DtMF (En)

I can remember turning up the volume while listening to one of his songs in the kitchen of that house, on the fourth floor, as I washed the dishes after a delicious lunch; or in my rented room during that time, with the red-and-black speakers vibrating on the old wooden floor as the song’s lyrics burned my throat from singing them so loudly... and even when I took one song in particular—which I no longer enjoy listening to today because it brings back hollow memories: Me fui de vacaciones—because, at that moment, it represented all my bottled-up joy exploding through its woofer into my heart, which became the rhythmic beat I needed to turn a romantic reel into something so personal and special.

Almost a year and a half before those times, nearly two years ago now, I had a very different stance—one opposite to the current one. I dismissed and labeled the guy, I remember well, as "that reggaeton singer with the anesthetized jaw," and I tossed all his music overboard because I thought it was loaded with filth in most of its lyrics. I hadn't realized the hidden brilliance it held... until persistent voices repeated, "D****, all the songs on his album are good," or perhaps the most convincing one: "Hey bro, you have to read the lyrics." And if it had lyrics, something instantly surprising could happen. And it did... right after I listened to that album. My life caught that rhythm, and I adopted the frenzy of its joy as my own—freshly Caribbean, splashed with bursts of plastic poetry.

It's true that these rhythms, reggaeton ones, overflow with sexuality, crudeness, and lightweight clichés in their lyrics. It's also true that democracy is the form of government in many countries, and that—approved by nearly all—it immerses us under its forms in things like... acknowledging what the majority chooses when deciding which restaurant to go to. And that music, its lyrics, and songs—guided by the thumbs-up of listeners—have exactly what the majority asks for, what the democracy of their youth demands, what their demanding audience deems vibrant or current.

I'm not here to convince you to listen to this album, but with or without your listening, believe me, at least for me, nine of its songs carry in their lyrics and rhythm a mix of the old formula that created salsa and contemporary reggaeton, with titles steeped in nostalgia—longing for someone, for some place, for the stubborn ember that survives in some people.

With anthology-worthy phrases as: "Life is a party that ends one day, and you were my unforgettable dance", this musical and poetic blender of what we breathe today, Bad Bunny does it again with this album. And as I once read, he puts his soul as a seal on his work: joyful, poetic, critical and imbued with nostalgia.

Some people, driven by the cultural ostracism they impose or have chosen to impose upon themselves, are voluntarily or involuntarily deprived of the experience of seeing, hearing and feeling. For you who have slammed the door before knowing who's visiting, or who make a face at the dish before even smelling it on the table—or worse, who renounce it out of atavistic belief or respectful conviction—remember that "art is an experience we all must live," and nothing can be judged without first giving it respectful attention.

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¡'chacho deja eso! ("Chacho, let that go!")

Bis, or Mrs. Bis, as I fondly recall her, leaves me with an eternal phrase she used to repeat with a tune I immediately recognized in the short film: when she'd ask me not to overdo something I was doing, like obsessing over keeping her kitchen clean. She'd share with me, from her small black coffee maker, a shot of Minerva in a little white cup, which could only be delicately held with the index and thumb, to sip it slowly while its particular aroma and flavor colored the afternoon for me.

It is, I understand, a rooted custom for the inhabitants of certain parts of the world—well-known to them. For me, however, it was the coincidence of having arrived in a household of people born on an island like Puerto Rico, embedding the resemblance between the cultures of these Caribbean Island nations and making me feel so connected to them, simply by appreciating an image like this one.

This short film, titled Debí Tirar Más Fotos (I Should Have Taken More Photos), expresses not only criticism of a country that has partly lost its language to the spread of a new one, or the resounding cry for the permanence of its musical and popular cultural roots...

But also, a way of living, loving, and being carpe diem, highlighted in dialogues like this:

- I should have taken more photos. I should have lived more. I should have loved more... when I could... While we're alive, we should love as much as we can.

Combined with that unmistakably African, unmistakably Boricua, unmistakably island percussion, the penultimate song on the tracklist gives life to this album—powerful and energetic.

I got to know salsa and my love for these sounds, which were once guaracha or bolero, Cuban son, or bomba and plena, at my family's parties in the '90s. Thanks to an uncle whose father was a fisherman, he became the musical compass of these evenings filled with joy and dance, preserved in time through worn-out photographs.

For me, names like Ismael Rivera, Héctor Lavoe, Pete "El Conde" Rodríguez, Benny Moré, or Santos Colón, and along, sovereign etcetera... shaped the musical culture of my ears. And in the improvisations sung in chorus and with a cuatro that I recall, the joy of knowing that my guitar, a similar instrument because it, too, is stringed, could also be part of that explosion of jubilation—whether romantic or expansive—was life itself, or "pura vida," as they say in Costa Rica.

In this sense, the cuatro and its spiral of delicate notes reach their sentimental peak in the song Turista, a track brimming with '70s emotion, beginning with a wise, masterful picking that foretells, from the very first line, that what you're about to hear is more than a song—it's poetry. This is perhaps the most romantic part, and within the album...

...alongside Pitorro de Coco, which stirs the joy of singing its sorrowful chorus, wrapped in the interplay of bass, conga, and cuatro, crafting an energetic lament against the stagnant stillness of those who won’t rise from their seats to dance...

...and Bokete, with its light, almost ethereal musical introduction, walks or retraces—line by line—the intimate paths we all know well, paths that unleash nostalgia into untamed playfulness when triggered by the press of “play,” prompting us to sing and perhaps strain more than just our throats, as we repeat its chorus and verses over and over again.

Once, I wrote about a young woman who, having left the place where she was born, no longer knew which country would bring her the greatest happiness in this world. She was still smiling as she pondered this question, but that feeling of having left the land of her birth, as she spoke of her family scattered across so many parts of the globe, and as she thought of the beautiful composition of white sands on her beaches, covered by transparent seawater, changed the tone of her cheerful voice to one of deep and budding nostalgia.

For those who, as they walk or work, feel their spirit constantly drawn back to those beaches... and dream of going to see those amethyst-hued afternoons in the place where they were born, even for just a few days, because they remember it and feel there’s something in their genes that carries the color of that land, the climate of that place, the smile of its people, who live there with joy waking under the sky that gazes upon its sea—beyond all hardship, this song is for them. And, woven into its lyrics, for those who once had a paradise with someone and have lost it, a place they can only return to in memory, this song is for them as well.

And here’s a lesson for the future: You should take more pictures, far more.  DtMF.

Here's an anthem to color the days of your summer, your life, your season.

 Sitting at the desk in my room, playing the same song on Spotify like an automaton, I think of the many people who confess, comment, or share what Bad Bunny's (BB) album means to them. Some say, "Whenever BB releases an album, things go well for me. I was waiting for this one." Another wrote, "My life needed some joy—bring on the album."

As for me, there hasn't been a time when I smiled more than when the previous album came out, filled with freshness and the sensation of the beach. Coincidence or not, listening to this one now, and reflecting on the famous law of conservation of energy—which states that it "can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed"—I feel like good things are on their way.

"- I wish I'd taken more photos, to show you. Photos are lived moments, memories of things that happened. I wasn't one to go around taking photos or posting stories or anything like that. I used to say it was better to live the moment. But when you reach this age, remembering isn't so easy...

-  Well, shall we keep looking at more photos?

-  I already told you, I don't have that many! I'll show you the ones I have. And I'll try to remember... the ones I didn't take. OK?"

"Because life isn't how you live it, but how you remember it," I once read from Gabo. It's also worth preserving some important things for the future. Living and documenting go hand in hand. Thank you for making it to the end; thank you for your attention.

And remember:

"I should have taken more photos. I should have lived more. I should have loved more... when I could... While we're alive, we should love as much as we can."