The album has spent three consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and topped the Apple Music charts. In a recent Instagram post, Benito himself said it's probably the project he's most proud of in his entire career — which has already seen the 30-year-old earn three Grammys, four Latin Grammys, six certified platinum records, and the title of Spotify's most-streamed artist worldwide multiple years in a row.
But to understand the gravity of one of the most globally recognized artists in history and where he comes from, the "Bad Bunny Syllabus" is here to educate even the newest reggaeton fans.
Dr. Vanessa Diaz and Dr. Petra Rivera-Rideau, the architects behind the research, argue that they aim to bring more awareness to subjects heavily discussed within Bad Bunny's discography.
As written on the "About" page, "The Bad Bunny Syllabus explores the cultural significance of Bad Bunny as a way to draw folks into the complex, dynamic historical and contemporary realities of Puerto Rico. Bad Bunny's rise as a global star, breaking innumerable records for streaming, tour ticket sales, and more, has coincided with his increased attention to Puerto Rican politics. His dedication to centering Puerto Rico in his lyrics and music videos, his crossover success while singing only in Spanish, and his engagement with social issues in Puerto Rico like gentrification and LGBTQ rights make him a unique artistic focus for analyzing these matters."
Researching El Conejo
The online page first began as university courses by the researchers, with Dr. Diaz teaching a course named "Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico" at Loyola Marymount University and Dr. Rivera-Rideau teaching a class titled "Bad Bunny: Race, Gender, and Empire in Reggaeton" at Wellesley College. The website also features several student aides helping with research.For those who come across the syllabus, several events and topics are outlined within the website that are tied to specific references in the Puerto Rican artist's music. Whether it's Hurricane María or the summer protests of 2019, each of these events shares a synopsis of their historical context while explaining how they relate to a Bad Bunny performance.
For instance, if you were to look under Hurricane María, there would be a brief description of the page, reading, "In September of 2017, Hurricanes Irma and María devastated Puerto Rico. Thousands died, many remained without power for a year, and the hurricanes propelled one of the largest migrations to the U.S. in Puerto Rican history. Bad Bunny used his first performance on national U.S. television, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, to shed light on the catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane María and the Trump administration's woefully inadequate response."
To give onlookers even more in-depth context and analysis, the brief synopses are followed by several links to peer-reviewed research, papers, podcasts, mini-documentaries, and news reports that further discuss the violence and exploitation of Puerto Rico in these instances. Sometimes, they go a step further and discuss how the U.S. territory's history is similar to that of other Latin American countries that have faced comparable moments in time.
Other categories of note that are filled with research and breakthrough connections include "LGBTQ Activism," drawing notes from Bad Bunny's gender fluid expressions in style and fashion; "Roots of Reggaetón" and "Race and Reggaetón," exploring how the genre was born primarily from Afro-Latinos; and "Puerto Rico's Debt and Infrastructure Crises," which points to songs like "Apagón" and economic legislation such as the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, more commonly known as PROMESA. (An additional micro-syllabus also focuses on this area, outlining gentrification on the Caribbean island and reactions in response to tourism and beach privatization.)
A Growing History
It seems the researchers have their work cut out for them with Debí Tirar Más Fotos, which is rich in references to Puerto Rico's growth, impact, and pain over the years. Along with the release of Debí Tirar Más Fotos, Bad Bunny also produced a short film that garnered over one million views on YouTube in less than 48 hours, featuring the famed 90-year-old Puerto Rican actor Jacobo Morales, showing the devastation of corporate greed and gentrification through the eyes of the older generation on the island. Plus, the album features an acute amount of salsa tracks from the artist that show his commitment to reviving any and all sounds associated with his homeland, especially those of the past that so many Latinos know and love.With all of this in mind, perhaps the website's research and El Conejo Malo's latest album are resources arriving at a necessary time when discourse surrounding Latinos has grown more politically volatile. While Puerto Ricans are protected from the ICE raids that have stoked fear among Latinos all over the U.S., many know they are likely to be subjected to racial profiling and harmful policies inflicted by the mainland that have left them in devastation like their sister countries. Both this research and the muse it's rooted are forms of advocacy in and of themselves in times like these, which document the long history Puerto Ricans have in order to find their identity in a world that continuously tries to ignore them.
And now, as reggaetón continues to dominate the global music scene, they are also inviting users to become more than passive listeners; instead, they encourage active participation in the ongoing struggle for equity, representation, and justice for Puerto Rico and Latinos as a whole.
