On Jan. 6, 2025, Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny won Dia de Los Reyes (Three Kings Day) by giving the world the best gift: a new album! DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (I should’ve taken more pictures), is Bad Bunny’s seventh studio album and dare I say, his best and most powerful album yet.
“I should’ve taken more pictures when I had you. I should’ve given you more kisses and hugs whenever I could,” “I thought I’d grow old with you. Maybe 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.”
At first glance, you may think that the renowned Latin Trap superstar is singing about a lost love, and you’re right, he is. The lost love in question: his home country, Puerto Rico.
DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is proof that Bad Bunny is at the top of his game. With previous smash hit albums, Un Verano Sin Ti (A Summer Without You), YHLQMDLG (I Do Whatever I Want), X 100pre (Forever) and El Último Tour Del Mundo (The Last Tour of the World), DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is much more than his previous works. “At the peak of my career and popularity, I want to show the world who I am, who Benito Antonio is, and who Puerto Rico is,” he said in a press release.
Though he is a known entertainer, making music for the enjoyment of his fans, Bad Bunny has used his large platform time and time again to discuss issues of gentrification, colonization, politics and much more with his music. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is just one example of this work.
Not only do the lyrics tell the story of Bad Bunny’s lost love, but the visuals used throughout the album show you. The album was released on YouTube with visuals including written histories by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, a professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which highlighted different eras of Puerto Rico’s political past and its social justice heroes.
There was also a short film included at the very beginning of the album depicting an older man (portrayed by Puerto Rican filmmaker and poet Jacob Morales) as he experiences his ever-changing neighborhood fall victim to gentrification, being taken over by Americans. Morales appears in several music videos album, personifying Puerto Rico’s deep, rich and beautiful past.
Bad Bunny takes you on a musical journey through the different sounds and genres he uses throughout the album. He uses his classic Reggaeton sound, but it isn’t the only genre he focuses on. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS ties tradition and modernity together through musical genres of salsa, reggaeton, bomba, dembow and plena, showing the rich diversity of the island.
Though he ventures into the various sounds of Puerto Rico, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS stays true to Bad Bunny’s musical roots: Reggaeton and Latin Trap. No matter where he goes, no matter what new sounds he experiments with, Bad Bunny will always find his way back home, whether that’s Puerto Rico or Reggaeton.
Bad Bunny has us all SOBBING to Reggaeton and I for one am here for it. As a long-time Bad Bunny fan (been here since before X 100pre dropped), I have never loved a body of work by Bad Bunny like I have with this album.
