Bad Bunny's new album shows Latin American artists turning away from the US

Bad Bunny is an enthusiastic promoter of this renewed spirit of Puerto Rican pride, encouraging his English-speaking listeners to learn Spanish and get to know Puerto Rico, and selling out his “No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí” (“I Don’t Want to Leave Here”) residency at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico venue in San Juan in just two days.

Critics have singled DtMF out for praise for the way that Bad Bunny turns towards the musical traditions of his home, Puerto Rico. The album has also been lauded for its political commentary, especially on the tracks “Turista” and “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii”, which fiercely criticize gentrification on the island.

DtMF both samples historic Puerto Rican ensembles (its opening track samples "Un Verano en Nueva York" by Andy Montañez and El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico), and showcases contemporary local artists, especially through a close collaboration with the group Los Pleneros de la Cresta on the tracks "CAFé CON RON" and "BAILE INoLVIDABLE". This band is part of a revival movement relating to the Puerto Rican plena genre.

Debí Tirar Más Fotos is, as critics and listeners agree, a genuinely refreshing, innovative album; both unmistakeably reggaetón, and stylistically distinctive. But if we widen the lens, Debí Tirar Más Fotos can also be understood as a landmark within a much wider recent trend in Latin American music. A number of well-known Latin artists have chosen to eschew the trappings of the digital recording studio. Increasingly, they are embracing local musical traditions, especially those with which they have nostalgic personal connections, and especially those that are played on acoustic instruments.

Bad Bunny’s collaborations with Puerto Rican artists comes after one of the most noted trends of 2023. One of the biggest hits of 2023 was Peso Pluma and Eslabón Armado’s "Ella Baila Sola" – a pared-back, minimally produced acoustic arrangement of a so-called “regional Mexican” song. Shakira followed “Ella Baila Sola” with a pair of collaborations with “regional Mexican” bands – first “El Jefe”, with Fuerza Regida, and then “Entre Paréntesis”, with Grupo Frontera. Among chart music dominated by electronic instruments and auto-tuned voices, this music stands out.

If we start to pay attention to less well-known artists, we can extend this story further back in time. Of course, the idea of reaching ‘back’ to musical ‘roots’ in Latin America goes back a long way. In Latin America, the so-called “indigenism” of the early twentieth century saw composers like the Mexican Carlos Chávez seek to ‘reconstruct’ pre-colonial music. Various Latin American popular song movements have invoked a search for imagined musical ‘roots’ – see the Tropicália movement in Brazil, or Chilean New Song’s use of Andean instruments.

Why have Latin American musicians – both well-known, and less so – shunned digital recording technology, and turned towards ‘roots’ or ‘revival’ music? In some places, the answer has to do with how the turn to streaming has affected how musicians and producers think about intellectual property. I have noticed this while doing research with underground hip-hop artists in Mexico City since 2012. Early hip-hop in Mexico was mostly transmitted via cassette or compact disc, sold at live events. Because of this, few spent their time worrying about intellectual property – they borrowed freely and creatively. Indeed, it was common to open and close tracks with extended, unfiltered excerpts of the music producers were sampling. However, when streaming platforms figured out a way to automatically detect copyright infringements, hip-hop artists had to adapt, and many opted to hire musicians and record their own samples. As the musicologist Geoff Baker has documented, producers of revival cumbia in South America have held similar pragmatic motivations relating to copyright.

Another explanation, however, has to do with politics.

As scholars such as Geoff Baker and Miguel Loor have observed, the often middle-class musicians who have participated in ‘revival’ movements in Argentina, Colombia, and Ecuador tend to be critical of globalization and neoliberalism, which they see as imposed by the United States. Musical revivalism is understood as a means of resisting United States regional dominance. It is also connected to wider class politics. Shakira’s and Fuerza Regida’s “El Jefe”, for example, tells a story of grinding exploitation in work (chorus: “I have a horrible boss who doesn't pay me well / I arrive on foot and he drives a Mercedes-Benz”). This is an all-too-familiar story for Mexicans earning a pittance while working for US-based corporations.

With Donald Trump strongly signalling expansionist intent by threatening tariffs and seeking to rename the Gulf of México as the “Gulf of America”, I would expect this wider musical trend to intensify. Even Latin American listeners who are not avid connoisseurs of Puerto Rican genres like plena and jíbaro like the idea of turning away from commercial music associated with the United States. A long time has passed since Shakira and Ricky Martin started to sing in English in order to ‘cross over’ into the United States market. Those Latin American musicians who have crossed over, and then crossed back, may be those whose work resonates best.