Bad Bunny
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There are two things I fear: the first, the most important, is the relentless passage of time, which, with blatant arrogance, fades everything, plundering its peculiarities and casting it into oblivion; the second, less impactful, is the exact moment when I will no longer be able to find a point of contact with the music that moves the heads of younger generations.

There's nothing you can do about it; sooner or later it happens to everyone: some at 25, some at 40, and those who are born completely detached from their own era find refuge only in an opaque idealized past, more a product of mental musings and distorted projections vomited by others. It's a fact; there's nothing you can do about it.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and with the specter of 30 approaching (damn it, I feel its foul breath on my neck), I too experience some cracks as an avid listener. It hasn't gone bad so far, but certain youthful waves just don't tickle my balls. Zero, rubbish from australopithecines shoving bananas up their butts moving to the rhythm. Had I been a few years younger, I probably would have shoved those bananas up my butt too, moving to the rhythm. Or maybe not.

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THE DAMNED REGGAETON, filthy pimples on the society's buttocks, is the dominant genre of the last 10 years, spitting on the backside of any other genre from its throne on music streaming apps. A young genre (I'm not going to give you a history lesson, it doesn't interest me, it doesn't interest you, who are indeed the pimples on the buttocks of society). A vast production, on a global scale, that torments us whether we like it or not. It used to be a divertissement confined to the summer time frame, but now something comes out every damn week. On May 4th, November 2nd, August 13th, damn it, even on Christmas day, one of these cursed Bedouins thinks of releasing yet another hit. Yes, my dear ones: it's only hits we're talking about.

And yet, such a vast production still struggles to find its own dignity, products that, although focused on moving the hips, can boast a certain nobility. We've achieved it with every musical form, even that EDM rubbish is looked back on with nostalgia, sometimes even called CLASSICS.

This particularly annoys a charming and colorful character with the curious stage name of Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio: an atypical figure, a child of Puerto Rico, with a craze for women and cars, who has made crossover and fusion the cornerstones of his musical proposal.

Let's proceed in order: in 2013, he started quietly by releasing a few tracks on Soundcloud, and success wasn't long in coming; a small temporal leap, it's 2018, December 24th, and Bad Bunny releases his debut album, which quickly reaches diamond status. Seven months later, a collaboration with another genre institution, J Balvin, and yet another feast of platinum records. Nine months later, on the brink of the global pandemic, with clubs around the world exhaling their last breaths before closing, he releases his manifesto.

Translated: I DO WHATEVER I WANT

And he does it, damn it. Music that finds its raison d'être solely on the dance floors, slimy as it moves through sweaty bodies intoxicated with alcohol, arrives on all platforms on February 29th of that fateful 2020.

A giant product (a hefty tracklist containing a whopping 20 tracks), an exciting and colorful musical kaleidoscope with a summery flavor, capable of capturing the essence of those lazy, sun-soaked July afternoons when the heat narcotizes every vital impulse. A musical journey teetering between contemporary (t)rap and classical reggaeton stylistics. A nod to great pieces of the past, cleaned up and adapted. Goodbye to that obsession with machismo at all costs, always a peculiarity of the genre, a cultural legacy of a messed-up context. Sexuality is ever-present, less vulgar, evoked through dance, perreo. In other contexts, it's been called progressive, but the concept of flexibility is more fitting, a result of a great interpretation of the times.

Starting from the sugary opening, Si veo a tu mamá, with that killer chorus and that gummy melody, what oozes is an obvious pop soul, which runs throughout the work in its colorful facets, whether it's the cloudy atmospheres of the more melancholic Pero ya no or the more aggressive Está cabrón ser yo, a rap episode enhanced by the presence of AA Anuel where the compelling flow will make your hips move. A dutiful mention then to Safaera, which condenses 30 years of Puerto Rican music into less than 5 minutes. A track with almost prog tints in its chaotic charm.

The damn reggaeton, which is today's pop language. The one that, believe me, will make you drown in an ASTONISHING amount of women.

Young music. Have you lost contact, or are you still in touch?