When he was first discovered on Soundcloud in 2016, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio was working as a grocery store bag boy in his native Puerto Rico to pay his way through college. In the decade since then, Benito, now known as, Bad Bunny, has made a name for himself with anthemic Latin-pop, trap, and reggaeton tracks that ring out in clubs worldwide. He’s toured across continents and produced five successful studio albums in the last six years, all while proving himself to be a defining voice of Música Urbana in this generation. This year, on Día de los Reyes, and just days after Puerto Rican residents rang in the new year amid yet another nationwide power outage, boricua king of pop Bad Bunny released DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, a proud musical declaration of his authentic selfhood at the height of his success.
The album is sun-soaked, salt-sprayed, and awash in the light blue glow of Puerto Rican pride. It is Bad Bunny’s homecoming, a lyrically grounded, sonically rich dedication to the place and people that raised him. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS bursts with traditional Caribbean styles that Benito has innovated as his own. With the help of producers like Tainey and MAG, he draws from the rhythmic structures and instrumentation of Caribbean salsa, plena, and bomba (to name a few), while featuring fresh young Puerto Rican voices and staying true to the dembow, perreo, and reggaeton sounds that made him. You can feel his maturity, authenticity, and humility without compromising all of the fun, haughty, and youthful elements that first endeared the world to Bad Bunny.
Every detail—from the album’s release date, to the cover art, to the dedication––is a deliberate reflection of Bad Bunny’s history and, by extension, the history of Puerto Rico. Instead of a world tour for the album, he will complete a sold-out 30-day residency at San Juan’s Coliseo de Puerto Rico, for which tickets for the first nine shows are only available to island residents. This decision, in consideration with his choice to highlight solely Puerto Rican voices over more mainstream artists, is a stark contrast to the flashy, self-serving, LA-dwelling Benito of recent years, epitomized by 2023’s Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana. While he maintains the yearning, romantic poeticism that gave magic and success to Un Verano Sin Ti (2022), the newly 30-year-old Bad Bunny we meet in DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is more authentic, vulnerable, and powerful than ever before.
Bad Bunny has made political statements in the past through tracks like “El Apagón” (translated to “Blackout”) and “Afilando Los Cuchillos” (a call for the removal of 2019 Governer Ricardo Rosselló), but this is undoubtedly his most political album yet. Its release comes months after the Puerto Rican Independence Party lost crucial elections, and just weeks before Donald Trump returned to office. DTMF feels like a personal and geographic journey, from vibrant diasporic neighborhoods in New York and Orlando to the rolling mountains, lush rainforests, and rocky coastlines of Puerto Rico. In the album’s second track, Bad Bunny invites us to join him,
"Vo’a llevarte pa’ PR, mami, pa’ que vea’ cómo es que se perrea (I’m going to take you to Puerto Rico mami, so you can see how we dance perreo)”
He is coming home to a place rapidly changing in the face of mass-tourism and continuously grappling with its colonial past. Meanwhile, he’s coming to terms with aging, leaving his home behind, and coming down from the high of mass commercial success and fame. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS weaves this personal element with the political seamlessly. It is a triumph for Bad Bunny and a reminder that art is inextricable from the people and historical context that make it. The cacophony of Caribbean sounds, echoes of reggaeton legends, and veracious lyricism tell the story of an idyllic island facing ongoing exploitation and erasure, an island Bad Bunny declares joyfully that he’ll never leave.
“NUEVAYoL”, the album’s opener, perfectly encapsulates the style of Bad Bunny’s fusion, opening with salsa percussion that soon leads into a quintessential dembow bassline. The main refrain is sampled from El Gran Combo’s 1975 classic “Un Verano en Nueva York”, an appropriate lead-in to the kind of artistic homage paid throughout the 16 tracks that follow.
"¿Cómo Bad Bunny va a ser rey del pop, / Ey, con reggaetón y dembow? (How’s Bad Bunny gonna be the king of pop / Hey, with reggaeton and dembow?)"
It’s a fitting introduction to the story the album tells. While musical styles are woven together, the track also offers an abrupt transition from old to new, mirroring a style repeated on many of the other tracks. It is a distinctly boricua celebration of heritage, culture, and diasporic community, and a perfect indication of what's to come.
Among nearly 20 tracks filled with rich instrumentation, “BAILE INoLVIDABLE” is unmatched in its vibrancy, an undeniably catchy and sonically expansive reflection on growth and loss. In it, Bad Bunny mourns lost love and comes to terms with the fact that life is a party that must end. He layers rhythmic salsa with an orchestral cascade of brass, bells, and drums, all woven together with a passionate chorus that comes and goes like waves to a shore.
“No, no te puedo olvidar / No, no te puedo borrar / Tú me enseñaste a querer / Me enseñaste a bailar” (“No, I can’t forget you / No, I can’t erase you / You taught me to love / You taught me to dance")
The joyful, danceable salsa instrumentation, performed by students from el Libre de Música San Juan, provides a backdrop to the sorrow of lost love. The song tugs on your heart and begs you to dance in a way that is reminiscent of iconic salseros of the past. It takes you everywhere from hand drums to a synthy reggaeton beat to a melodic flood of horns, even turning to a stripped-down piano solo, all intertwined with Bad Bunny’s longing baritone and a chorus of voices. In "BAILE INoLVIDABLE", he is singing to a personified Puerto Rico, conflated with a first love, and insisting that he is incapable of forgetting what they meant to him.
"Pensaba que contigo iba a envejecer / En otra vida en otro mundo podrá ser / En esta solo queda irme un día / Y solamente verte en el atardecer (I thought I'd grow old with you / In another life, in another world, it could be/ In this one, all that's left is for me to leave one day / And only see you in the sunset)"
In returning home to Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny returns home to himself. This open version of him once again reflects on heartbreak—only this time, it’s reframed through innovative odes to Puerto Rican musical tradition, lush instrumentation, and a profound love for his roots. “EL CLúB” invites you to join in Benito’s heartbreak, using echoey synths and glitchy electronic textures to create a slow-motion sound you’d associate with a hazy mind, crowded club, and lonely thoughts. The track builds into an irresistible chorus that begs you to sing along and move before slowing back down into a cha-cha rhythm. It is a more stripped-down, vulnerable version of the dance-driven songs Bad Bunny has given us in the past, which many fans missed on his last album.
“VeLDÁ” is a perfect exemplification of the album’s danceability, with its club-ready, bass-driven track empowered by the new school suave vocals of trap sensations Omar Courtz and Dei V and the classic sound of old schooler Wisin. “VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR” also has that dancehall sound, fitting for a track in which he invites a woman to Puerto Rico to see how they dance perreo.
OG reggaeton sounds from the 90s and early 2000s are present throughout the album, with features like Wisin’s and the presence of heavy base and reverberating synths inherent to the genre. “EoO” (taken from the ending of perreo) takes these classic sonic elements and infuses them with innovation. The vibrant track is built around a sample from Hector and Tito’s 2002 “Perreo Baby”, building into a sweltering song perfectly set to become a club classic. In it, he talks about dancing perreo, going down on a woman who just turned 30, and being one of Puerto Rico’s greats.
"Está' escuchando música de Puerto Rico cabrón / Nosotros nos criando escuchando y cantando eso / En los caseríos, en los barrios / Desde los 90 hasta el 2000 por siempre / Y ando con el mejor de to los tiempos (You're listening to music from Puerto Rico, fool / We grew up listening to and singing this / In the housing projects, in the neighborhoods / From the 90s to the 2000s and forever / And I'm rolling with the best of all time, Tainy)"
Other songs draw on more Latin-pop or house styles. RaiNao’s ethereal vocals paint a hazy daydream over pulsating bass and distorted synth waves in “PERFuMITO NUEVO”, the album’s fourth and most flirtatious track. “WELTiTA” is similarly enhanced by the powerful voice of Chuwi’s Lorén Aldarondo, but in their indie-pop style, fusing with the feelings and folklore of Puerto Rico’s coastal communities.
While tracks like “KETU TeCRÉ”, “KLOuFRENS”, and “BOKeTE” fell flat for me amongst the lush arrangement of the rest of the album, they continue themes of nostalgia and longing with a laid-back instrumentation and glitchiness that sets them apart. Most of the track titles come from Puerto Rican slang; “KETU TeCRÉ” means “who do you think you are” (a shortened “que tu te crees?”), and “BOKeTE” is a word for pothole. The song comments on the lack of infrastructure investment in Puerto Rico by comparing a relationship or ex he wants to avoid like a pothole, prominent in roads all over the island.
“KLOuFRENS” (slang for “close friends”) also talks about wanting to avoid an ex, but being unable to do so due to their "close friends" story—it's essentially about social media stalking. The song’s classic reggaeton sound leads into the soft, tropical strings of “TURiSTA”. This takes us into a song that is less late-night desire and more unadulterated hurt and yearning, directed at a transient romantic partner.
"En mi vida fuistes turista / Tú solo vistes lo mejor de mí / Y no lo que yo sufría / Te fuiste sin saber el porqué / El porqué de mis herida (In my life, you were a tourist / You only saw the best of me / And not when I was suffering / You left without knowing the why / The reason for my wounds)"
The song uses a cuatro-led bolero style to enhance longing and nostalgia. Its message carries a duality, serving as both communication from a hurt lover to an ex and as a plea from the island of Puerto Rico to the influx of tourists that exploit it.
The soft nostalgia of "TURiSTA” is swiftly lifted by the plena-heavy, celebratory “CAFé CON RON” (Coffee with rum). Plena emerged as a musical genre in the early 20th century and is widely known as “el periódico cantado”, or “the sung newspaper”, because of its origins amongst working class, Afro-Puerto Rican communities in the southern urban center of Ponce. It has historically served as an important way of communicating social and political messages in the face of marginalization and corruption. In “CAFé CON RON”, the genre swings and moves alongside impactful congos, swelling with the talent of Los Pleneros de La Cresta. The ensemble band is largely accredited with revitalizing plena, which is typically associated with Puerto Rican Christmas music. “PIToRRO DE COCO”, titled after a Christmas rum drink, employs a more traditional plena sound, this time in the form of a late-night, lustful holiday song.
Where “TURiSTA” and "CAFé CON RON” contain political subtleties, the ominous “LO QUE PAS´O A HAWAii” seems to be Bad Bunny’s direct call for Puerto Rican independence. In it, he compares the displacement of Hawaiians following its statehood to the colonial history and gentrification of his own island home. The rhythm creeps in, employing a folk musical style coming from the jibaro people of Puerto Rico's Mountains and countryside. Guitars swell as Bad Bunny meditates on possibilities and vows to protect his culture.
“Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa / Quieren el barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya / No, no suelte’ la bandera ni olvide’ el lelolai / Que no quiero que hagan contigo lo que le pasó a Hawái / (They want to take away my river and also the beach / they want my neighborhood and for my grandma to leave / No, don’t let go of the flag or forget the lelolai / I don’t want them to do to you what happened to Hawaii)"
The original Puerto Rican flag contained a light blue color, designed in solidarity with other colonized Caribbean nations. In the mid-20th century, the flag was outlawed by a US-appointed government, remaining illegal to fly until 1957, when the sky blue color was officially changed to the navy blue of the U.S. flag. Today, the light blue version serves as a symbol for the independence movement, a symbol Bad Bunny alludes to here, and heavily in the album’s closing track, “LA MuDANZA”.
"Aquí mataron gente por sacar la bandera / por eso es que agora yo la llevo donde quiera (They killed people here for waving the flag, that's why I bring it anywhere I want now)"
The song is an unapologetic declaration of pride and dedication to his culture. In a style fusing hip-hop lyricism and salsa instrumentation, Bad Bunny kicks off the album’s conclusion with a narration of his parent’s life; the song is really an ode to them. After thanking his parents, the track cuts to digitized glitches and then launches into a blaring frenzy of horns and rumba rhythms, accompanied by piano and Benito’s impassioned declarations.
"Si mañana muero, yo espero que nunca olviden mi rostro / Y pongan un tema mío el díq que traigan a Hostos / En la caja, la bandera azul clarito / Y que recuerden que siempre fui yo, siempre fui Benito (If I die tomorrow I hope you never forget my face / And that you play one of my songs when they bring Hostos back / In the light blue coffin / And remember that I was always me, I was always Benito)"
This line from “LA MuDANZA" refers to Eugenio María de Hostos, a Puerto Rican Independence activist who died in the Dominican Republic in 1903. Hostos famously requested that his remains be returned to Puerto Rico only when the island is granted independence. Drums drive the song exemplified in restless percussion solos that underlie chanting vocals and shouts. The album’s power culminates in “LA MuDANZA’s” refrain and its final line.
“Yo soy de P’f*****’R / ¡Viva! (I’m from Puerto f**** Rico /Long Live!)"
If you’re on TikTok, you’ve most likely heard the album's title track, “DtMF” trending, with users posting its sentimental lyrics alongside old photos of lost loved ones, pets, and places. The videos are hard to scroll through without tearing up. Though the song is joyful and catchy, employing the classic celebratory call-and-response style of plena, it is also a somber reflection of the aching feeling that comes with leaving people and places behind, growing and moving on while trying to maintain a connection to your roots.
"Debí tirar más fotos de cuando te tuve / Debí darte mas besos y abrazos las veces que pude / Ey, Ojala que lo' mio' nunca se muden / Y si hoy me emborracho, pues que me ayuden (I should have taken more photos when I had you / I should have given you more kisses and hugs the times that I could / I hope my people never move away / And if I get drunk today, I hope they help me out"
The first chorus is sung alone, but subsequent verses and choruses turn into a group of voices joyfully harmonizing amongst lush rhythms and Nintendo-style synths. Bad Bunny is taking the responsibility of his role as a cultural ambassador seriously and is proudly declaring he will treasure and protect this place, but he won't do it alone.
DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is Bad Bunny’s most masterful work yet, a sonic homecoming and unapologetically boricua expression of identity, loss, life, and community. Listening to it, you feel as if you’re sitting with Bad Bunny and his corillo in the white lawn chairs on the album’s cover, sipping rum and listening as they mess around with drums and guitars. By releasing this album at the height of his career, Bad Bunny partakes in a profound act of advocacy at a critical time in Puerto Rico’s history. His inclusion of timeless samples and traditional bomba, salsa, plena, and jíbaro instrumentation, combined with his danceable club-primed reggaeton, appeal even to older generations of puertorriqueños who’ve historically viewed Urbana Látina as too explicit or vulgar. The album is accompanied by visualizers for each song, created in collaboration with professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Each one details a different part of Puerto Rican history, from its inceptions to contemporary struggles. A short film was also released with the album, starring Jacobo Morales, a Puerto Rican Oscar-nominated director. The film features an anthropomorphized frog affectionately named Concho, for the Sapo Concho frog, a native species facing extinction due to invasive species on the island. The frog is also known for its nightly chorus. These masterfully crafted characters and elements work alongside expert lyricism and production to create an album of extraordinary aesthetic and cultural impact.
Shortly following the start of the TikTok trend using “DtMF,” Bad Bunny posted his third-ever TikTok to the song— his face painted in disbelief and eyes welling with tears as he nodded his head at the impact he's made... the matured, artistically elevated version of that young bag boy making Soundcloud beats, watching as the world embraces him and the diverse, vibrant, and powerful place that built him.
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