Every year, millions of tourists flock to Puerto Rico, but at the same time, millions of Puerto Ricans leave. It is a pattern not unique to the island, but common across many developing countries, where places become destinations for outsiders rather than stable, livable homes for the people who actually live there.
For Bad Bunny, the globally recognized Puerto Rican rapper and singer whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, this tension is front and center in his latest album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (I Should’ve Taken More Photos, 2025). Throughout the album, he raises the question: how can a country’s people meaningfully reconnect with their cultural identity, beyond nostalgia and the image crafted for outsiders?
When we talk about cultural impact, the assumption is often that culture is used merely as a tool to build bridges between countries. But Bad Bunny is not playing that role. What he represents instead is a new wave of artists who are more interested in confronting the histories of their homelands before translating them to a global audience.
It is a reminder that an artist can put their country on the global map, not by packaging their culture for mass appeal, but by pushing back against that very expectation. Their work encourages reflection on identity and colonialism, using culture as a way to shed light on injustices that are often ignored.
This is exactly why the making of this album did not follow the usual formula. Bad Bunny did not only step into a studio to lay down a few emotionally charged tracks about missing home, or sprinkle in some local slang and instruments to manufacture a “global Puerto Rican sound.”
Instead, to give the album real weight, he collaborated with historians and ethnographers to unpack the legacy of Spanish and U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico, bringing the conversation around decolonization into the global mainstream.
Rather than distancing himself from academia, he leaned into it. He reached out to scholars like Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, a historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who worked with him to write contextual entries for 17 songs in just one week.
What came out of it was not just a music album; it was a deeply human one. Not only for global listeners, but for Puerto Ricans themselves, who found new layers of their own history unfolding in each track. The album dives deep into Puerto Rican history, touching on everything from the creation of the island’s flag and the 1508 Spanish conquest to labor strikes in the sugarcane industry.
These themes come to life most vividly in the 12-minute short film that accompanies the album, where an older version of Bad Bunny wanders through a Puerto Rico he no longer recognizes, now gentrified and overtaken by English speakers. The culture feels distant, erased; a vision of what gets lost when history is ignored and identity is rewritten.
In an interview with Apple Music this year, Bad Bunny explained that this album was about going back to Puerto Rico, and taking others with him. Not as a tourist, but as someone returning home. It is about revisiting his roots, reconnecting with family, and reclaiming his identity. A return to a Puerto Rico stripped of foreign filters, one that speaks to its true self beyond the gaze of outsiders.
One of the most powerful tracks on the album is TURiSTA (Tourist), a melancholic, stripped-down song where Bad Bunny reflects on a lover who only ever saw the glamorous side of his life, never the pain beneath it. On the surface, it sounds like a heartbreak ballad. Yet, like much of the album, it carries a deeper double meaning.
Beneath the love story is a critique of tourism and privilege. He is speaking to tourists drawn to the Caribbean for its beaches, yet indifferent to supporting local communities, criticizing especially American buyers who purchase property in Puerto Rico, inflate housing prices, and displace residents, all while showing little concern for the impact of their actions.
“You only saw the best of me and not what I was suffering,” he sings. It is a message to those who consume a country’s beauty without engaging with its reality. To those who visit Puerto Rico, but refuse to truly connect with it.
Lessons for Arab artists
Bad Bunny may have helped catapult Latin music into the global mainstream, but his success is rooted in authentically telling the full story of where he comes from. He digs into its history, its pain, and its realities, providing something more powerful than performance: a real and local perspective.
That kind of authenticity holds lessons for Arab and Egyptian artists now gaining global visibility. Over the past few years, Egyptian musician Mohamed Ramadan performed at Coachella for the first time, rapper Wegz embarked on a world tour with Live Nation, and Palestinian artists like Elyanna and Saint Levant continue to build international followings.
There is so much more to the Arab world, and to Arabic music, than what is commonly seen or understood today; its history stretches far beyond the narrative of conflict and turmoil, rooted in a deep cultural legacy that goes beyond pharaonic icons and decorative Arabic script.
Embedded within this heritage are philosophies, expressions, and enduring wisdoms that have carried generations through adversity with resilience.
There are also pressing issues that deserve attention. Across the Arab world, and within its global diaspora, there is a growing crisis of identity. The younger generation often finds itself disconnected, from the Arabic language, from ancestral dialects, from stories never passed down, or lost in translation.
This disconnection is deepened by the instability and hardship that prevent many from returning to their home countries, not just physically, but emotionally, economically, and politically. For many in the diaspora, “home” becomes a place spoken of in the past tense, or romanticized through the lens of their parents’ or grandparents’ memories.
It is time we reflect more deeply on what it means to remain connected to where we come from. Beyond the nostalgia, beyond the summer visits and the stories we inherit, lies the harder and more essential work of return, not just as tourists or guests, but as participants in shaping the future of our homelands.
What makes Bad Bunny’s success stand out is that he does not just perform Puerto Rico; he studies it. For instance, for his latest album rollout, instead of a conventional tracklist reveal, he dropped song titles through GPS coordinates scattered across the island. Fans had to find them via Google Street View, turning Puerto Rico into a digital map of history, memory, and meaning.
For artists from the Arab world stepping onto the world stage, there is a clear takeaway that they all can benefit from Bad Bunny’s album: representing one’s country, on its own, is not enough.
Because cultural impact does not come from visibility alone. It comes from telling the stories others won’t, and doing so with depth, truth, and purpose.
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