UW-Madison history professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo was on vacation in Portugal on Dec. 24 when he received an unexpected social media message from the team of global music sensation
Bad Bunny. They were asking if Meléndez-Badillo would be interested in a collaboration. “It took me by surprise,” said Meléndez-Badillo, an assistant professor of Latin American and Caribbean
history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Meléndez-Badillo, who recently authored the book “Puerto Rico: A National History,” said he accepted the offer immediately. Bad Bunny, the stage name for Puerto Rican rapper and singer Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, was preparing to release his sixth solo album, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” “I Should’ve Taken More Photos” on Jan. 5. He asked Meléndez-Badillo to help write historical “visualizers” about the island to accompany each song on YouTube. Without access to a computer while traveling, Meléndez-Badillo wrote about 74 pages by hand to meet a tight deadline. The final result was 17 explainers on Puerto Rican history, spanning from the early 1500s to the present. The visualizer for the album’s first track, “NUEVAYoL,” quickly surpassed 33 million views. Meléndez-Badillo said the artist’s goal was to “amplify Puerto Rican history, not only for Puerto Ricans, but for everyone to learn more about the history of our people.” The album has been praised as a “love letter” to Puerto Rico, blending bittersweet and political lyrics with traditional salsa and plena sounds. Meléndez-Badillo noted that years of school closures have led to a “frail” education system on the island, leaving many Puerto Ricans unfamiliar with their own history. “So Benito really felt strongly about amplifying general Puerto Rican history,” he said. The reggaeton artist will perform the new album at a sold-out residency in Puerto Rico this summer titled “I Don’t Want To Leave.” The initial shows are advertised for Puerto Rico residents only. “His intention is to speak to Puerto Ricans first and foremost,” MeléndezBadillo said. As a historian, MeléndezBadillo said the song “LO
QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii” —“What happened to Hawaii”—is particularly significant. In the track, Bad Bunny references the Americanization and displacement Hawaii underwent after coming under U.S. control. “He’s using history in order to think about the potential futures of Puerto Rico,” Meléndez-Badillo said. “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” spent a second week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Meléndez-Badillo believes the record marks a cultural turning point. “There’s a before and after Bad Bunny, and I think that this record consolidates that,” he said.