightest opportunity), and Bad Bunny's new album, Debí tirar más fotos [“I should have taken more photos”], stands out as a kind of collective biography that tells the rest of the world about the daily life of Puerto Ricans.

His contradictions, his anti-colonial and pro-independence stance, and his outspoken denunciation of problems such as gentrification, corruption, mass migration and the disintegration of institutions that are forcing the island's inhabitants to leave, have struck a nerve with Puerto Ricans.

Adding to this list of grievances is the collapse of the school system and the feeling of being besieged, especially on the coast, by Americans who are investing in real estate, transforming entire neighborhoods and changing daily life in the country.

In July 2019, in the conversations that cost former Governor Ricardo Rosselló and his closest advisors the resignation due to his homophobic and sexist remarks, a bright future was mentioned with a “Puerto Rico without Puerto Ricans” : a situation sadly familiar in many poor countries, former colonies or tax havens.

The places belong to others, and the locals are content to serve. The country is becoming a grand hotel reserved for the wealthy, where the locals, relegated to the role of service staff, are almost expected to say thank you for their underpaid jobs. Between the two, a small middle class, docile in the face of the new masters.

Although the state refuses to acknowledge the sense of dispossession experienced by the island's communities, no one here could suppress a bitter laugh when they saw the video accompanying Bad Bunny's album, released on January 5th – a symbolic date, that of the Three Wise Men.

In one scene, we see an American waitress taking the order in English and offering a "quesito sin queso" [cheese pastry without cheese], an absurdity that sounds like a rejection of the culinary specialties that we Puerto Ricans cherish to the core. We laugh bitterly because this dreaded future is already a reality in some places.

Historian Jorell A. Meléndez Badillo of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was responsible for developing the historical notes for Bad Bunny's album that accompany the song visuals, explains:

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