Bad Bunny’s new album is a love letter to the people of Puerto Rico

With his Jan. 5 album release, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, Bad Bunny — real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — displays his love for his heritage and sends a clear message that Puerto Ricans are a unique and resilient people.

After an island-wide power outage that lasted several days starting on New Year’s Eve, the project could not have landed at a timelier moment. Puerto Ricans have been subject to consecutive crises from a financial recession and bankruptcy, government corruption, earthquakes, hurricanes, and gentrification that present seemingly insurmountable challenges. And yet, Puerto Rican people have weathered these crises in a near-miraculous show of resilience and spirit of resistance.

Locally, the songs from the album can be heard playing at neighborhood businesses like Amy’s Pastelillos or blaring out of the windows of passing cars. I cannot count the number of interactions I have had in Philly where Puerto Rican community members come up to me (with a smile of pride) to ask which Bad Bunny song is my favorite or speak to me of the impact that songs like “DTMF” or “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii” have already had on them.

Bad Bunny’s lyrics speak to Latinos of all generations and all walks of life, conjuring their own experiences of migration and longing for home. But the album’s strength — and the reason why all of us are talking so much about it — is that it is unapologetically Puerto Rican.

In this sixth studio-produced album, the message cannot be more succinct: “Puerto Rico se respeta.” Puerto Rico demands respect.

The album delves into a diverse cross-section of Puerto Rican musical traditions while telling poignant stories of migration, gentrification, adversity, and culture.

The track list includes some familiar songs released in late 2024, along with new compositions. Bad Bunny builds an intentional narrative around gentrification on the islands of Puerto Rico.

This is reinforced by the album’s preview short, which features Puerto Rican actor and poet Jacobo Morales and a fictional animated character named Poncho — an endangered species of Puerto Rican toad. The 12-minute film depicts a Puerto Rico where Boricuas themselves feel unwelcome, and are unable to afford basic necessities such as food, due to the encroachment of mainland American settlers.

While Bad Bunny’s depiction may seem hyperbolic, many residents of the archipelago are feeling the immense pressure of rising property values, privatization, and lack of public investment.

In one of the album’s most poetic tracks, “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii,” Bad Bunny characterizes Puerto Rico and Hawaii as cultures trapped in colonialism. In the song, he pleads with Puerto Rico to not allow annexation and privatization of its natural resources, rivers, and beaches.

He also highlights Puerto Rico’s incredibly corrupt government as a major factor in the mass exodus of the island’s residents to the mainland U.S. due to its inability to deliver health, education, electrical power, and other public services needed to maintain society.

The album also taps into some Boricua musical disciplines Bad Bunny hasn’t previously delved into — such as bomba, plena, and salsa — while resuscitating the familiar reggaeton beats millennials who grew up in the late 1990s and early 2000s will not only recognize but embrace.

Overall, the album is truly a love letter not just to Puerto Rican music, but to the people of Puerto Rico and its widespread diaspora.

It has a message that is artfully synthesized and clear in its goals. Mainly, that Puerto Rico is unique, its culture is phenomenal, and its people will not be replaced.

Rafael Álvarez Febo is the vice president for advocacy and community development at Esperanza.