76. Bad Bunny - Un Verano Sin Ti (Rimas, 2022)
“un-chaka-un-cha”
The above is a crude shorthand for a rhythm, one which has its origins in the Caribbean. You might hear it at the start of a Jamaican reggae song, played on a rhythm guitar. Maybe as a drum pattern on 80s dancehall, or whispered over a two-tone ska record. It might go back to Trinidad's calypso, and you can certainly hear a more sped up version of it on the Trini genre soca. The same rhythm pattern is the backbone of Puerto Rico's biggest genre, reggaeton, a genre which is essential to the sound and persona of Bad Bunny.
Reggaeton is not a genre that gets much airplay in my tiny country, save its chromatographic bleed into Western pop. You don't hear it in any store, nightclub, bar, cafe. It is possible, maybe even probable that you do not hear it in any car either. If you live in my country, the place you are most likely to have heard modern reggaeton is inside of a virtual car, stolen or commandeered, where it usually takes up an in-game radio station, or in a movie with a similar feel to a videogame where you steal or commandeer cars. Unless you work out (you do you), in which case it may well have crept into your zumba class.
To summarise the succession of the genre for initiates purely in terms of honorifics, and as confusingly as possible, reggaeton (also spelled reggaetón, the last syllable possibly coming from the word “maratón”, marathon) has a king in Ramon Luis Ayala Rodriguez, known as the King of Reggaeton and Daddy Yankee. If you've heard a single reggaetón song in your life, it's probably “Despacito”, and he's on that. Daddy Yankee has been in the game since 1992 and likely coined the genre in 1994. His reign was ruff and tuff, when the genre was at its most obscene and actively suppressed by the state, but he was always able to sell more tapes than the cops could confiscate. In 2003, he guested on the debut album of William Omar Landron Rivera, who is known as both the King of Reggaeton and Don Omar. The biggest selling musician in Latin America in the 2000s, you might know him as Rico Santos from the Fast and Furious movies.
Both Daddy Yankee and Don Omar have retired. Daddy Yankee is still releasing music as of the month I wrote this and Don Omar is still touring as of the month I wrote this. This brings us to the King of Modern Reggaeton: Raúl Alejandro Ocasio Ruiz or Rauw Alejandro. Getting his start in the mid 2010s, Raul / Rauw's wait, I can't do this, he ain't the king of shit except sneaking into the videos of internationally famous cougars. Then there's the New King of Reggaeton Juan Carlos Ozuna Rosado or Ozuna. Though not as reknowned as Bad Bunny (whom I swear we'll get to) he is still nonetheless the Blur and Oasis to Rauw Alejandro's Marion.
In addition to Puerto Rico's “Daddy” King, its “Don” King (both retired and very much active), its false King and its “New” King we have Colombia's J. Balvin, known as the Prince of Reggaeton. That doesn't sound that important, but trust me, it's gonna be. There is also a Queen of Reggaeton, Martha Ivelisse Pesante Rodríguez, Ivy Queen. A clear influence on Bad Bunny, her song “Dile” and his song “Diles” might be connected, and he's paid tribute many times over besides. She was the first woman to make it big in the mucho masculine scene and to cut a path for a more liberated approach to songwriting in the form as well as opening the floodgates for women accessing the genre like Karol G, Becky G, Rosalía, a resurgent Lisa M and Tomasa del Real.
Bad Bunny is the King of Latin Trap. You will note that that is not reggaeton, and worry that I might have been wasting your time, but fear not, Latin Trap is trapetón in Spanish, it totally ends with a -tón. Latin Trap is also very like reggaeton in lots of ways, having much the same feel, but applied to a more US hip-hop type of beat. Also, it seems that the -tón part is more interesting to Bad Bunny, cause he has made boatloads of reggaetón too. Introductions and justifications completed, I will point out that as I write this, Bad Bunny is number one in the US charts, beating out Taylor Swift with his album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, translated as “I wish I took more photos”. Let's have a look at what he himself says he might have missed:
Bad Bunny hops on Soundcloud in 2013. He has a few things going for him, firstly his distinctive voice, which has the numb, relaxed quality of a cloud rapper, mixed with a more classic Latin lonely heart, but with a rhythmic precision at higher tempos. He can roll an ‘r’ to a perfect 12th or 16th note (“Chambeo” and “Me Porto Bonito” are good examples of it) and hold court with the boys while sounding hungover on love. His production is always very plush and stable, if occasionally unambitious. A couple of years later he starts cutting promo videos. These are intrinsic to his brand building, but there's nothing that special about them, they resemble typical rap/grime/drill videos: one gang of mates, two girls, two locations (one fancy), both lit like shit and if the budget stretches to it you rent an exotic animal like an albino python or a serval, or a car named after an exotic animal. Half the budget looks to be going to his hair. There's lots of videos though and they fit so well together and into general video and radio rotation that he soon starts having monster hits like 2016's “Soy Peor” and “Diles”. If you go looking for these songs to download, expect to come across twenty or so remixes of each, mostly unofficial. “Soy Peor” is a very safe proposition for a hit, splitting the difference between Drake and The Weeknd. It's a simple commitment to coldness and being a player following a gnarly breakup. “Diles” is more bawdy, Bad Bunny sneaking into the listener's bedroom when their boyfriend's gone and giving their sex life an upgrade.
As big as his 2016 is, Bad Bunny’s momentum keeps gathering. 2018 is an especially frenetic year, bringing at least ten singles (and at least as many features on other artists work), bolstered by big get guest stars: J-Lo, Cardi B, Timbaland, Enrique Iglesias as well as a debut album. X 100PRE is a Latin trap album. Ironically, the only reggaeton cut features his US hip hop inspo Drake. X 100PRE is a monotonous affair in spite of the occasional bit of genre play, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, like a lot of good pop it aspires to feel like an “evening with” a performer/seducer (“Bad Bunny Bay-Bay!”), and this is achieved.
Un Verano Sin Ti is not an “evening with”, so much as a “summer with” everyone but his ex-girlfriend. We'll get to it in a sec, but first there are a couple of things to get through.
J. Balvin, mentioned I'd mention him, Prince of Reggaeton. He's been making music some 12 years more than Bad Bunny and takes a chance on him as a support act for 2016's Energia Tour. The two find themselves with much to bond over: the salsa music of Puerto Rico's Héctor Lavoe, Instagram addiction, Pokémon, an outward hatred of Donald Trump as well as a burning desire to take their own music to the “Gringo Grammies”. What most visibly unites them is their fashion senses which, though different, both heavily trend towards abject hyperreality. They become a duo, for an EP called Oasis, and they keep reuniting in ever more technicolour ways until the inevitable fallout and heel turn.
Talking of heel turns, did I mention Bad Bunny is also a WWE wrestler? Apparently he used to wrestle his brother when he was a kid. Seems he learned a trick or two cause his in-ring work is first class. As guest performers go, he's a comfortable undisputed Number One of All Time. He knows his way around a promo, he knows how to attack, how to sell (be attacked), how to vault from the turnbuckle and not die, and he has a slick finisher that is very risky to his own genitalia. He writes a song about Booker T and performs it using the man himself as a stage prop. It absolutely doesn't work until he says it does and the pyrotechnics start backing him up.
He strikes an alliance with Damian Priest, going from fan to lapdog to tag team partner until the inevitable fallout and heel turn. By the time he's fighting his former ally, the crowds are belting out his self-penned entrance theme “Chambea”, which I must stress is not in English. This guy does not sing in English, nor does he speak it particularly well. The event is in Puerto Rico, yes, but to the wider anglophonic audience of WWE Backlash 2023 it must be somewhat of a culture shock.
Un Verano Sin Ti means “a summer without you”. It's a double album (by just two minutes, you can't cut one song of twenty-three?), but it's not a concept album. Still, there are themes: dream girls, romance without love, restlessness of the heart, the one that got away, intoxication, social media by the beach. It is poppier than previous efforts. Most notably, Bad Bunny's voice is running through about twelve effects to sharpen it up. Genre is more reggaeton than Latin trap with some exceptions and there are some purposeful forays into other genres for added colour (such as “Después de la Playa” which erupts into a joyous salsa at the one-minute mark).
“Tití Me Preguntó” is the big hit and it's about telling everyone but his auntie what he's up to. The verse is a rap that arcs slowly in pitch on a simplistic 808 beat, sort of like Snoop's “Drop It Like It's Hot”, the chorus is a wild night on the floor, an endless parade of women, named individually, Lou Bega style. The epilogue confesses an inability to surrender to love. The changes in rhythm, arrangement and sincerity make for a pretty satisfying whole. Another song about wildness is “Andrea”, where he plays the role of the judgemental auntie to a troubled soul of the party circuit. His judgement of her in the end boils down to one of empathy, pressing those who police women's behaviour and signing off by telling her haters to “suck a bug”. That's how Google Translate puts it, pretty sure that's not what he said.
It is hard to say how funny Bad Bunny is, given that I'm operating outside of his language, but he does conjure some humorous imagery. Lovelorn on “Un Coco”, he says that if he hears the music of Sin Bandera (a duo of Mexico's most earnest balladeers) he'll throw his radio into the sea. On “Efecto” he swears that a girl is the one who controls him, just her, only her, and the weed, the ecstasy, the Xanax and the cocaine (but nothing else though, just her and those four drugs). On “Neverita” he accuses a girl of treating him “like a meme”, but promises to watch TikTok with her on the beach. On “Aguacero” his come-on translates to “You've got my dick anxious” and there's a couplet along the lines of: “I always give it to you with the Trojans / If somebody asks, say we're distant cousins”.
On “Dos Mil 16” we learn that Bad Bunny reveres the year 2016. Not many artists do, but remember, Bad Bunny plays Pokémon and 2016 was the summer of Pokémon Go. That, and his getting rich on his own terms as a sizeable portion of the world fell in love with him. That'd do it. Actually though, there is a girl back there, a situation he can't retrieve. Pretty sure it's the one whose wordless stare told him that everything is alright, a fact that he continues to reference throughout the record. Might be the girl who's with a new guy on “Yo No Soy Celoso” (a bossa nova whose general sentiment is: “We're both with new people now, which is good and fine. Sometimes I castigate myself over my jealousy, but not today. Say, who is that asshole with you anyway?”, followed by the most passive-aggressive whistling I've ever heard). “Ojitos Lindos” is a collaboration with Bomba Estéreo, whose singer Li Saumet takes the place of the staring girl and begs for the moment to be infinite. It is all the more interesting that he has her doing the begging.
Towards the end of the album, Bad Bunny gets more direct at speaking to his followers. He promises a new album, in a Latin trap mode, soon. He promises to become mature, when he gets around to it. What's interesting is that the most puerile song on the album turns out to be the most profound. “El Apagon” has a chorus that just says “I like the pussy of Puerto Rico” twenty-four times. Here's the thing though, the video is 22 minutes long. It's a nationalistic appeal for a better future, in the realm of gay rights for one, where we see a queer party to the song's EDM climax. It also offers a spirit of politicised possessiveness, a need for big business to sod off and leave the people alone.
The video then becomes a documentary on Puerto Rico's pressing problems of corporate oppression, inequality, enshittification, the tearing down of Puerta de Tierra's housing projects, the 0% capital gains tax, Act 22 and the erection of walls fencing off public beaches, the beneficiaries and hurricane vultures who donate massively to politicians, like Brock Pierce, Chaim Meir Hazan and fellow WWE performer Logan Paul. It recontextualises an otherwise introspective party record and suggests politicking to come.
What Kind Of Splash Did It Make?
Bad Bunny did get political. He threw his weight behind protests in 2019 and Juan Dalmau Ramirez of political party La Alianza in 2024. He was not successful, but with his star even higher in 2025, it's hard to know if or when his political ambitions will cease. He has parted ways with ex-chum J. Balvin, likely over the latter's disgusting pivot to far-right posturing (the since-deleted video for “Perra” in particular). He has launched an acting career, starring alongside Brad Pitt in Bullet Train. He means to get back in the wrestling ring too, for something much more dangerous. He was on Hot Ones the week I wrote this, where he displayed a surprisingly poor spice tolerance.
Un Verano Sin Ti got over a billion streams on Spotify (the reason for having twenty-three tracks becomes clear) and was number one for a whole quarter. It'll take a while for its influence to become clear, but my bet is a young pup will be walking around calling himself the King of Reggaeton or the King of Latin Trap in about seven years time and he will sound a lot like Bad Bunny in a lot of ways. Most likely of all, if he’s from Puerto Rico he will not be at all afraid to sing in a Puerto Rican accent.
Where To Go From Here?
Bad Bunny's activity is always bolstered by a community of artists uplifting one another. There are many names above worth checking out. Starting with the women is not a bad idea, their output tends to (have to) be more focused.
A NOTE ON MUSIC IN OTHER LANGUAGES
It's kind of unfair that Apple Music have chosen Bad Bunny as the sole emissary of non-English-language music. It's too much pressure for a single good-time entertainer, even one as successful as he is. Writing this, when I should be thinking about him, I am instead reminding myself, and you, that most albums recorded, ever, were not recorded in English.
If you are ever looking to take a break from the English language in music, try this list of twenty pop-adjacent albums in twenty languages. It's been a slightly absurd exercise to put this list together. It is not as Bad Bunny would say “El Último Tour Del Mundo”. Put it this way: imagine a critic on the other side of the planet attempting to construct a similar list and guess at who they would end up putting on the list for an album in “English”. Michael Bolton? The Sex Pistols? Yung Gravy? Any decision would be ridiculous. Well, that's what I've done twenty times, but I'll say this: I really do enjoy these records, and I'm confident you will like some of 'em too. It's a big world out there:
[Arabic] - Omar Souleyman – Wenu Wenu (Ribbon Music, 2013)
[Bambana] - Rokia Traoré - Tchamantché (Nonesuch, 2008)
[Czech] - Dybbuk - Ale Čert To Vem (Punc, 1991)
[Georgian] - Zedashe – Silver Sanctuary (Electric Cowbell Records, 2020)
[German] - Monopol – Weltweit (Welt-Rekord, 1982)
[Greek] - Marina Satti - P.O.P. Deluxe (Minos EMI, 2024)
[Icelandic] - KÆLAN MIKLA - Undir Köldum Norðurljósum (Artoffact Records,2022)
[Italian] - Sangue Misto - SxM (Crime Squad, 1994)
[Japanese] - Malice Mizer - Merveilles (Maitrize, 1998)
[Korean] - Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling (self-released, 2018)
[Luganda] - Still - Kikommando (Pan, 2021)
[Norwegian] - The Aller Værste! - Materialtretthet (Sonet, 1990)
[Portuguese] - Os Mutantes - Mutantes (Polydor, 1969)
[Punjabi] - Daler Mehndi - Tunak Tunak Tun (Magnasound, 1998)
[Tamil] - K. S. Chithra - K. S. Chithra with Ilaiyaraaja (Finders Keepers, 2012, recorded 1986-1991)
[Tsonga] - Penny Penny - Yogo Yogo (Shandel Music, 1995)
[Tuareg] - Kel Assouf - Black Tenere (Glitterbeat, 2019)
[Turkish] - Selda - Selda (Türküola, 1976)
[Welsh] - Super Furry Animals – Mwng (Placid Casual, 2000)
[Wolof] - Wau Wau Collectif - Yaral Sa Doom (Sahel Sounds, 2021)