Over one month ago, Bad Bunny became the first artist to win Album of the Year at the Grammys for a primarily Spanish-language album, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.” He made history again when he broke the record for the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show.
Today, Vanessa Díaz and Petra Rivera-Rideau sat down at Wallis Annenberg Hall on Wednesday to discuss how the artist’s music has taken a lead role in Puerto Rican resistance.
Diaz, an associate professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o studies at Loyola Marymount University, and Rivera-Rideau, an associate professor and chair of American studies at Wellesley College, talked with Josh Kun, inaugural vice provost for the arts at USC, about their new book, “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance.”
“One of the things Bad Bunny is really good at is making political commentary that’s very accessible,” Rivera-Rideau said. “He has a lot of songs that are upbeat party songs, but they also contain a lot of references, a lot of statements about things that are particular to his homeland of Puerto Rico.”
Diaz explained that part of the goal of their book was to show readers that Bad Bunny’s music can not be understood without Puerto Rico and its history. She argued that educating about his homeland is one of Bad Bunny’s goals, as his music encourages people to be curious and learn more.
The authors emphasized party as a form of protest, with many of Bad Bunny’s songs featuring upbeat melodies while, in Diaz’s words, also being “profoundly political” because of Puerto Rico’s history of colonization, slavery and protest.
“If you look at Puerto Rican music throughout its entire documented history, the musical genres that have emerged from Puerto Rico have been genres of resistance,” Diaz said. “These were simultaneously spaces of joining in community, experiencing joy together, politically organizing insurrections and also creating culture together.”
Diaz said that although she was a listener of Bad Bunny and had even taught one of his songs in a class previously, she really started paying attention to the artist in 2019. At the time, Puerto Rico was undergoing mass protests against former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, and Bad Bunny was not only part of the protest but also leading it with the release of “Afilando los Cuchillos,” which translates to “Sharpening the Knives.”
“I also felt like, wow, this is turning into something,” Diaz said. “He’s turning into something much, much bigger.”
The authors explained that, typically, as celebrities gain more popularity, they pull back from making political critiques. Bad Bunny did the exact opposite, which, they argued, has made him even more famous.
Rivera-Rideau said that Bad Bunny’s use of his platform to speak out won’t cause radical change, but he has an important role in educating people and sparking conversations.
Rivera pointed to the Latin Grammys last Fall, when the artist said, “There are many ways of defending where you’re from. We chose music.”