In the style of Rene, the blatant confession in the form of a song that Residente released shortly before the pandemic. This is the tone in which the new album from Bad Bunny, the pop star who made Spanish overtake English in global listening, begins. The song is called “Nobody Knows” and for 6 minutes and 19 seconds, the Puerto Rican artist expresses the other side of fame: “Being alone with a hundred thousand people in front of you. / Let all people talk about you without knowing anything, without knowing you. / And they even wish you dead.” It’s a song with piano, violins and orchestral arrangements, where Bad Bunny not only raps, but speaks into the ears of anyone who will listen. “I haven’t seen my therapist in a while. / Maybe that’s why I’m squinting. / This album may not be played in a million views. / So that my true fans are happy even if I don’t feel 100% inside. / So they can cancel me and hate me.”
It’s the song that opens “Nobody Knows What’s Going to Happen Tomorrow,” Bad Bunny’s very long new album, on all platforms this Friday at 6 p.m. There are 22 songs, one hour and 21 minutes of music, produced by Tainy, MAG and La Paciencia, among others, and in collaboration with Arcángel, Bryant Myers, De La Ghetto and Eladio Carrión.
The fifth album by Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, 29 years old) is a hit on the table, an album far from reggaeton and commercial parameters. In a way it’s a return to his origins, to trap, to hip hop; also to experiment, with electronic sound frameworks and with dozens of messages here and there, for rivals, ex-partners and with a lot of confirmation of what he understands as authentic: a star who enjoys his wealth from humble beginnings. Of course, he also includes the sexual lyrics that are so characteristic of his discography (but this time without twerking) and even a reference to Shakira in the song Los Pits, in which he says: “Now the men cry, yes, but without stopping with the reckoning.” ” .
The singer had already warned that it would be his most personal album: “Now I feel more confident than ever to talk about what I think, what I feel and how I live it through my music.” In this sense, can you can understand that it is signed “Bad Bunny / Benito” in the album folder. The focus is on Benito, the man who was born 29 years ago in Veja Baja, a small community in northern Puerto Rico, as the eldest of three siblings. His mother is a teacher and his father is a truck driver.
Among so much music, there are standout moments like Baticano (spelled with B), where he devotes 4 minutes and 16 seconds to denouncing hypocrisy in the name of God and in relation to sex: “No man on earth has the right to judge In the name of Christ … I kiss with Villano, I kiss with Tokischa [las cantantes Villano Antillano y Tokischa] And if you don’t like it, it’s because you don’t like chicha… My God, forgive me, because I have sinned again… but I didn’t invent sex or marijuana. There is little reggaeton to be heard on the album, only two songs: Perro negro and Un Preview.
The entire album release process confirms that Bad Bunny does not agree with the habits of the old industry. The Puerto Rican no longer announces his layoffs months in advance and devotes the days leading up to non-exhaustive interview sessions in which he answers the same questions over and over again. They are two actions that most artists continue to practice. But not Bad Bunny. The Latino star informs about the release of his new albums a few days in advance (in this case four) and uses a closed communication network: lately he has been doing this via WhatsApp with all followers who want To for his account. And it seems he’s doing well, because the industry is eating out of his hand: in 2022, he recorded more views on digital platforms than Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, he starred in the highest-grossing tour in the history of one Latin American artist and his album “A Summer Without You” crowned urban music the most listened to genre worldwide. Was something missing? Maybe not, but it happened: his relationship with a Kardashian, model Kendall Jenner.
Cover of Bad Bunny’s new album “Nobody Knows What Will Happen Tomorrow”.
Bunny also tends to change his mind regularly. That, or he’s playing the distraction game. In 2022, he said that 2023 would be a year of calm, but there was no sign of that. In April, he became the first Latin singer to headline California’s star-studded Coachella festival (performing a two-hour concert at the apotheosis of the Latin language), and now he’s releasing a new album, the fifth of his career.
The number of songs (22) on “Nobody Knows What’s Going to Happen Tomorrow” is nothing new, as the Puerto Rican is always generous in his work: X 100pre (2018), his debut, contains 15 songs (54 minutes); YHLQMDLG (2020), 20 tracks (65 minutes); The last world tour (2020), 16 songs (47 minutes), and A Summer Without You (2022), ends at 23 songs (81 minutes).
All lyrics on the new album are again in Spanish, avoiding the capital language of pop, English, now threatened by the Latin American hurricane. “I feel in Spanish, I think in Spanish, I eat in Spanish, I sing in Spanish,” said Bunny, who claimed the Latin identity from the start. He doesn’t consider himself a social agitator, but his actions in this sense are quite a few. Just remember the theme of his previous album, El apagón, a political denunciation of corruption in his country with the common denominator of power outages in many Latin American countries. He was also one of the most active artists calling for the resignation of Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Roselló, who has been accused of corruption. Historical is the image of him, Residente and Ricky Martin in the streets of San Juan, leading a march against Roselló, who eventually resigned.
The album ends with the preview of the reggaeton song Un, no coincidence for those who like to delve into the details of the Bunny universe that, by the way, the artist tries to nourish. The song begins with a message from the singer: “Come here to put something on to give you a preview of what’s next.” This trailer at the very end seems to be a message that in the coming months a reggaeton album will be released. First we have to see if, on the contrary, this new album surpasses the numbers of the previous ones.
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