Name: Did Bad Bunny win the culture war? | The Assignment
Uploaded: 2026-02-12T17:04:07.000Z
Duration: 29 min 12 s
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His latest album, It's all about, also reaching out to the diaspora.

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The reason why he sings is because he's like, I should have taken more photos when you were around, when we were in the same neighborhood.

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And that's something that transcends Puerto Rican culture, I think, especially it speaks to so many Latinos, so many immigrants who were like, either they were seeking a better life or they had to flee.

And that's what made this album so powerful.

Or if you've ever had to leave your home to make a better life or fulfill your dreams, this is an album for you.

I am a music journalist and editor at Delos, the Latin culture wing of the LA Times.

Now, you are not just any journalist, any music journalist.

You are the music journalist who has profiled Bad Bunny multiple times and each.

I mean, a lot of it was over Zoom in 2020.

My most famous profile of him was in 2020 for Rolling Stone, for the COVID of Rolling Stone, for which I became the first Latina to write a Rolling Stone cover story.

And we spent hours together on Zoom, because I was on my way to the island and then everything shut down because of COVID So.

So, yeah, and on the COVID he has a mask.

He's like, pulling down, you know, what we now see as that Covid era mask.

I remember when I was coming up, if I tried to pitch an up and coming musician, it was always this super involved pitch.

No, I promise you, they're really interesting.

It took a lot of campaigning because I, you know, I kept showing up to meetings and I was like.

I was like, J. Balvin, Bad Bunny, they're blowing up.

And, like, you may not understand them literally, but people are, like, on to them.

It's something that we would hate to miss, like, as.

Like, I was like, these are not artists that you should be missing out on right now.

It would be best if we were early to make the call.

I mean, I started campaigning in 2018, especially after bad Bunny and J. Balvin.

They landed their first number one hit with Cardi B in 2018, which was called I Like it.

And I mean, I was into them already, just, you know, by the grace of growing up Latina and growing up well.

But this is why I'm asking about this is like, I'm from Jamaica, so like reggae, reggaeton.

Like, I'm sort of like vaguely aware of this, but

I'm also aware that people see them as some ethnic music over there.

And over the last couple years, that has changed so radically that we can now land in this moment for Bad Bunny.

Like that this thing that just happened with the super bowl, in a way, was a culmination of something not just for.

I feel like the sea change has already come in the music industry, and

Like when I think about a moment in the halftime show, you know, my little middle school heart sort of jumped out of my chest when it was like Ricky Martin appeared.

And it's because when Ricky Martin burst on the scene with the Grammys.

Keep that in mind, the Grammys, he literally was already making music and doing great.

But he literally burst out with this phenomenal legend Grammy performance.

And this is at the time where people were like the Latin explosion.

Even though it was all artists who in a way, were being embraced for singing in English.

Were being embraced specifically for their crossover appeal.

That's kind of one of the times I remember thinking people were like, talking about how global the music scene was.

That's when they were siloing everything into, like, world music.

If you were making music that wasn't in English, you'd be thrown in a bucket called world music.

And if you wanted to make it in the mainstream, you had to sing in English or bust.

And that's why it was so wild having Ricky Martin sing in the show.

Not just because, you know, Bad Bunny sort of saying, look, here's an artist I looked up to and I want to give him his flowers.

But he had him singing a song that, as far as I was reading, is kind of an anti colonial anthem on the Bad Bunny album.

So tell me about this song and tell me about that, because I do think this kind of song is the difference between a Ricky Martin and a Bad Bunny.

I mean, Ricky Martin singing Lo Que Le Pasoa, Hawaii, you know, what happened to Hawaii?

And singing it in Spanish, which is a language that, you know, most people in the United States is not familiar with.

Hearing him sing in was a really beautiful moment for Ricky Martin as well.

You know, like, beautiful moment for Bad Bunny.

You know, he's really good about shouting out the people who came before him.

And he and Ricky, they have been working together since Bad Bunny released his 2018 album.

But for someone like Ricky Martin, who came up in a boy band in the 80s and really just worked tooth and nail to remain in the music industry, and

eventually he did make that crossover in the 90s by singing in English.

How can we forget, you know, but turning up weddings everywhere every year since.

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Did Bad Bunny win the culture war? | The Assignment

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