The release of Bad Bunny’s sixth studio album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos”, on Jan. 5, 2025, came just before Día de los Reyes, a widely celebrated holiday in Hispanic cultures that marks the end of the holiday season for many. The artist, global superstar Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, known as Bad Bunny, gave listeners a taste of his home with a collection of 17 songs that paid homage to the history of Puerto Rico.
Bad Bunny hit his ninth straight Billboard No. 1 on the Top Latin Albums chart, where, for the first time, salsa and plena reached the top spot. This album explored a narrative centered on preserving and protecting culture, focusing primarily on his home in Puerto Rico.
Bad Bunny expressed his love and pride for Puerto Rico through his music, igniting a wave of celebration on social media among his people. The album arrived at a significant time for Puerto Ricans, and Benito used his music to make a statement and shed light on the issue of gentrification within Puerto Rico.
The album starts with what was recognized as a love letter to New York and Latin culture. Benito sampled the song “Un Verano en Nueva York” by El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico and Andy Montañez, a well-known Puerto Rican salsa piece from the 1970s. Even in the opening track, Bad Bunny made multiple culturally significant references throughout the lyrics, including mentions of Juan Soto, Frida Kahlo, Big Pun, and Willie Colón, a Puerto Rican musician.
“It’s funny because it’s an album dedicated completely to Puerto Rico, but it starts in New York. That was kind of how the album started: Before, when a Puerto Rican would go to the U.S., they’d be like, ‘Me voy pa’ Nueva York!’ So New York would be like shorthand for ‘I went outside of the island’ back in the day. And at the same time, amazing things happened in New York when Latinos, Puerto Ricans were here — we teamed up with Cubans, with Dominicans, there was music, there was art, “Bad Bunny said in an interview done by the Rolling Stone.
The tracklist transitioned from salsa, jíbaro, bomba, and plena to reggaeton. This album was also revealed through a Spotify promotional campaign, where coordinates replaced the title, allowing fans to uncover and guess the name, similar to other songs on the album.
Bad Bunny fused reggaetón with traditional Puerto Rican rhythms like plena, a genre characterized by its percussive beats and storytelling lyrics, as showcased in “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.” He also incorporated Afro-Puerto Rican influences and 1970s salsa, as heard in tracks such as “BAILE INOLVIDABLE.”
The album also highlighted diverse voices, with tracks featuring visualizers that included writings by Latin American and Caribbean history professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, discussing Puerto Rico’s political revolutions and key activists. It also showcased the work of young Puerto Rican musicians who contributed to the salsa, jíbaro, bomba, and plena tracks. Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones, a prominent Caribbean intellectual, described the “rupture of historical continuity” in Puerto Rican society due to repression and cultural exclusion. On “Debí Tirar Más Fotos“, Bad Bunny sought to revive that lost memory.
The album tapped into a shared feeling of longing for roots in a world that often felt aimless and bleak. In one song within the album, Bad Bunny mourned the displacement and colonial struggles of Hawaii, hoping Puerto Rico would not face the same fate.
Beyond rhythms, the album addressed the rapid changes and disappearing aspects of Puerto Rican life and identity. Since becoming a U.S. colony in 1898, Puerto Ricans have faced forced sterilizations, labor exploitation, and bomb testing on their lands. Over the past 20 years, a severe debt crisis has weakened public services, and the devastation of Hurricane María in 2017 exacerbated these issues. Both local and U.S. governments responded with austerity measures and tax incentives to attract wealthy Americans, while many Puerto Ricans continued to migrate to the U.S. for better opportunities.
For years, activists have fought against gentrification, privatization, and displacement in Puerto Rico, themes that Bad Bunny previously addressed in his past releases. In “Debí Tirar Más Fotos”, these concerns were even more prominent, with lyrics that praised Puerto Rico’s beauty while warning of the dangers threatening its identity. This message was symbolized by the sapo concho, an endangered Puerto Rican toad, which was highlighted in teasers and a short film for the album. The toad’s near extinction, caused by invasive species and habitat loss due to development, mirrored the larger threats to Puerto Rican culture.
In the end, the album provided a glimpse of hope, urging listeners to envision a different future. While “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” was indeed a love letter, it was also much more. Though it carried a sense of caution, tenderness, and nostalgia, it simultaneously served as a strong warning and a call to action.
