Bad Bunny Bowl: Black + Boricua Love
Today is the Bad Bunny concert–AKA SuperBowl Sunday. I don’t know which football teams are playing, but I know who is going to win—Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. A year ago we watched Kendrick Lamar and SZA takeover that New Orleans arena with an unforgettable performance. Now I’m ready for Puerto Rico to take the stage.
Like a lot of non-Latino Black fans, I met Bad Bunny through Cardi B. To this day, the only part I think I understood on his verse with my limited Spanish was “Latino Gang Gang Gang”. I’m glad our beloved Benito’s career took off after that song instead of J. Balvin with his anti-Black machista vibe. Beyond the bomba and plena influences that echo in his music, he honors Afro-Latina music across generations. One of Bad Bunny’s collaborators is Reggaeton legend Julio “Julito” Gastón Ramos. Gastón Ramos makes a point to put Afro-Puerto Rican culture at the forefront as he drums for Bad Bunny all over the world.
Bad Bunny has a lot of Black people feeling like TS Madison today.
As I started writing this article I came across an article on the Root by Phenix S Halley where they pointed out some historical context for why Black Americans are collectively hype for Bad Bunny—even those of us who are not fluent Spanish speakers. Beyond what Halley mentioned, The Taino were pillaged and kidnapped and tortured by Columbus just like enslaved Black people. Bad Bunny has been vocal about his love for and protection of his people. Let’s be clear, Bad Bunny makes great music—that’s enough reason to be excited about #BenitoBowl. Although he seems like a genuinely cool person, there is also something deeper that is resonating with us beyond his obvious talent.
“I feel Puerto Rican”
SO WHY DO BLACK PEOPLE ROCK WITH BAD BUNNY??
It’s the drums, the feeling, the culture. Maybe it’s the BAILE INoLVIDABLE. And it helps that Bad Bunny is unapologetically Boricua. It’s the way he turns pain into art (if you don’t speak Spanish, but have been jamming to DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, grab a tissue and look up the lyrics real quick).
And I know that plenty of Black people just like Bad Bunny because he’s likable. Some Black people just like his music—which makes sense because his music is really good. And there are also some Black who either don’t know him, don’t like him, or don’t care about him at all. I don’t want that smoke. But I do want to highlight even more reasons to love Bad Bunny.
BORICUA Y SIN DISCULPAS
Two Bad Bunny songs of resistance for your consideration
“TURiSTA” is a song where he critiques a sort of fetishism that white people indulge in when they go to Puerto Ricans and other Islands. On the surface, the lyrics And the video adds another layer as he cleans up his island after tourists trash the place. That culturally lustful detachment from tourists mirrors the habits of affluent melanin-deficient folks who take field trips to the hood. Or the pop stars who cosplay in Blackface until they get their money up, then denounce Black culture.
“LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii” is melodic and earthy in its cadence, but this song warns of white supremacy and subjugation, referencing Hawaii. For me, it emits an upbeat version of Tupac’s “Changes”. Bad Bunny navigates similar displacement and gentrification tactics that Black folks experienced during urban renewal and redlining.
Thеy want to take my river and my beach too/ They want my neighborhood and grandma to leave/ No, don’t let go of the flag nor forget the lelolai/ ‘Cause I don’t want them to do to you what happened to Hawaii
Puerto Rico has been THROUGH IT.
The United States colonized Puerto Rico in 1898, after the Spanish American War. Since then the U.S. government has consistently treated Puerto Rico with neglect and disrespect. The 1930s in Puerto Rico reminds me of the Harlem Renaissance in New York. Cultural preservation mixed with hard times.
Similar to what history has shown us in Haiti, Hawaii, and so many other places, the US likes to throw rocks and hide its hand.
By the time Bad Bunny was born in 1994, Juan Mari Brás (a Puerto Rico attorney) was working to call out America’s hypocrisy through the courts. In July of 1994, he renounced his U.S Citizenship so he could get rid of “the slave brand of a foreign and imposed citizenship.” Since then, the colonized status of the island continues to shift.
But somehow Puerto Rico still doesn’t get the credit or recognition or resources that it deserves.
Puerto Rico’s congressional delegate doesn’t get to vote. Federal aid is typically slow, insufficient, or at times even nonexistent. Millionaires and billionaires often use the island as a tax haven while destroying the ecosystem. Some legal scholars argue that by refusing to grant social security benefits to tax paying Puerto Rican citizens, congress violated the Fifth Amendment. All the SCOTUS justices except Sotomayor voted to uphold this discriminatory practice. The decision reminded me of the three fifths compromise. [The Three-Fifths Compromise deemed that Black people only counted as 3/5 of a person. It was a 1790 Constitutional Clause to suppress Black voting power while maintaining white supremacist control in the U.S.]
Here we are, almost 200 years later and Puerto Rico is still not really a state. It’s more akin to occupied land. That reflects a sort of fictive kinship we share as Black Americans. It gets to the heart of what this article is about. I’m not saying Benito is Malcolm X. I just recognize the love and respect he has from Black folks. That sentiment is why we are all rooting for Bad Bunny.
But yall don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance.
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Thanks for this!
Thanks for this perspective!
So well written and explained! A piece that hat everyone should read!