My Album of the Moment: Bad Bunny's DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS

It’s safe to say I might be Benito’s new biggest fan.

picture this.

You know who Bad Bunny is, but you’ve never really listened to his music in depth. Then one day he releases a new album. You see the cover and it looks exactly like your mother’s back yard. It pulls at your heart in a way you can’t fully understand. So now you have to see what it’s all about, right?

Within the first two seconds of track one (NUEVAYoL) you’re transported back to the rare moments of your childhood that were inundated by a side of your family and culture you haven’t experienced in decades.

You can see your parents dancing at family parties.

You can taste food you rarely eat.

You’re transported back to sensory experience after sensory experience that you almost forgot having had.

THAT is what listening to Bad Bunny’s newest album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (Spanish for “I Should Have Taken More Photos”), is like. It’s safe to say I might be Benito’s new biggest fan.

about the album

Bad Bunny is no stranger to incorporating elements of his Puerto Rican culture into his albums. The sound he’s taken with him to certified global superstardom leaves no room for question of where he’s from. But DtMF is less of an incorporation of his culture and one that feels more like he literally pulled it from Puerto Rican soil.

Track after track features samples, interpolations and inspiration from classic and popular Puerto Rican artists and genres, including the notorious El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico: a salsa orchestra that originated in Puerto Rico in the 1960s and served as an incubator for the careers of numerous salsa musicians.

DtMF is a tribute and love story dedicated to and embedded in the Puerto Rican experience spanning generations. It’s a time machine and a diary capturing the euphoria of being “of the island”, the beaches, the party scenes, the heartbreak and even the grief carried by those who are losing pieces of home through the impacts of United States colonialism.

what I enjoyed

Before getting to the tracks, I have to show appreciation for the way that Bad Bunny has chosen to share this album with us. There is obvious and careful intent behind the curation of this release. From the teasers, to the visuals, down to his own input on social media, he’s allowed this to be a fully immersive experience for Puerto Ricans throughout the diaspora AND for non-Puerto Ricans. If you think that because you’re not a Spanish speaker this album may not be for you, think again.

In a press release, he shared that both the album title and theme reflect his regret over living in the moment so much so to the point that he wishes he’d taken more photos. As he gets older there are things he can’t remember, and as the album describes, things he may never get to experience again.

When considering that against the background of this album, which evokes dozens of Latin and Caribbean genres and sounds from salsa, to reggaeton, to jíraba, you’re able to come into this as a listener with empathy and understanding. Knowing that capturing memories, people, and places long gone and is something you also wish you had done in your own life.

(My mother’s backyard, St. Croix, USVI October 2020)

my top tracks + lyrics (translated)

LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii brought me to tears on the first listen and still has that effect every time. It’s arguably the most hard hitting, political song on the album; a lament describing the island of Puerto Rico and the natives who have been displaced over time despite their desire to stay. He observes the ways that outsiders are moving in, restricting access to resources and beloved spaces, forcing loved ones from their ancestral lands, and urges Puerto Ricans not to let go of their identity or home.

I think anyone living the experience of “the colonized” will feel a connection to these lyrics. We know, intimately, the feeling of seeing pieces of you and the places you loved being stripped away for the sake of others’ “opportunities.”

Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa
Quieren el barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya
No, no suelte' la bandera ni olvide' el lelolai
Que no quiero que hagan contigo lo que le pasó a Hawái

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

TURiSTA is my second favorite track on the album for multiple reasons. At first listen, it’s a heartbreak anthem about not being fully seen by a romantic partner who only wants to see the good. For those of us who have lived our lives under the strain of the tourism industry, it’s an analogy for the toxic relationship we have with the industry and tourists alike. Our island is the singer here. The tourist? The lover. They see our shores, the beauty of our islands and never the hurt and suffering of the people they leave behind once the trip is over.

And while we continue to be sold the falsehood that tourism will save us and love us and heal us: all it continues to do is suffocate us.

En mi vida fuiste turista
Tú solo viste lo mejor de mí y no lo que yo sufría
Te fuiste sin saber el porqué, el porqué de mis herida'
Y no te tocaba a ti curarla', viniste a pasarla bien
Y la pasamo' bien

In my life, you were a tourist
You only saw the best of me and not how I was suffering
You left without knowing the reason for my wounds, the reason for my wounds
And it wasn't your place to heal them, you came to have a good time
And we had a good time

BAILE INoLVIDABLE is in my top three for two reasons. One: I love salsa. I grew up on it. It may be one of my top three genres of music. You give me salsa and you’ll see me become a different bitch I PROMISE you. It’s such a huge part of my childhood and I really appreciate the multiple incorporations of salsa into this album (graciasss Benito mi amooooor).

Reason two? I LOVE a yearning anthem! Real lovers stand the fuck up! We’ve all been there (at least I have). There’s always that one person who hit a spot in your soul that new lovers never seem to be able to reach. And sure, we may move on. We may try love again, but that ex love sits in the backs of our minds forever. We wish them well and we know that we’ll never “dance” with anyone that way again.

Ay, yo con cualquiera me puedo acostar
Pero no con cualquiera quiero despertar
Solo con usted, con usted
Yo bailo con usted, na' más con usted
Un beso donde estés, donde estés, bebé

Oh, I can sleep with anyone
But I don't wanna wake up with just anyone
Only with you, with you
I only dance with you, no one else but you
A kiss to wherever you are, wherever you are, baby

My other favorites (in no particular order)

• NUEVAYoL

• PIToRRO DE COCO

• CAFé CON RON (ft Pleneros de la Cresta)

• DtMF

• EoO

artists and social responsibility

As you can probably tell, I have a lot of appreciation for this album both sonically and thematically. As a Virgin Islander and someone of Puerto Rican ancestry, it speaks to my lived experience in a way that many other albums just can’t. It’s a life profile I never asked for but always deeply needed.

As our world becomes more terrifying, less caring, and less focused on the communities that can’t fight for themselves - I trust the artists I love with the responsibility of telling our stories in ways that can’t easily be taken from us. Artists of the past hold so much of our stories in their work. I’ve learned so much of the past from them. I’m thankful that in DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, future “me’s” will learn of theirs.