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BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:

Hello, hello. I’m Brittany Luse, and you’re listening to IT’S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, a show about what’s going on in culture and why it doesn’t happen by accident.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: What are some of the assumptions that people should be aware of coming into this album?

CARINA DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Mm. Mm.

LUSE: OK.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Vale, Alana. You go. You go.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DTMF”)

BAD BUNNY: (Singing in Spanish).

LUSE: If you somehow haven’t heard Bad Bunny’s latest album, “DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS,” has me, the charts, social media and Puerto Rico in a frenzy. For non-Spanish speakers, the album’s title translates to I should have taken more photos. And there’s a deep nostalgia that’s palpable beyond the album’s title. It’s a rich, sonic cultural text that blends traditional Puerto Rican genres like salsa. And the pulsating reggaeton Bad Bunny is known for.

ALANA CASANOVA-BURGESS: I think Bad Bunny is definitely saying we need to revive these older genres. All of this is also part of the Puerto Rican legacy, and we need to continue listening to what it has to say as we move forward together.

LUSE: But this album is way more than just good beats. In the sounds of the cuatro and the call-and-response of the plena, Bad Bunny is highlighting Puerto Rico’s complicated political history and present. He sings about gentrification on the island, the neglected infrastructure and the possibility of Puerto Rican independence.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: He says, like, I want them to put on a song of mine the day that Hostos returns. And Hostos was a Puerto Rican independence activist.

LUSE: Is that who the community College in New York is named after? Hostos?

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Yes, girl.

LUSE: I didn’t know that.

In a time where speaking out about politics feels like a minefield for artists, “DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS” has come out swinging. So I called up writer Carina del Valle Schorske…

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: A delight.

LUSE: …And the host of the podcast “La Brega,” Alana Casanova-Burgess…

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Thank you for having me.

LUSE: …To get into Bad Bunny’s ode to the island and to break down if this nostalgia is for something being lost or something being taken.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: What’s been happening in Puerto Rico recently that makes this album so potent right now?

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Well, I’m talking to you from San Juan. And I think what’s been happening in Puerto Rico has been happening for a really long time. There’s been a housing crisis. There’s been – I guess you could call it a brain drain. There’s been just a lot of young people leaving the island. That’s been happening since Maria, but it’s been happening before that because there’s been an austerity crisis here. And in fact, there’s even a generation called generacion de la crisis, hijes de la crisis – right? – like, children of the crisis. On the album, there’s a track called “BOKeTE,” which means pothole.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BOKETE”)

BAD BUNNY: (Singing in Spanish).

CASANOVA-BURGESS: And that is because, you know, you drive around, and there are so many potholes. The electricity goes out all the time, right? There was – I think people probably saw in the news, New Year’s Eve, there was an island-wide blackout that lasted for some communities several days. There’s just this sense of abandonment by the government that kind of wants to invite people from the U.S. and from abroad to enjoy tax incentives here so that they can move here, not really contribute financially to the island and that that displaces people who are from here. So that “DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS,” there are several references on the album to leaving – right? – to, like, being gone. And there’s, like, a romantic sense to it. But it also is really about what is happening to PR today.

LUSE: To that point, Bad Bunny has called this album his most Puerto Rican album. I wonder, what are some songs or references made in this album that really stood out to you as quintessentially Puerto Rican?

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: You have to talk about these rhythms, right? Many people would not have guessed that a salsa song would be the No. 1 song in the world. But that’s what “BAILE INoLVIDABLE” is. It’s a salsa song.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BAILE INOLVIDABLE”)

BAD BUNNY: (Singing in Spanish).

CASANOVA-BURGESS: And I think he’s clearly trying to place himself alongside dance floor classics like “CAfe CON RON” or “La Vida Es Un Carnaval” or something like that, but also, you know, older rhythms like plena, which is a folk music that’s often called the singing newspaper, great artists, like Rafael Cortijo, who would narrate contemporary issues through this folk music. He has a few kind of references to plena on this album, but probably one of the most straightforward is “CAFe CON RON,” which is completely imbued with the classic call-and response-between the sonero and that really tight coro, the backup singers he has there.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “CAFE CON RON”)

BAD BUNNY: (Singing in Spanish).

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: It’s on the surface sort of simple. It’s like, come up to our little mount town and party. We’ll have coffee in the morning and rum in the evening. But I actually see it as part of this kind of broader land-back politics that Alana was alluding to because it’s talking about how getting up to the mountains isn’t easy, right? The politics of presence require effort. And I feel like that’s what Bad Bunny is talking about. You know, if the beaches are being taken over by tourists, as he says in a bolero later on the album, in the green interior, you can still catch a breath, you know, (speaking Spanish).

LUSE: Right. For listeners who don’t know, Puerto Rico’s beaches are, by law, supposed to be open to the public. But luxury hotels and investors, possibly lured in by tax incentives, have been coming in and building on the coast, which not only affects the environment, but also displaces locals and stops them from accessing a beach that’s always previously been available to them.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: You know, it’s interesting to think also about when the album came out, which is the eve – vispera – of Reyes, Three Kings Day. So Puerto Rico has just, like, the longest and most intense Christmas period…

LUSE: (Laughter).

CASANOVA-BURGESS: …In the world.

LUSE: it’s nonstop. It’s the biggest deal ever.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Absolutely. And so I don’t think the release date of this album is accidental. There’s also this instrument called the cuatro, which is kind of a guitar, but not, and that’s played in the mountains a lot, and you hear that in this album. So I hear all of that that’s very Puerto Rican. And so, you know, even as he’s, like, celebrating Puerto Ricanness (ph), and I think at this point, probably, this is a good time to talk about jibaros. So a jibaro is a figure, like a Puerto Rican, like, mountain person peasant, except peasant has this, I think, sort of negative connotation.

LUSE: Right.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: But a jibaro is, like, someone who wears, like, a straw hat, who holds a machete, who works in the plantations often. And that imagery, that symbolism has been used historically in Puerto Rico to sort of describe, like, a quintessential Puerto Ricanness. This is what Puerto Rican culture is, you know, almost like our cowboy.

LUSE: I was just going to say, is it kind of like the cowboy is thought of here?

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Yeah.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: That’s a great parallel. I wouldn’t have thought of that.

LUSE: Like, a real kind of person, but also like a mythical figure…

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Yes.

LUSE: …In a way.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Exactly, who has particular values, very traditional, very of the earth, you know? And there are some people who, I think, rightly, also cringe at that imagery because it is so old-school, because it doesn’t leave a lot of room for things like reggaeton, for Blackness. In the same way that cowboy is limited, jibaro is limited. It’s also been a symbol that’s been used politically in Puerto Rico.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Yes.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Also visually, you know, he put out this short film that takes place in a platanal, which is a plantain plantation. You know, so when Carina was mentioning earlier this, like, fleeing the plantation or return to the plantation, that’s part of the jibaro aesthetic.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Yes.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: And so I don’t think Bad Bunny is giving us answers, and I don’t even know if these are the questions that he’s intending to pose. He’s a very intentional artist. But the questions that I come out of the album with are like, well, what do we imagine Puerto Rican culture to be? Is it the jibaro? What’s the jibaro in 2025, you know? You know, in the same way that, like, what does a cowboy do for us?

LUSE: People were asking that question a lot the past couple of years, just off of Beyonce’s…

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Exactly.

LUSE: …Like, past two albums.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Yeah.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: A distinction I would kind of make with “Cowboy Carter,” though they’re both very scholarly archival projects and very innovative sonically, at the same time, I think a point of difference is the way kind of those politics are lived out explicitly…

LUSE: I mean…

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: …In the public sphere because…

LUSE: Absolutely. Absolutely (laughter).

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: …You know. Everybody wants to ask Bad Bunny about trash island or about the Latino vote, but that’s not really relevant in Puerto Rico, where people can’t vote for president. What is relevant was the major election for governor that happened also in November of last year. Juan Dalmau was a candidate supported, actually, by an alliance between the old Independence Party and a younger kind of decolonial coalition.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: He came in second, which is unheard of.

LUSE: Sounds very notable.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: And Bad Bunny also endorsed him – like, came out very clearly, and also encouraged young people to get their election card to register to vote.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Yeah. He bought billboards across the country, you know?

LUSE: Oh.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: And he showed up to a rally with artists like Residente, who’s been a musical mentor, and artists from the ’70s, like Roy Brown, who was kind of part of this left, populist folk music movement back then. And there’s this photograph of Bad Bunny embracing Roy Brown. And I think where the older generation had often been very critical of reggaeton and stuff like that, he’s kind of making a play for their support in this moment where it feels like Puerto Rico needs unity.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: Coming up…

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Here, the political parties are organized around status.

LUSE: As in the literal status of the island, like whether the island should continue to be a territory of the U.S. or should become a U.S. state or should become an independent nation. Bad Bunny has thoughts about all of it when we get back.

You mentioned, Alana, that he’s a very intentional artist, and it sounds like both in some of the major ways that he’s expressed his politics, and also – I mean, in real life, and then also through his art, especially on this album, there is a lot of intentionality with how he’s approaching a lot of these references and thinking through things. But I want to kind of zoom out a little bit. A lot of our listeners are based in the mainland United States and may not, for various reasons, understand the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. What are some of the assumptions that people should be aware of coming into this album?

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

LUSE: OK. Alana (laughter).

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Vale, Alana. You go. You go.

LUSE: I was going to say, please, share with the class.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: All right. So we were just talking about him endorsing an independence candidate. And what’s important about that is that here, the political parties are organized around status.

LUSE: As in the literal status of the island, like whether the island should continue to be a territory of the U.S. or should become a U.S. state or should become an independent nation.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: And the Independence Party in Puerto Rico has been so attacked and suppressed for so long, not only by the United States, but also by other political parties here. The other two being one that’s pro-statehood and one that’s pro-status quo – colonial status. And so I think, you know, what you hear in the States is, oh, why couldn’t Puerto Rico be a state?

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Assuming that that’s the liberal position.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Assuming that that’s the liberal position, However, the statehood party here is very conservative. And, you know, it’s complicated. There are shades of that, but that’s what’s happening here. And it did not escape anybody’s notice that Bad Bunny not only was endorsing an independence candidate in this election, but also, he showed up to vote in a light blue shirt. People know what the Puerto Rican flag looks like, probably, because Puerto Ricans, we can never stop waving it.

(LAUGHTER)

CASANOVA-BURGESS: But there are actually several, right? And some Americans don’t know this. So the one that you see most often in the States, probably, is, like, one that has the blue of the U.S. flag, like that kind of navy darker blue.

LUSE: Yeah. Like in the triangle with the white star…

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Yeah

LUSE: …In the middle.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Yeah. That one is sort of, like, pro-statehood or pro-commonwealth status.

LUSE: Interesting.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: There’s another flag, which is – the blue is light blue in the triangle, and that one is pro-independence. And so when you see, like, a light blue flag, you know that that is someone who wants independence. And it comes from a different flag, which is la bandera de Lares, which also has that light blue.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: The original Puerto Rican flag.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: The original Puerto Rican flag. And…

LUSE: Wow. I didn’t know that.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: …Bad Bunny makes reference to la bandera de azul clarito in “LA MuDANZA.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LA MUDANZA”)

BAD BUNNY: (Rapping in Spanish).

CASANOVA-BURGESS: He says, like, the day that I die, I don’t want them to forget my face. And I want them to put on a song of mine the day that Hostos returns – and on the coffin, a flag – a light blue flag. So like, very openly talking about independence, but also making a reference that’s very – like a historical Easter egg. You know, I think he’s inviting people who don’t know who Hostos is to Google. And Hostos was a Puerto Rican independence activist.

LUSE: Is that who the community college in New York is named after – Hostos?

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Yes, girl.

LUSE: I didn’t know that. OK, go ahead.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: And Hostos died in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, and he’s buried there. And he said that he did not want to be buried in Puerto Rico until it was a free country. So what Benito is doing in that line is sort of imagining, like, a day that Hostos could be buried here.

LUSE: Also, when compared to how colonialism played out in the archipelago of Hawaii.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Which he also mentions in the album.

LUSE: Right, which he has an entire song about on the album.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LO QUE LE PASO A HAWAII”)

BAD BUNNY: (Singing in Spanish).

LUSE: In thinking about what could potentially happen if the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States did escalate to statehood, I would feel very strangely about someone like Logan…

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Logan Paul…

LUSE: …Paul.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: …Who boxes under the Puerto Rican flag – like, the most offensive thing (laughter).

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Not to quote, you know, Malcolm X’s letter to the grassroots, but land is the basis for all independence, you know? When somebody like Larry Ellison can buy an entire island of the Hawaiian archipelago, that’s the very fundamentals of a place, right? So if you don’t have, you know, Native ownership of the land, you’ve lost the battle.

LUSE: I’m sorry. I’m absorbing everything (laughter) that you all have said. So much of what you both are saying and also how sometimes I feel connected to parts of this album or almost like it’ll, like, strike a chord within me – not being from Puerto Rico (laughter), not being Puerto Rican and not being part of the Puerto Rican diaspora – is that, like, when my husband and I started dating and we were going home to visit each other’s families – he’s from Puerto Rico, and I’m from the Detroit area – and both of us kind of seeing when we went to visit each other, what long-term disinvestment in people looks like…

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Yes.

LUSE: …And what long-term disinvestment in a place that perhaps people think doesn’t have a lot of value looks like. And over time, things have changed drastically both in Detroit and also in Puerto Rico. Just seeing things change rapidly around you, I feel sometimes like I am losing contact with a version of the world that I knew or the Detroit area that I grew up in. And that is something that I think, unfortunately, how “El Apagon” from “Un Verano Sin Ti” or this album in general is resonating with people all across Latin America. But I also wouldn’t be surprised, as we continue to see this roll out, if this is something that also resonates across to other people of color across the United States who are also being displaced in major cities.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: A hundred percent.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: You know, one of the symbols of the album is the sapo concho.

LUSE: Right, a frog that is indigenous to Puerto Rico and that is kind of like the mascot for this album.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: He’s a very particular frog in that he is in danger of extinction because the places that he lives in Puerto Rico are being developed. I loved that symbol. “DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS,” right? Like, I wish I had taken more pictures – of my neighborhood, of my grandma, of my aunt, of my – you know? It’s a complicated nostalgia because sometimes it’s this gauziness – right? – and I feel this.

I think in the diaspora, we can often imagine Puerto Rico as, like, better than it is, you know, like, a lot of that imagery, the jibaro imagery – right? – of the platanal, of the plantains, and of the, you know, this, like, romantic countryside. You know, when you’re away, you forget about the blackouts. You forget about the potholes. It’s such a relatable album. And I think the more specific that he gets, the more relatable the album is. Do you miss a thing you can’t have back, ever (laughter)?

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: I mean, I do – I feel like I wanted to echo also something, Brittany, you were saying, like, about Detroit, right? Detroit and Puerto Rico have in common people around the world enjoying their music, whether it’s Motown or techno or salsa or reggaeton, without having any curiosity about the conditions that produced that music. And I feel like Bad Bunny is trying to – beginning to try to sort of mend that connection between the sounds that we all love and enjoy and the kind of reality of the people and place that produced that sound.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: You said it all with that. Carina, Alana, I have just treasured this conversation so much. Thank you both so much.

CASANOVA-BURGESS: Thank you.

DEL VALLE SCHORSKE: Just an honor and a delight.

LUSE: That was writer and literary translator Carina Del Valle Schorske and the host of the podcast “La Brega,” Alana Casanova-Burgess. And for those who want to hear the album live, Bad Bunny just announced a 21-date residency in Puerto Rico, titled “No Me Quiero Ir De Aqui,” or “I Don’t Want To Leave Here.” The first nine shows of the residency will be exclusive to residents of the island.

This episode of IT’S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by…

BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.

ALEXIS WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Alexis Williams.

LIAM MCBAIN, BYLINE: Liam McBain.

COREY ANTONIO ROSE, BYLINE: Corey Antonio Rose.

LUSE: This episode was edited by…

JASMINE ROMERO, BYLINE: Jasmine Romero.

LUSE: Our executive producer is…

VERALYN WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Veralyn Williams.

LUSE: Our VP of programming is…

YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.

LUSE: All right. That’s all for this episode of IT’S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I’m Brittany Luse. Talk soon.

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