Bad Bunny's New Album Confronts the Dark Realities of Tourism in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico is a singular force in the Caribbean, drawing in an ever-growing wave of tourism for its powerful creative scene, beautiful beaches and great food. But the industry's rise has led to growing tensions over the cultural impacts of gentrification, a struggle Bad Bunny addresses in the album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.
“Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa / Quieren el barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya" — they want to take the river, and also the beach, they want my neighbourhood, and to kick out my grandmother, sings Bad Bunny aka Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio on the song 'LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii’ from his sixth solo album.
It feels timely— just days before the album dropped, a white tourist from Missouri set fire to a bar in Cabo Rojo. After being kicked out for aggressively insisting on buying shots after closing hours, she returned with a tank of gasoline, burning down the bar and two neighbouring businesses—all of which were owned by local Puerto Ricans.
“They’re trying to take away my beaches, little by little: they keep coming and selling them.”
Benito's new album laments the changing tides of Puerto Rico; where white sandy beaches have been taken from locals and colonised by wealthy, white outsiders. Exploring homesickness, family and tradition, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS translates to “I should have taken more photos”.
“They’re trying to take away my beaches, little by little: they keep coming and selling them,” Benito told TIME ahead of the album’s release. “There are a lot of people who are fighting, raising their voices, and protecting the beaches.”
Such scenes are sadly common in island paradises: from Bali to the Caribbean. In the song, Benito refers to Hawaii as a cautionary tale of what spiralling tourism does to local livelihoods.
Rampant tourism has made Hawaii the most expensive state to live in in the U.S and also has the highest ratio of homelessness per capita. Around 15,000 native Hawaiians leave their land every year, priced out and forced to search for opportunity in the mainland United States.
Any local from a rapidly overrun tourist destination can relate to the phrase "I should have taken more photos"
Puerto Ricans are desperately rallying against this fate. In 2022, sledgehammer-carrying locals symbolically dismantled the construction of an infinity pool on Los Almendros beach after successfully protesting against the development of a glitzy condominium. Other recent protests included a gringo cos-play party and a beach volleyball tournament in front of the multi-million dollar property attempting to illegally privatise an area of the Ocean Park beach.
Local resistance is struggling against a wave of private developments in Puerto Rico, which remains contentiously tied to the U.S. as an unincorporated territory. Noticing this while driving around the country in 2024, Benito was anguished to the point of tears.
“Tourists come here to enjoy the beautiful places, and then they leave and they don't have to deal with the problems that Puerto Ricans have to deal with day-to-day,” Benito told TIME.
On the forlorn song ‘TURiSTA’, he connects the image of the tourist as a romantic moonlighter who only stays for the good qualities, and ignores the hard bits, “you only saw the best of me, not the pain I was going through”. He describes the album as his most Puerto Rican to date, featuring only local musicians and built on the island’s rhythms and styles, from the countryside jíbaro rhythm on Pitorro de Coco or the expressive plena on ‘CAFé CON RON’.
The album’s accompanying short film further explores the feeling of alienation at home: the central scene focuses on an elderly Boricua (a person from Puerto Rico) attempting to simply buy food. Entering a bakery overrun by foreigners, he finds traditional favourites replaced by gentrified guava quesitos. Unable to order in Spanish, he’s forced to speak English. The exorbitant price and cashless policy leave him stranded until another Boricua steps in to pay.
It’s worth considering how close Benito really is to a traditional Puerto Rican life. He owns multiple houses in LA, where he lives most of the year. He dated Kendall Jenner, and has appeared in Hollywood movies—a far cry from the traditional Boricua reality he claims is disappearing. but despite this apparent disconnect, his voice as one of the world’s most influential artists is crucial in amplifying the struggles of his homeland.
Puerto Rico’s official tourism platform, Discover Puerto Rico, proudly invites visitors to "Live Boricua", commodifying the Puerto Rican culture that Benito holds so dear. The CEO of Discover Puerto Rico, Brad Dean, is a white guy from Illinois who took the job after being accused of corruption in his former role in Myrtle Beach. Dean has spearheaded the privatisation of Puerto Rico’s tourism sector. He’s blocked local Puerto Ricans on Twitter for calling out the darker impacts of his tourism push.
Bad Bunny's voice as one of the world’s most influential artists is crucial in amplifying the struggles of his homeland.
Meanwhile, the rise in tourism has fuelled a surge of mainlanders buying homes in Puerto Rico, drawn by beachfront views and generous tax incentives, with demand for luxury units skyrocketing.
Any local from a rapidly overrun tourist destination can relate to the phrase "I should have taken more photos". As to what we, as visitors, can take away from the album is to be aware: support local businesses in Puerto Rico, respect their policies, do not stay at resorts that are embroiled in local land disputes, and practice some local language.
Oh, and think twice about that guava quesito order.