Overview of Today Explained — "Bad Bunny keeps winning"
This rebroadcast episode from Vox’s Today Explained previews Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime appearance by revisiting his summer 30-show residency in Puerto Rico. The episode mixes first‑hand reporting from Andrea González Ramírez (The Cut) about attending the shows with an interview of Jarrell (Jorel) Meléndez Badillo, a historian who helped craft the album’s historical visualizers and texts. The residency is framed as both a cultural celebration and a political statement about Puerto Rican identity, colonialism, diaspora grief, and generational change.
Key takeaways
- Bad Bunny (Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) staged a 30‑show residency in Puerto Rico that centered Puerto Rican music, history, and identity, blending traditional genres with his reggaetón/pop catalog.
- The residency functioned as a love letter to the island and an act of cultural and political affirmation — especially meaningful for the diaspora and a generation shaped by crisis.
- Historian Jarrell Meléndez Badillo collaborated on 17 song visualizers and dozens of historical texts, incorporating topics often left out of mainstream narratives (surveillance, colonial governance, plena/bomba roots).
- The project deliberately highlighted Puerto Rico’s colonial status and ongoing fiscal/political crises (e.g., the unelected fiscal oversight board), converting pop spectacle into a platform for awareness and resistance.
- The residency demonstrated an alternative model for global success: an artist of Bad Bunny’s reach can center Spanish-language art and Puerto Rican culture without “crossing over” to Anglophone markets for validation.
Episode highlights
Residency experience (Andrea González Ramírez)
- Tickets: first nine shows sold only to Puerto Rico residents in person; later shows sold online, creating intense demand.
- Venue vibe: carnival/fiesta patronal atmosphere outside the arena; many attendees wore traditional clothing (pavas, jibaro dresses) and locals’ community energy was palpable.
- Stage design: two main performance areas — a main stage evoking rural/old Puerto Rico and a “pink casita” stage for erotic, explicit perreo numbers.
- Set structure: roughly four acts:
- Fusion of modern music with traditional Puerto Rican arrangements.
- Acoustic/"Sad Bunny" segment focused on heartbreak.
- Guest/audience interaction and cultural call‑outs.
- Salsa-heavy finale with a large live band (Héctor Lavoe–inspired aesthetic).
- Emotional impact: the show was cathartic for diaspora attendees — described as healing, proud, and politically resonant. Songs about displacement and staying (e.g., closing songs) provoked tears and communal chanting (“Yo soy Boricua, pa’ que tú lo sepas”).
Historical collaboration & visualizers (Jarrell Meléndez Badillo)
- Meléndez Badillo was approached to create historical narratives for each visualizer (one per track), tracing Puerto Rican history from pre‑Columbian times to the present.
- He intentionally included underdiscussed topics (Afro‑Puerto Rican rhythms like bomba and plena, surveillance and repression, sports and pop culture references like Tito Trinidad and Carlos Arroyo).
- The visualizer project democratized historical knowledge, bringing scholarship into mainstream music channels and complementing the album’s sonic references.
Political implications and generational context
- The residency and album foreground Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship with the U.S., fiscal crises, and political disenfranchisement (e.g., lack of full representation, power of the federal fiscal oversight board).
- Bad Bunny’s visible support for political movements (e.g., pro‑independence party events) and refusal to prioritize a U.S. tour early on were read as deliberate political gestures.
- A “crisis generation” (those who grew up amid austerity, Hurricane Maria, earthquakes, infrastructure failures) is becoming more politically active; Bad Bunny amplifies and reflects that politicization.
Notable quotes & moments
- Host intro paraphrase: Bad Bunny dedicated his Album of the Year award “to all the people that had to leave their homeland…to follow their dreams.”
- Andrea on the show’s emotional power: “It kind of healed me…this is the best thing.”
- Meléndez Badillo on Bad Bunny’s choice: “He could have kept talking about expensive cars…But he came back to Puerto Rico.”
- Lyrical sentiment invoked at the close of the show: “de aquí nadie me saca” — a line that conveys defiance and belonging.
Recommendations & further reading
- Read Andrea González Ramírez’s piece (referenced in the episode) for a full first‑person account: “Letting Go of My Diaspora Grief at the Bad Bunny Residency” (link via NYMag/The Cut as cited in the episode).
- Watch Bad Bunny’s visualizers and the residency clips to see how music and curated historical visuals interact.
- For context on Puerto Rico’s fiscal oversight board and recent political history, consult reporting on the 2015 fiscal control law and post‑Maria governance debates.
Episode credits & metadata
- Show: Today Explained (Vox)
- Host/Narrator segments: Andrea González Ramírez (senior writer, The Cut)
- Guest/collaborator: Jarrell (Jorel) Meléndez Badillo — associate professor of Latin American and Caribbean history, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison
- Producers/editing: Avishai Artsy (producer), Amin Al‑Sadi (editor); Laura Bullard (fact‑check); Patrick Boyd (audio)
- Distributed by WNYC / Vox Media Podcast Network
This episode situates Bad Bunny’s residency as a cultural triumph that doubles as political messaging — an artist using global fame to center Puerto Rican music, history, and the island’s contemporary struggles.