thread of bad bunny

been processing the debut bad bunny LP. at first i was mostly unimpressed, but a good few tracks and the overall aesthetic have really started seeping in. dynamic star of latin trap, or overhyped atlanta diluter?

i adore him tbh. i like his voice & he seems sort of weird.. ❤️ the album is the best thing i've heard in a long time.

also his fashion sense is super fun

yes i love his nails

i've listened to the album once and enjoyed it! my thoughts will hopefully solidify into something more concrete than 'oooh ~beat switches~' over time

the album is the best thing i've heard in a long time.

― ¯\_(🏈 )_/¯ (daria-g), Thursday, December 27, 2018 11:52 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pretty much sums up my skepticism ... unless I’m missing it lyrically (totally fair critique) I don’t get what makes this any better/worse than gunna, lil baby, Travis Scott album cuts, latter period future — all of which is “good” but hardly exciting

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

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

i could not get into this at all. that said he's hot and looks good in expensive streetwear so i get it

This might be the best trap-album I've heard since Culture. Yeah, it's a lot like Travis Scott, but more rhythmically varied. The way the drums are mixed in a track like 200MPH is almost psychedelic. Love it!

If Post Malone has the same thing, I should listen to more Post Malone :) I do kinda like his singles, but they're not as good as this.

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

The search for right wingers on ilxor continues

generally the way you turn a format like that into a joke is when you target the people who use the stupid phrasing, not when you just say the exact thing they'd say

well that's how a bad jokes work, sure

Don't forget that Bad Bunny's show also featured laborers-- field workers, guys fixing power lines. It was like a Diego Rivera socialist mural come to life.

Not just field workers, they were sugar cane cutters! The backbone of so many Caribbean economies in times past and ofc a central part of the slave trade. Brutal, backbreaking labour in relentless sun.

Katz points this out in the link I posted above, but there's also a reference to the blackout that was made exponentially worse by Trump and the MAGAts in Congress:

Suddenly, an explosion. Three electrical transformers, reminiscent of the crosses on Golgotha, have sparked, sending their linemen tumbling, Cirque du Soleil-style. Bad Bunny appears, singing “El Apagón” — the Blackout — another protest song, this one about Puerto Rico’s antiquated electric infrastructure. It was fatally damaged in the 2017 disaster that plunged the entire U.S. colony into darkness for months, with some areas remaining without power for a year.

That disaster occurred during and in large part due to the colonial apathy of the first Trump administration, which, along with the island’s right-leaning government, tried to shrug it off at the time — and judging from media coverage of the halftime show, most Americans have completely forgotten. From an initial death toll of the storms of 64 (coincidentally, or perhaps not, the jersey number Bad Bunny wore last night), the death toll from the blackout soared to somewhere between 2,650 and 3,290. As I wrote in 2020:

When I was in Puerto Rico just after Maria, everyone involved in the response agreed: The priorities were to get the electrical grid working as quickly as possible but also rebuild it in a way that would last … Instead, Trump’s administration and his preferred allies in the Puerto Rican government frittered away time, money, and people’s lives. The reconstruction was so shoddy it didn’t even need a geologic disaster to tip it over. In April 2018, seven months after the storm, a piece of construction equipment tripped a wire, plunging the entire island back into darkness.

As Trump and Congress withheld more than half of the $40 billion obligated for hurricane relief, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority awarded a $300 million, closed-bid contract to a tiny, troubled electric contractor, the only discernible qualification of which was that it was headquartered in then Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s tiny hometown of Whitefish, Montana. The contract was canceled once the public became aware of it, but not before the contractor had overcharged wildly for man-hours and expenses. Zinke resigned a year later under a cloud of other corruption investigations.

Another company, Cobra Acquisitions LLC, illicitly secured at least $1.8 billion in federally reimbursable contracts to rebuild the electrical grid. Cobra’s former president, Donald Keith Ellison, and Ahsha Tribble, FEMA’s former deputy administrator for Puerto Rico, who led the energy infrastructure recovery under Trump, pleaded guilty to one count of bribery each in 2022.

Rage over the disaster and its associated corruption sparked major street protests, at some of which Bad Bunny performed. That movement led to Gov. Ricardo Rosselló's resignation in 2019. (Some, including myself, wondered why Americans wouldn’t take the lead of our colonized fellow citizens and demand the same of Trump.)

generally the way you turn a format like that into a joke is when you target the people who use the stupid phrasing, not when you just say the exact thing they'd say
― mh, mardi 10 février 2026 20:40 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

90% of humor is saying exactly what other people are saying, the way they are saying it. The Onion, dead-pan, absurdist humor, practically all humor is like that, on the ironic side.

Crucially, it’s also funny, something many ilxors seem to struggle with

Maybe there is some meta-element to an article from a long established satirical publication like The Onion that frames the joke in ways that saying something in a message board conversation doesn't

The insistence on wanting English translations mystifies me.

I think in the racism community this is what's known as "any excuse"

Weirdly, I suspect it reflects something I brought up: did any Spanish profanity slip through? Maybe they will fine him for bad words en espanol to repair the damage he has inflicted on the nation.

I mean… kind of. Let’s see which ones I can ID from the setlist:

Titi me pregunto: “mi bicho esta cabron” (he kind of slurs it to make it less clear - bicho literally translates as bug in spanish but is used as slang for penis in PR.)

Safaera: interesting choice as it is one of his most explicit lyrics… you’d have to censor pretty much every line in this one… oddly enough he was asked to censor “pepa” (slang for pills/drugs) and he doesn’t say the most explicit part (if your bf doesn’t eat your ass) and instead “curse signs” appear on the screen but the rest of the lyrics are well… let me translate just the opening lines that did make it: “my “bicho” is loose and I want you to hide it. Grab it like a bong. She took a (censored: pill) that makes her horny”

NuevaYol: it’s interesting that “pepa” is censored in safaera but he does two drug references on this one and they are not censored - but I guess the distinction is that this one is condemning using them? - “perico (cocaine) is white, tusi (pink cocaine) is pink. Don’t get them mixed. Better to avoid them.”

So you're saying he should be put in jail.

I guess “cabron” could also be considered a swear word but it depends on the context as it can be used to exaggerate good or bad things. It’s somewhat a “light” swear word but you’d definitely shush a child saying it.

So you're saying he should be put in jail.

― Josh in Chicago

No no no, don’t mind me I’m just the translator.

More like "Woka," right?

Fining him seems like the pettiest so likeliest bullshit play. Expect the news cycle be dominated by a few days of debate as to the meaning of the lyrics the administration provides.

"Bad Bunny sang about killing cops and eating pets and smuggling drugs into the US!"

"No he didn't."

"How can we know? He's singing in a language no one can understand!"

"cabron" is not a swear word lol

the entire right wing mediasphere acting like Bad Bunny is the only person on the planet who can speak Spanish is so funny, really lays bare how little these losers think about anything

also speaks to their complete lack of reckoning with the actual republican voter base. there are a lot of hispanic conservatives! probably a reasonable number that like bad bunny, too?

I mean what can you even say about "I suspect this is much worse than the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction", how is that real life and not a dumb SNL skit

Thank goodness the FCC will issue a blanket ban of any Bad Bunny material.

Bad Blanket Bunny Ban Band

Bad Bunny's Bible Bonkers

Bad Bunny in 'Bicho' Bowl Blowup! Broadcasters Boiling Over Boffo Ballgame Bash!

cabron" is not a swear word lol

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

That’s why I didn’t include it. In some spanish speaking countries it’s considered vulgar in others it is not. In Puerto Rico it is not.

Conservative media started focusing on how the halftime should be an American artist in their heads. It didn’t hold up because there’s been several non-American artists already and Bad Bunny is an American citizen which I guess helped some of their audience to learn some history.

Then they started focusing on how vulgar some of his lyrics are and then they chose Kid Rock as the antithesis and it didn’t hold up either because only one of them is singing about fucking underage girls.

Then they switched to attacking his language. Which is just the mask coming off to what really bothered them about it. Hope it helps the spanish speaking conservatives in the US understand how much this administration hates them but I wouldn’t put my hopes up.

Then they switched to attacking his language.

The gall, because Kid Rock is the musical manifestation of functionally illiterate.

Fun story I don't think I've ever relayed. A friend of mine played in a pickup band backing Eddie Vedder at a private party. There were tons of celebrities there, in the band and elsewhere. Models, athletes, etc. (it was a party for an athlete). After the set my friend was talking with Eddie Vedder, joking around, when out the corner of his eye my friend saw the arrival of ... Kid Rock. Guess he was a friend of the athlete, too? Anyway, Vedder suddenly clams up nervously, leans in to my friend and mutters how he's got to get out of there, since he can't be caught in the same room as that guy. So Vedder bids adieu and vamooses, but my pal, one of the nicest guys and a true professional, decides to introduce himself to Kid Rock, and apparently Kid Rock, despite having politics also totally opposite my pal, was a nice enough dude for an utter clown.

And that athlete's name was...Pete Rose. I'm Paul Harvey.

the idea of getting mad at the lewd lyrics of a pop song when the government just sent people out to blow unarmed people's brains out on camera is psychotic.

in other news i never really listened to bad bunny before but since the grammys & the halftime show i’ve had that dtmf song stuck in my head every day this week

most enjoyable earworm i have had in some time

I teach in a district that is majority latino. I love that my students are into this album. Lots of artistry and compositional risk taking. And it integrates genres and sounds that haven’t been in mainstream American pop music for a long time. (Ever?) Really stands out from other music that they’ve been into in years past.

I think it is really fun for them too to have songs in Spanish that are popular among the American mainstream. Especially given our horrific political climate where the administration treats people from latin america like they are criminals.

I lol'ed, Ned (xps)

in other news i never really listened to bad bunny before but since the grammys & the halftime show i’ve had that dtmf song stuck in my head every day this week

most enjoyable earworm i have had in some time

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, February 11, 2026 6:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Apparently Meghan McCain is smitten, too

in other news i never really listened to bad bunny before but since the grammys & the halftime show i’ve had that dtmf song stuck in my head every day this week

most enjoyable earworm i have had in some time

unfortunately I have the opposite, where I keep singing that ridiculous country song in a funny accent from the TPUSA show of the guy talking about driving his truck and drinking beer.

those songs are called beerworms

actual lols

Man, beerworms is A+. Also works for songs you only like and singalong to when you're drunk.

Truly grand neologism.

The latest Pat Finnerty follow-up, btw, is a pretty brutal (if digression-prone) deconstruction of the TP/Kid Rock disaster. Didn't even occur to me (or him) that that shit was pre-recorded, and that (according the K. Rock's defense) all the bad synching and whatnot was basically (no surprise) due to TP's incompetence.

I checked in on some Trump forum, and one loser basically boasted that the TP halftime was a huge success because it proved you could take audience away from the Super Bowl. And someone responded, like, maybe 5 million people vs 150 million, and the Trump loser was, exactly, this is how it begins!!

Must feel especially good to be Bad Bunny right now.

Argument's even more pathetic considering the idea of an alternate halftime show isn't unprecedented - the Wichita Eagle just did a story reminding people of In Living Color's halftime alternative, which siphoned a far larger share of 22 million viewers in 1992 (when Super Bowl ratings were also much lower) which supposedly rattled the NFL so much that it was the main reason why they began to sign major acts for the halftime shows.

Wasn't the Puppy Bowl a halftime thing?

so does this mean they're gonna do this every year now even if the halftime performer sings in English? is the headliner gonna be Kid Rock again or are they gonna splurge for 3 Doors Down?

ah shit guys, just got some bad news about 3 Doors Down

Well, if you're reading this, Kid Rock, they are looking for a singer ...

Puppybowl is a thing and had 12M viewers. So 2.4 times the crowd for that TP thing.

Poopybowl

Bad Bunny charts four songs in the Hot 100’s top 10 following the Super Bowl:

#1: DtMF
#2: BAILE INoLVIDABLE
#5: NUEVAYoL
#7: Tití Me Preguntó

Yeah, but at what cost?