thread of bad bunny

he's hot and looks good in expensive streetwear

v true!

d-40, confused - was your skepticism summed up by a woman saying she liked a record?

If you’re not Spanish-fluent and you love this and hate post malone idgi

i don't really try to listen to post malone, not my cup of tea. i love future in general (except juice wlrd album - no) but.. he sounds so unhappy all the time. totally different feeling.

do speak a little spanish, understand better than i speak. actively working on it - but to understand song lyrics I def have to look up translations, which helps fill in what i didn't catch. but translations of lyrics are awful, they're just plugged in from google translate. flat and far less creative and funny than the original, so i compare back and forth. suppose i can learn to swear fluently while i'm at it.

I can help you translate a couple of his songs if you want me to

d-40, confused - was your skepticism summed up by a woman saying she liked a record?

Yes, the only possible objection I could have to “best thing I heard in a long time” is that you’re a woman, exactly

So what I’m hearing is a bunch of people who don’t listen to current rap and don’t know what post malone sounds like have decided this is great. Got it

This might be the best trap-album I've heard since Culture.

I’m not the world’s biggest Travis Scott fan but this is not better than his album. Lol

it seemed weird to me to have said little more than i like this album & someone drops in pointing at me like this is exactly why i'm skeptical. por que?

I can help you translate a couple of his songs if you want me to

heh. nah i'm good. not everything translates. spanish would be my third language & ime even if i didn't have to look up some words, it isn't the same as being a native speaker of a language & really getting cultural references - to puerto rico in particular, to musical genres that were popular at a specific time and place.

only like 5 ppl have posted in this thread so far, all of whom seem to be familiar-to-fanatical re: current rap music and are well aware of what post malone sounds like? where is the overwhelming and undeserved enthusiasm for this record that you're referring to coming from?

I also prefer it to Damn ¯\_('^')_/¯ 

I just really like the drums, maaaaan

This argument would be both tedious and predictable even if the Travis Scott album were somehow critically underappreciated which it clearly is not.

Critically underappreciated has nothing to do with it in responding to the claim this is somehow the best trap album since “culture”.

But for that matter What makes this better than Lil baby’s “harder than ever”? Gunna’s “drip season 3”? can someone even evaluate if they are vaguely making out lyrical content in a genre built around elaborate lyrical interplay that’s intertextual & working between local & broader cultural lingo?

Multiple ppl on this thread said they haven’t even heard post malone (somehow) that doesn’t sound very familiar w rap music

I’m not even opposed to the idea that this album is as good as everyone is saying (though compostionally this feels several steps down from the Travis Scott at least) based on some especially great writing that’s going over my head as an English speaker but I’m not going to listen to ppl who aren’t appreciating it on that level either tell me this is the best trap album in two years .. how could you even know?

I'm Danish. All the rap I hear is in a second language (except Malk de Koijn. Sigh...) And honestly, I don't give a fuck if you listen to me or not, I'm just writing my opinions on a message board. Who cares what you think?

xpost re: post malone, i've heard him, but i don't listen to him. why not try listening to more than anglophone artists

album still 🔥🔥🔥

caro
la romera
estamos bien

better than damn would certainly be pushing it for me... to say the least, lol. about on the level of a lil baby full-length seems about right. which is good imo!

Multiple ppl on this thread said they haven’t even heard post malone (somehow)

i reread the thread to see if perhaps i had misread but nope, this is not actually what was said at all lol, and am finding it hard to believe that this is what you actually believe was meant by those users who mentioned him.

going back to your initial posts, since that's where post malone first came up here...

Except that it’s in Spanish and the descendants of “rap is just about hoes and bling” love anything that’s like rap but slightly different

is this what's really going on here? i won't be obtuse enough to deny the latter part of this sentence refers to a v real phenomenon but you really think being in spanish helps to gain acceptance among those types? latin trap is generally pretty inseparable from a pretty narrow brand of machismo and the types you are referring to are not exactly known for their affinity for hypermasculine music/images from members of racialized groups.

so if this phenom is actually in play, what's helping assuage the typical hesitation? is it his shorts? the nails? his clumsy but '''endearing''' gesturing toward a contemporary feminist cause? i have trouble believing it's the language/barrier, as most rap-anxious whites do not even listen to the lyrics of english-language rap music before deciding it's offputting. (it could even be the drake collab, or perhaps even a feature of the music not related to image-production.)

like, idk. afaict most of the ppl who are enthusiastically discussing this album (not here, b/c little discussion of the album itself is going on) are already pretty familiar with latin trap and spanish-language music more broadly and still consider it to be a noteworthy release. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i don't really try to listen to post malone

If Post Malone has the same thing, I should listen to more Post Malone :)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m not saying it’s not noteworthy even I’m just questioning absurd hyperbole like “best trap album since culture” (culture isn’t even the best trap album since culture)

fuck deej you like Travis Scott now? thought i was still safe hating/mostly ignoring him

ILX's bad boy upset by the use of casual hyperbole to describe an encounter with music on I Love Music.

Snark aside, what is the best trap album since Culture?

xp

woahwoah we calling TS albums “compositionally good” now??

Article in the wake of the killing of openly gay trapero Kevin Fret in Puerto Rico last week:

https://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/article/ev3yjm/kevin-frets-death-highlights-latin-traps-homophobia-problem

Posting it here because Bad Bunny is mentioned in the article (Anuel AA plays a part in this story too).

this video is quite old news now but i still like it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg64AFnRnkc

huh i didnt know thats what he looked like

nobody:#BadBunny: pic.twitter.com/TSeWhqsvwV

— chaaa 🍒 (@charis_edian) March 8, 2019

There’s also a video w/ a little kid as Bad Bunny

Don’t tell me he makes out with him at the end as well.

la cancion is a really excellent song, my god

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsGnCt-gT44

https://jezebel.com/bad-bunny-used-his-fallon-performance-to-spotlight-the-1841974571

Really enjoying his new album as well.

is he still bad and overhyped by those who only like(d) his music for being hip rap music in spanish?

please let’s not invite ilx’s bad bunny back to this thread

Damn sorry for asking for ppl to not uncritically moon over stuff itt

new album is pretty solid, very consistent for 20 songs. so far, it doesn't have the highs of x100, and it probably suffers from lack of callaita, and tainy, in . kinda funny, i listened to the album in full without looking at the credits, and three of the four tracks that immediately stood out to me were tainy productions.

*tainy, in general

generally agree with that take. I think even the tracks that come off as filler right now will grow on me as Vete and Ignorantes did. standouts so far: La Dificil, Solia, A Tu Merced, Safaera, 25/8

yeah, safaera is a highlight for me too. the 'la romana' of the new one, though it doesn't reach those heights.

Yes, good but uneven and not quite the heights of last one , sounds right.

Forgot BB had own thread & commented on Rolling reggaeton and more one

Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2020: Reggaeton, Salsa, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Bachata, Merengue, Urbano and more Latinx

no mention yet of the arguably already-iconic "yo perreo sola" video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtSRKwDCaZM

Not super into the new album. Too many guitars, not enough straight-ahead bangers (although obviously that's the point).

i've found i enjoy it if i ignore everything before "dákiti". not sure what the last track is doing there but i like it too

this thread completely died after early enthusiasts on here were informed that maybe-kinda-liking his first album wasn't as woke as they perhaps thought :( lol

oh well at least he's still putting out good music and might be better-known now than ever

Indeed. He was the #1 most streamed artist on Spotify this year.

La difícil was my top played track on spotify for this year

coming round on the album, it's good actually

"yonaguni" song and video both really good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doLMt10ytHY

yep.

As the westernmost inhabited island of Japan, Yonaguni has also been constantly associated with the myth of the island of women (Nyōgo no Shima) since the Edo period.

im listening to this too much.

un verano sin ti is so compulsively listenable

it is

man was the most streamed artist on spotify 2 years in a row, has the highest grossing tour in the world atm, and has the most streamed album of the year so far. but yeah go ahead and tell me how ed sh**ran is the king of pop!

— Isabelia Herrera (@jabladoraaa) July 25, 2022

I also feel like the practice of not rendering interviews fully, but picking and choosing extracts in the frame the journalist chooses is super disrespectful. If you're taking apart a conversation, you're also killing it. And the reader is forced to accept a narrative, can't check the context, only invited to have ephemeral emotional reactions, and the artist goes from subject to object. And yes, tweets reacting to past declarations being quoted together with fresh declarations by the artist, wtf ?

To Jordan S: Yes, but that's also the job of the journalist to have thought about it, instead of trying to trip the artist into a sensitive debate and see if he doesn't say something clumsy. "What role has colorism played in the reggaeton industry" sounds more like a question for a university thesis. I'm doubting the honesty and genuine interest of the journalist.

I will also say that he gave me the exact same answer three years ago. He’s had time to educate himself since then—as he’s already done wrt other issues. As journalists, we should not uncritically accept lines celebrities have used before to deflect difficult conversations. https://t.co/l9oCdaZgEV

— Carina del Valle Schorske (@FluentMundo) April 2, 2023

What do you mean by the post? (Not being snarky)

Just that another journalist (Carina has written for NY Times and has a book coming out) who had interviewed Bad Bunny, also thought Bad Bunny's comments to her re racism 3 years ago weren't that well-informed , and that as he has educated himself and spoken out re other issues, she thought he should on this one as well

If he had said, in the Time interview, "I do agree that race and colorism play a role in the success of a reggaeton artist," how would it change the story or reporting on the subject (colorism and racism in reggaeton)?

Obviously it’s complicated, but when an artist as massively popular as Bad Bunny says something it’s going to get a little more attention than if just some obscure writers say it on twitter. Bunny financed and showed a film doc on the political situation in Puerto Rico that he showed before his gig on the stadium tour I saw . The writers and critics here are hoping he will speak out more on these issues as well

He kinds of addresses his discomfort with that point a little later in the interview (“You’re not going to ask Daddy Yankee something like that”).

I can understand fans & critics being upset by his answers. I don't think (just my pov) that "journalism" involves not being satisfied with a celebrity's attempt to deflect difficult conversations. I think those attempts can def. can be part of the story – "The genre's biggest (white-identifying) star isn't able to acknowledge..." etc. And noting that if a figure like BB were able to acknowledge these issues, then he may be able to take certain steps to effect change. But I don't think that pushing back on his statements is a "journalistic" role.

To put it another way, reporting on the issue is asking him the question. Pushing for a different answer is something different.

otm

I know it’s important for celebrities to use their star power to inform people and seek support for NPOs, but another part of me wishes celebrities would stay on their lanes of expertise. The pandemic and the aftermath has shown me that most of the time when a celebrity has a big, loud opinion on something is usually embarrasing and downright dangerous.

So many celebrities I kind of liked have revealed themselves as uninformed morons and I would’ve preferred not knowing what they have to say about anything other than what they are working on or what inspires them.

Sure, there are also celebrities whose whole thing is being deeply involved in politics but I consider those as speaking from an area of expertise. And in that case it’s better they show you their cards before listening to where they’re coming from.

Bad Bunny has pretty much only one political song in his repertoire (El Apagon) that was written by someone else (mag + young paci). It’s probably for the best he’s not very vocal about politics.

What about Compositor del Año? I had a student write about that song and she mentioned it was not an album track but it does address some of these issues (BLM specifically)

Also features a line about Little Richard & samples Tutti Frutti!
https://genius.com/Bad-bunny-compositor-del-ano-lyrics

Bad Bunny also was involved with Residente in the protests against ex-Governor Ricardo Rosselló

yep, def weird to paint BB as some kind of apolitical figure. there’s also this for example - notably for an American audience:

https://www.insider.com/jimmy-fallon-bad-bunny-paid-tribute-to-murdered-transgender-woman-2020-2

bad bunny has been marketed as political so I think its fair to ask him to weigh in on things, to challenge him as an interviewer, and to also recognize the limits of a pop star's ability to meaningfully speak to political issues ... something like colorism though isn't just a 'political issue,' its existential. anyway

Bad Bunny was just 1st Latino headliner at Coachella. Here’s Rolling Stone re part of his set:

Toward the middle of his set, a video explaining the history of salsa began playing, honoring legends like Celia Cruz, La Lupe, Johnny Pacheco and more. Several dancers came out and performed to salsa classics before Bad Bunny transitioned into the Grammy-nominated Cardi B track “I Like It.” He also paid tribute to old-school reggaeton with another video about the roots of the music that called out the Black influences and biggest names in the genre. Quickly, the beloved reggaeton duo Jowell Y Randy came out with Nengo Flow for the hit “Safaera.

I stand corrected. 'Compositor del Año' is definitely political. And hey looking at those lyrics that most definitely prove he wasn't silent about BLM, George Floyd and Police Brutality - I went back to look at the accusations of him being silent on the whole thing and what would you know: their source for 'outrage' is a pair of isolated tweets by users with like 1,000 followers.

and he also gave a statement on TIME

https://time.com/5852446/bad-bunny-black-lives-matter/

I was misguided by the internet fake outrage machine. Anyways it's easily disprovable that he was in fact supportive of the movement and that reports on his 'silence' were heavily exaggerated. That said, I still think celebrities lack of opinion on politics shouldn't be a reason to rally against them.

New Bad Bunny single out . Performs with Mexican act Grupo Frontera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3inw26U-os4

Grupo Frontera is actually from the US

Oh yeah, Texas rooted "Regional Mexican" music.

https://remezcla.com/music/watch-bad-bunny-jams-to-peso-pluma-at-coachella/

https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/event/the-bad-bunny-symposium-thinking-with-bad-bunny-beibi-2/

May 12 & 13 symposium in person and virtual

symposium coming.

symposium on Bad Bunny in NYC (and on zoom friday and Saturday daytime et)

Symposium is gonna be put on youtube . I heard a bit and found it interesting

New song “Where She Goes”

Eh , it’s ok

Long Rolling stone mag cover story interview by Julyssa Lopez:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bad-bunny-coachella-el-apagon-controversy-future-interview-1234770225/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll2rA7IpeNI

New song Preview

Sexy in a handful of scenes in Cassandro.

New album out

A review from a Brit’s perspective that popped up in a search

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/music/bad-bunny-nadie-sabe-lo-que-va-a-pasar-manana-album-review-b1113274.html

I haven’t heard it yet

the new one feels like a real step down, doesn't have enough ideas to sustain its 80 minute runtime (unlike the last album) and working in this trap mode for most of the album doesn't really play to his strengths much at all

made it about halfway through and yeah, it’s not nearly as good as un verano. seems like a conscious effort to return to the latin trap style that it felt like he’d grown pass. in some cases it works (love the song with young miko), and i appreciate the variety, it’s just not as joyful or chock full of ideas as the last one.

un verano was also over 80 mins long, but there was never a lack of inspiration. he was operating at peak power for like 20 of those 24 tracks. it never felt like a slog, like this one does at several moments

i've only listened to "monaco" (bc of the video) and while i don't dislike it exactly it doesn't rly get me interested in engaging w/ a long album

same as dyl, I need to hear a strong single to get me in the mood

voodoo chili completely otm

So far it’s not as good as the previous one (I’m not sure it was better to better it!) but I like the new one. It’s darker, rougher, more minimalist. Going the more pop/mainstream way may have been easier sure but maybe that wasn’t the best way to go after the fireworks of Un Verano.

Oups : not sure it was possible to better it !

He’s hosting and performing on Saturday Night Live October 21

Saw him live on one tour and it was fun. Missed his Washington DC arena gig last night . Video clips online look exciting