I started listening to Bad Bunny in 2017, when I was living in “Nueva Yol.” Back then, the song “Tu No Vive Así” made me feel nostalgic. Despite sounding more like trap than the dembow of my upbringing, listening to Arcángel and watching the music video with children in the projects riding ATVs reminded me of Puerto Rico, a stark contrast from the upscale neighborhood in Lower Manhattan where I worked eight years ago.
That was before the 2017 hurricanes, before I returned to Puerto Rico, and before Bad Bunny released his first album and became the No. 1 artist in the world.
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A lot has changed, while other things have not: We still have the fiscal control board, the pro-statehood New Progressive Party dominates politics in Puerto Rico, and Donald Trump is once again the president of the United States. (Deep breath followed by an elongated sigh.)
This past month in Puerto Rico, we have watched arbitrary migrant raids, federal funding cuts for needed nonprofit organizations, and attempts to privatize beach access and dismantle the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. Amid it all, Bad Bunny's DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS has become one of my sources of joy and happiness. These moments are also necessary to gather our strength and stand up to policies that violate our communities and our rights.
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"DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is not only an invitation to Puerto Rican joy and resistance. This album reflects a part of Puerto Rico that deserves more attention:the Puerto Rico that treasures its culture, embraces its agency, and defends its land. In particular, it reflects a movement in Puerto Rico to reclaim our history, which includes the history of our music."
Camille Padilla Dalmau
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However, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is not only an invitation to Puerto Rican joy and resistance. This album reflects a part of Puerto Rico that deserves more attention: the Puerto Rico that treasures its culture, embraces its agency, and defends its land. In particular, it reflects a movement in Puerto Rico to reclaim our history, which includes the history of our music.
When I returned to Puerto Rico in 2018, I went to a gathering at Terraza de Bonanza in Santurce. “The drums summoned me,” I told a friend. My heart felt as if the beat of those barriles and panderos were confirming that coming home was the right choice. This type of drum circle, open to anyone, was not so common a few decades ago. The educator and creator of Bomba Evolución, Víctor Emanuelli Náter, explains in the Nuestros Tambores series that in the 1970s and '80s a lot of rumba — a genre of Cuban origin — was played in the streets. “There weren't so many bomba and plena drumming and dances, but people were rumbeando.” The sole exception was the town of Loíza.
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In a phone call, Emmanuelli told me that, at that time, the plena and bomba groups performed in stages sponsored by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and the Department of Tourism. Emmanuelli added that it was Don Rafael Cepeda and Ricardo Alegría who began the narrative that bomba and plena were the legacy of all Puerto Ricans. Although both genres originated in Afro-descendant communities, bomba began centuries before plena. In 1993, the researcher and his brothers began to organize community gatherings with the intention of “returning the bomba to the reality of the people,” as it was done in the past.
The percussionist has expressed his desire that, before teaching congas or timbas, musicians in Puerto Rico learn to play the pandero and the barril, national instruments that do not receive the same recognition as the cuatro, Puerto Rico’s national guitar. “On the island, there has never been enough encouragement to teach and educate about our music; about our culture,” he shared in the Nuestros Tambores interview.
Since the 1990s, the push to share traditional Puerto Rican music in community spaces has increased. Figures such as Julie Laporte and the Colectivo Umoja have been rescuing oral history in southern Puerto Rico. Jesús Cépeda and Dimas Sánchez published the book "Ritmos Afro Puertorriqueños." Moreover, people have cultivated spaces of learning such as the Taller Comunitario de la Perla, Taller Libertá in Mayagüez, and the Casa de la Plena Tito Matos, which continues the legacy of the educator and plenero.
Similarly, groups such as Los Pleneros de la Cresta emerged in the last decade with the desire to preserve our tradition and continue the legacy of protest music, an artistic form of expressing dissatisfaction with the established order. The group recently signed an agreement with the municipality of Ciales to teach plena in a new cultural center. Like these, there are many other projects throughout the archipelago and among the Puerto Rican communities in the diaspora.
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"Bad Bunny will not solve colonialism in Puerto Rico. And we should not put so much pressure on him — or any artist, leader, or individual — to do so. Nevertheless, the lyrics of his songs have permeated the collective consciousness of many Boricuas and people from other cultures. That's what protest music does."
Camille Padilla Dalmau
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It is important to understand this context in order not to idolize Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. We take away people's humanity when we put them on a pedestal. He is part of a legacy of musicians who are popularizing, preserving, and evolving our culture. The resurgence of our folk music has been the result of the contributions and efforts of many people, beyond those mentioned here. It takes time, love for the homeland, and dedication. Bad Bunny will not solve colonialism in Puerto Rico. And we should not put so much pressure on him — or any artist, leader, or individual — to do so. Nevertheless, the lyrics of his songs have permeated the collective consciousness of many Boricuas and people from other cultures. That's what protest music does.
“If I die tomorrow, I hope they never forget my face and play one of my songs on the day they bring Hostos back,” he states on the salsa track “LA MuDANZA,” referring to the fact that 19th century pro-independence Puerto Rican educator Eugenio María de Hostos asked for his remains to be transferred to Puerto Rico when it achieved its independence.
I am glad that these lyrics, about the desire to preserve our culture and the desires for liberation, resonate throughout the world. But songs alone will not create the country we long for. Do we want liberation? That responsibility rests with each and every one of us.
Politics appears to be stagnant. That is not by accident; it is by design. In spite of the obstacles, the culture of solidarity and love for Puerto Rico continues to grow. These feelings inspire communities to create structures that breathe life into our spaces. In Río Piedras, the community board stopped a project that would accelerate gentrification. In Vieques, they rescued the centennial ceiba tree park and seek to make it a natural reserve. In the Mariana community of Humacao, they collectively decided to create a water supply and storage system. In Caguas, they managed to obtain ownership of a rescued space to offer food and wellness services to the community.
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"Music allows us to connect with love and with our essence; it is not like the economic and political systems that have been imposed on us. It transcends the physical and even the personal."
Camille Padilla Dalmau
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“I hope my people never leave,” recites Bad Bunny on the plena "DtMF." If that sentiment has resonated throughout the world, it is because colonialism and the effect of U.S. imperialism is a global phenomenon. One example is how the Palestinian community used the song as a collective cry to reminisce about what their land was like.
I appreciate Benito because I have witnessed his growth throughout the years, and in his art you can feel the love for Puerto Rican culture. And that's the direction I want us to move toward: to value our tradition more, to create art that unites generations, to evolve, to unlearn and to learn. Music allows us to connect with love and with our essence; it is not like the economic and political systems that have been imposed on us. It transcends the physical and even the personal.
Bad Bunny alone can't solve colonialism in Puerto Rico, but you can. Decolonization can be built step by step with small actions that improve our collective well-being and guarantee our right to remain in this “perfect archipelago,” as demonstrated by the communities covered in 9 Millones and as Benito — and others — encourage us when they sing to the beloved homeland.
This article was originally published in Spanish by 9 Millones, an independent news network in Puerto Rico. Read the Spanish version here.
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