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- Author, Ronald Alexander Ávila-Claudio
- Author's title, BBC News World
For Albert Laguna, professor at Yale University, one of the most recognized educational institutions in the US., Understanding Bad Bunny's success not only concerns the music industry.
Benito Martínez Ocasio, name of the 31 -year -old Puerto Rican artist, has proven to be a genius of the marketingcapable of transforming music into Spanish – and Latin culture in general – in products that cross as never the borders of Spanish -speaking countries and attract global audiences.
For example, in 2024 he was the most listened Latin singer in the world in the popular Spotify playback platform. While his new album, “I had to throw more photos,” he stayed in the Top 10 – also worldwide – for weeks, after its launch in January.
But its impact is not limited to the music business, says Laguna, an expert in cultural studies.
Over the years, Bad Bunny has adopted an increasingly political position. In his music – and in his public appearances – he explores issues of gender, inequality, migration and the colonial situation of the island where he was born, US territory since 1898.
In addition, he has managed to give a sound turn to the reggaeton, merging his rhythmic pattern with genres such as salsa, bachata, pump and full.
Laguna argues that, through its lyrics and melodies, Bad Bunny builds a map that allows us to understand the history of Puerto Rico and its diaspora.
According to the doctor in literature of Cuban origin, all this adds importance to the indisputable influence of the Puerto Rican artist in the popular music of our time.
Therefore, in September Laguna will give a course on “The bad rabbit” at Yale University.
What implies including Bad Bunny in the agenda of one of the most important universities in the world? How will the figure of the artist address in the classroom? What was the students' response to learn about this new academic offer?
We talk about that in this interview.
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How did the idea of creating a course about Bad Bunny arise?
I heard his new album, “I had to throw more photos”, while walking through the streets of New Orleans, a city with a great Caribbean heritage. At that time, I thought that the success of the album was an opportunity to focus on Puerto Rico within the classroom. There is much interest of my students in Bad Bunny, but they do not have much knowledge about the relationship between the island and the US.
I will use their songs to address important issues for both Puerto Rican diaspora and for people living in the territory.
For example, the song “Newyol”, with which the album begins, refers to “A summer in New York”, which premiered in 1975 the salsa orchestra the Great Combo of Puerto Rico.
When I heard a fragment of that melody on Bad Bunny's album, I was cold. I thought: there is something different in this production.
Through the salsa genre, which was born precisely in New York, we can talk about the migratory flow of Cubans and Puerto Ricans in the US and Afro -Caribbean influence in the country.
We can also discuss the conditions for this type of rhythms to be created.
It is not only to talk about the lyrics, but also about the history of music and about the cultural footprint left by the Perorricños there since they arrived in the nineteenth century.
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I know this is a very broad question, but what is the cultural impact of the artist?
It is ultimately very wide. But, for example, Bad Bunny is celebrating a residence of 30 concerts in Puerto Rico this summer. These events in themselves are a political act.
Many artists develop an audience in their native country and take their culture to the world. But what Bad Bunny does is take the world to Puerto Rico. He is focusing his shows on the island, and becomes an opportunity to talk about the problems that occur at the local level.
How the album you refer to will help students understand the territorial relationship of Puerto Rico and the US?
With a song like “Tourist”, which deals with the tourism industry and how there are US people who travel to Puerto Rico and behave as if they were the owners of the island.
That is another political issue on the album. Bad Bunny insists that Puerto Rico should be for Puerto Ricans. And he does it in the midst of a complicated economic situation, when the island is managed by a Fiscal Supervision Board appointed by the USA.
It seeks to make visible the colonial relationship between the two nations and how that affects the Puerto Ricans today.
Many Americans still do not know that Puerto Rico is a colony from their own country.
And how helps them understand the reality of the diaspora? Not only Puerto Rican, but Latin in general, especially at a time when the US government has approved restrictive measures on migration.
For many immigrants and Latin in general, their home country, the land of their parents, is always a reference when they live outside. In “I had to throw more photos,” Bad Bunny explores and celebrates that constant connection.
You cannot talk about the history of New York without Puerto Rico or Puerto Rico without New York. You cannot talk about the sauce without New York and the relationship with the Latin diaspora that made the city its home.
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In the production of Bad Bunny these connections can be heard. But not only the importance that migrants give to their countries, but also their identities, the way they do community in the US.
In that album Bad Bunny also managed to internationalize certain musical genres that had not been heard so strong outside of Puerto Rico, as the bomb and the full …
Yes, that is very important to recognize it, but it is an old story. With this I mean that the music of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic has shaped the trends of global music since the nineteenth century. I speak of the Cuban danzón, the son, mambo, the sauce and more recently the reggaeton.
Bad Bunny is another link in the chain of that story.
Is the Caribbean impact on the music industry recognized enough?
No, there are not enough references. That is one of the reasons why I am going to offer the class.
Similarly, with his new album, Bad Bunny offers a music course. Not only includes reggaeton songs, with sauce, pump or full, it is a combination of genres. It contains Jíbara music, rhythms of the rural areas of Puerto Rico. When you listen to this music, do you wonder where does it come from?
The album opens roads to understand a broader and more Caribbean story in particular.
Bad Bunny's music, although he has received prizes such as Grammy and occupies the first places in the musical lists, still receives huge criticisms. Sometimes he is described as little sophisticated and his lyrics are questioned. Why is it so difficult for some sectors to conceive this artistic expression as something that has value?
That is also an old story, which is very popular is usually considered little sophisticated. In the nineteenth century, there was talk of the Cuban danzón as a scandal. Perhaps in 50 years we are going to laugh at the people who make fun and say that Bad Bunny is too.
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But I must say that it is important to maintain a critical perspective. My work as a teacher is to understand everything complex of a cultural product: how in music is the genre, race, ethnicity and other topics.
Bad Bunny's album is a cultural product. And a course on the subject can be used as an excuse to analyze, among other things, the history of women in urban music.
Part of the interest in this course, is that I am offering the class at Yale University. Sometimes it is thought that Bad Bunny is one thing and Yale is another. My job is to reiterate that Bad Bunny has its place in Yale. All popular culture has its place in Yale. Through an artist like Bad Bunny we can understand the present and past of Puerto Rico, the US, and also how the artist became a worldwide phenomenon.
The course will be very focused on “I had to throw more photos.” How would you describe that production?
A cheerful adventure for the history of Puerto Rico and the US through music.
The combination of genres it presents generates the opportunity to have a conversation between several generations. I have witnessed that while I work in the course curriculum. I receive messages from people over 60 who want to participate, but also from high school students.
An intergenerational conversation is rare in popular culture.
The class will be offered at a difficult time for US universities, when their diversity policies are questioned by Donald Trump's current government and funds have even been cut for this reason. Recently there was an attempt at the administration so that Harvard does not enroll foreign students. How can the course open doors to continue discussing the issues of ethnicity, race and diversity in the educational institutions of the country?
What happened with Harvard is an anti -intellectual position by the government. This administration wants to keep people who see as different – the immigrants, the people of Puerto Rico – on the margins, as if they were not important.
What I do with this course is to put Puerto Rico in the center of academic discussion. That allows us to understand the US as an imperial power, something that our students do not usually think.
In the course, we will have conversations that are trying to be censored by the Donald Trump administration.
We will talk about the island with the intention of fighting those narratives that come from above and that try to take value to our work.
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