Residente Asks, Bad Bunny Answers: A Wide-Ranging Chat About Puerto Rican Identity, Acting & A ‘Surprise’ Musical Project

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On the penultimate nighttime of his sold-out 31-show residency successful San Juan, a visibly affectional Bad Bunny stood successful beforehand of the towering “mountain” helium had ordered erected connected the level of the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot and delivered a connection of love.

“Value each minute, each 2nd that beingness and God gifts us,” helium told the assemblage of 15,000, his dependable shaking astatine times. “Thank you, convey you. And to those who 1 time near Puerto Rico dreaming of coming back, and to those of america who are inactive here, I don’t privation to leave!”

“I don’t privation to leave” — No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí — the sanction Bad Bunny gave his Puerto Rican residency, is intrinsically tied to his medium DeBÍ TiRAR Más FOToS (I Should Have Taken More Photos), a emotion missive to Puerto Rico and the island’s euphony that Bad Bunny dedicated connected its backmost screen “to each the Puerto Ricans astir the world.”

It whitethorn arsenic good person said, “To each the satellite astir Puerto Rico.” Since the album’s Jan. 5 merchandise (on the eve of Three Kings’ Day, a important vacation connected the island) and since the July 11 motorboat of the residency, “No maine quiero ir de aquí” has go a rallying outcry of pridefulness for some Puerto Ricans and the multicultural planetary diaspora that has seen itself reflected successful Bad Bunny’s astir autochthonous songs.

Just 9 months aft its release, the occurrence of DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS — which spent 4 nonconsecutive weeks astatine No. 1 connected the Billboard 200 — has been breathtaking, peculiarly for an medium that delves into styles similar plena and salsa and that Bad Bunny describes arsenic a labour of emotion with “zero” commercialized expectations. Globally, it’s a phenomenon, a unifier of cultures, an inducement to dance, an enraptured telephone for emotion and celebration. It each boils down to Bad Bunny’s island, with its dichotomy of stunning earthy quality and miasma of economical issues, the spot helium calls location and says helium “always returns to.” As his prima has risen, the performer calved Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio has go the astir passionate and effectual ambassador successful Puerto Rican history. Come February, he’ll person his biggest level yet erstwhile helium headlines the Super Bowl LX halftime amusement successful Santa Clara, Calif.

Hundreds of thousands of fans — who tin present separate betwixt a plena and a salsa and cognize that the aged antheral successful Bad Bunny’s videos is 90-year-old Puerto Rican histrion Jacobo Morales — flocked to Puerto Rico to spot the residency, which ran from July to September. Once there, audiences experienced a “party de marquesina” (backyard party) acceptable to the backdrop of the production’s monolithic upland and its now-iconic casita (little house) — designed to lucifer the houses recovered successful a emblematic Puerto Rican vicinity — built wrong the Coliseo. A big of celebrities, from LeBron James to Jon Hamm, partied astatine the casita, and dozens of artists — including Young Miko, Arcángel, Ricky Martin and Rubén Blades — performed arsenic guests astatine the show.

Among them was longtime pal Residente (real name: René Pérez Joglar), the irreverent Puerto Rican rapper known for incisive lyrics, societal pronouncements and his passionateness for the island’s politics. In Bad Bunny, helium recovered a similar, though gentler, iconoclast. The 2 became accelerated friends aft gathering for meal astatine a San Juan edifice successful December 2017 and collaborated musically connected the 2019 singles “Bellacoso” and “Afilando los Cuchillos,” the second an incendiary anti-government way released aft Bunny and Residente paid a astonishment nighttime sojourn to then-governor Ricky Rosselló.

Rosselló would resign his station that aforesaid year, but the relationship betwixt the 2 musicians has endured. After performing erstwhile astatine Bad Bunny’s residency and attending arsenic a impermanent a 2nd time, Residente sat down to interrogation his person for Billboard. The wide-ranging speech — which took spot the time aft the engagement’s penultimate show, weeks earlier Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl announcement — spanned nostalgia, music, movie and, of course, Puerto Rican pride.