The Sonic Revolution in Bad Bunny's Puerto Rico

Debí Tirar Más Fotos is a love letter to Bad Bunny's home

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When the needle drops on Bad Bunny's latest album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, something extraordinary happens: a ghostly voice from 1975 emerges as if from an ancient gramophone, summoning nearly 50 years of Puerto Rican musical history. Within seconds, that spectral salsa transforms into Bad Bunny's signature reggaeton sound, establishing the album's ambitious scope: to build a musical bridge between Puerto Rico's past, present and future.

This marriage of old and new announces itself in the album's opening track "NUEVAYoL." Bad Bunny samples El Gran Combo's "Un Verano en Nueva York," processing the 1975 recording to sound distant and ethereal. But as the track progresses, that vintage salsa collides with contemporary production techniques, creating what journalist Carina del Valle Schorske calls "a fundamentally urban experimental music that absorbs the sounds around it.”

The Politics of Sound

Bad Bunny's sonic choices are far from random. By opening with salsa – music born from the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York – he immediately frames the album's exploration of identity and displacement. The album's production transforms these historical elements into contemporary statements. On "Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii," Bad Bunny employs sudden audio dropouts that mirror Puerto Rico's frequent power outages, turning a technical glitch into pointed commentary about infrastructure challenges.

The traditional güiro scraper and cuatro guitar weave throughout the track, their organic timbres contrasting with digital production. This instrumental tension underscores the song's warning about Puerto Rico following Hawaii's path of cultural erosion through tourism and development. As Schorsky notes, "Bad Bunny is exploding ideas about what counts as Puerto Rican and what a traditional genre might be."

Reggaeton as Folk Music

While Bad Bunny has built his career on reggaeton's driving rhythm, here he reconnects the genre to its roots as Puerto Rican street music. On "VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR," he subtly interpolates classic reggaeton hits from Puerto Rican duos like Wisin y Yandel and Alexis y Fido. These musical references aren't just nostalgia, they position reggaeton within the island's folk tradition alongside plena and bomba rhythms.

This folk sensibility reaches its apex on "Café con Ron" featuring Los Pleneros de la Cresta. The track's multilayered hand drums and call-and-response vocals draw directly from plena's communal traditions. Yet Bad Bunny's production maintains the rhythmic urgency of contemporary urbano, suggesting that reggaeton itself might be considered a modern Puerto Rican folk music.

A New Model for Pop Authenticity

Bad Bunny has achieved something remarkable: an album that works both as cutting-edge pop and as a deeply researched exploration of Puerto Rican musical heritage. Like recent works by Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar, it demonstrates how the biggest stars in music are increasingly claiming authenticity through specific cultural and regional connections rather than broad universal appeal.

But Debí Tirar Más Fotos goes further, serving as both celebration and warning. Through its integration of salsa, reggaeton, and folk traditions, Bad Bunny has created more than just a hit album – he's crafted a musical document that speaks to Puerto Rico's past while advocating for its future. In the process, he's shown how pop music can maintain its infectious energy while carrying profound cultural weight.

By threading modern sounds through traditional forms, Bad Bunny makes a powerful statement about cultural preservation and evolution. The album stands as proof that even in an era of global pop, the most vital music often speaks most clearly to its home.