Bad Bunny shows his commitment to Puerto Rico in his video: “El Apagón”

When it comes to music stars, you can like their songs, their attitude, the way they dress, but when they use their fame as a platform to send a strong message, you certainly have to look at them in a different way. Bad Bunny’s last music video, “El Apagón” (The Blackout) is the perfect example of an artist who hasn’t forgotten his roots and shows a deep commitment to his home country, Puerto Rico. 

As the director of the video, Kacho Lopez, said in an interview with the BBC: “It’s kind of a Trojan horse in a way that it uses Bad Bunny´s popularity and his platform to get people that were not looking for a documentary on these issues and having them come to have fun, come to get entertained by the music and all of a sudden, ‘wait, what is he talking about’?.” 

So, how did he manage to do this? Lopez stated that Bad Bunny had asked him how they could turn a music video into a documentary. So they set out to do just that. The video begins rather conventionally, with the artist mentioning several good things about Puerto Rico, like their “sazón” (spiciness), J.J. Barea who played for the NBA and reggaeton pioneer Tego Calderón. 

But then, like the preview of a documentary, the video is interrupted with the image of an explosion from back in April, which led to a blackout that affected thousands of Puerto Ricans, and another blackout in August that left one of the most important hospitals in the country with no electricity for almost 20 hours. Independent Puerto Rican journalist Bianca Graulau explains that this has happened after the energy distribution passed to the hand of a privately owned US-Canadian company, with the promise that service would improve. That, of course, didn’t happen. 

“Maldita sea, otro apagón” (Damn, another blackout), says Bad Bunny (born Benito Martinez Ocasio), returning to his song, with images of a party and lots of people dancing and “perreando.” And then the voice of his girlfriend, Gabriela Berlingeri, is heard singing in Spanish: “I don’t want to leave here. Let them go (in reference to foreign capitals). What belongs to me, they take away. This is my beach. This is my sun. This is my land. This is me.” 

That’s the transition to an 18-minute report by Graulau, “Aquí vive gente” (People live here), that shows how the historic residents of beach areas of Puerto Rico have been forced to leave their homes after they were bought by foreign investors and turned into tourism developments. Now, even though the law states that all beaches are public, local residents can´t go to some of them, since private owners have blocked access. 

Of course, the mix between music video and news documentary has assured that millions of people will learn from these issues (it has almost 8 million visits on YouTube since it was launched on September 16th). The song “El Apagón” is off his best-selling album “Un verano sin ti” and the video was released two days after hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico, causing a general blackout, interrupting the water service and leaving many areas completely flooded. 

Bad Bunny – El Apagón – Aquí Vive Gente

What is happening in Puerto Rico?

This is almost five years after another hurricane, Maria, caused the death of nearly 3,000 people and was the source of massive damage to the power grid, which left many residents without electricity for almost a year. In fact, the first time Bad Bunny appeared on television, on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2018, he mentioned that Puerto Ricans were still trying to recover from the damage and pointed out that then-president Donald Trump didn’t seem to be aware of that. 

In the end, don´t let the catchy rhythm of his songs fool you; some lyrics and music videos are filled with strong defiance. In a concert in San Juan (Puerto Rico), last July, he said to the crowd: “We have a government over us that messes up our lives” and added “The country belongs to us, and we are the ones in control.” That night, Bad Bunny performed “El Apagón,” and talked about his gender fluid dress code,which we’ve covered, his support to empowered women and the LGBTQAI+ community. Keep on inviting us to question the way things are, Conejo Malo!