El Grito De Benito (The Cry of Bad Bunny)
By Rosa Clemente
“Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of the greatest of man’s literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our universities and other seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.” — Paul Robeson.
“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” Bad Bunny shared in a statement via the NFL. “This is for my people, my culture, and our history.” He added in Spanish, “Ve y idles a to abuela, que seremos el HALFTIME SHOW DEL SUPER BOWL,” which translates to, “Go on and tell your grandma that we’ll be at the Super Bowl halftime show.” Bad Bunny (09-29-2025)
Bad Bunny’s historic residency was indeed a testament to pride, love for his people, and love for his country.
In 2019, I went to Puerto Rico to cover the protests and demonstrations demanding that Governor Ricardo Rossello immediately resign. The protests began when the Puerto Rican Center for Investigative Journalism uncovered 889 pages of texts and chats that were racist, sexist, misogynistic, transphobic, and some attacking the Mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz.
Within hours of the release La Colectiva Feminista En Construcción, organized and mobilized protests and demonstrations that lasted 15 days. Watching what was happening as he was on tour in Europe, Bad Bunny decided to stop the tour, leave Ibiza, and join the growing demonstrations and calls for Governor Ricard Roseello to resign immediately. On his Instagram, he stated, “I want to pay my respect to all the people who have always had the bravery, courage, and initiative to go out into the streets and fight for the sake of our country.”
When he returned to Puerto Rico, he linked up with Residente a Boricua Hip-Hop artist, write, producer and co-founder of Calle 13. Residente has been recognized for his commitment to social justice and championing indigenous rights across Latin America. In 2015 he received the Nobel Peace Summit award for his commitment to social justice. As Residente confronted the Governor Bad Bunny streamed it live on his Instagram.
A few days later, as protests grew to become the largest in the history of Puerto Rico, as reported in The New York Times, the people had enough and so did the Governor he released and appeared in a recorded message to announce that he would resign on August 2, 2025. That evening he and his family left Puerto Rico. The streets of San Juan and across our homeland and the diaspora erupted in celebrations, hugs, tears and joy. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/us/puerto-rico-protests-timeline.html The jubilation was electric. So many times, many of us doing work in the larger long movement don’t often win but when we do, it takes over your body, mind and spirit, it’s a natural high.
At twenty-five years old, Bad Bunny joined his people in demanding accountability. Six years later, he has become the number one musical artist in the world. His influence extends beyond his music, as he has used his platform to open the consciousness of a new generation of Puerto Ricans, both on the island and in the diaspora. He has amplified queer voices, centered other artists, many of whom are Black Puerto Ricans, and brought Boricuas on the Island and those in their diaspora together, highlighting that we are a diasporic people. He has also challenged and fought against toxic masculinity through his fashion and presence and when he is sad or overwhelmed, he shares his vulnerability.
According to Forbes magazine, he is worth eighty million dollars. As I’ve been following his residency, I got frustrated when all these news outlets, centered around Proud Rico, keep bemoaning, “$200 million back into the Puerto Rican economy” simply it is reductive and incorrect.
First, in a capitalist structure, there is never monetary equity for workers. Most of that $200 million went back to luxury hotel chains, Airbnb’s and what I call the tourism extraction economy. That money will not change the material conditions of the people. The poverty rate in Puerto Rico is higher in comparison to state in America. Why is this, you ask? Simply, as a colony, we do not own the means of production. When we achieve independence, we cannot do it within the economic system of capitalism or racial capitalism; we must adopt the lessons of cooperative economics, mutual aid, and self-determination.
It is our role to uplift organizations in Puerto Rico that are doing the work, the heavy lifting like, La Colectiva Feminista En Construccion, Agitate, Corredor Afro, Copi, Colectivo Ilé, Revista Entice and many others. Everyday organizations and people are engaging in cultural resistance, popular education, and community organizing. If he could fund every organization working for liberation and still pursue his artistic goals, imagine what that would look like!
Can we fight to get Act 60, enacted in 2019, repealed? Yes, but it is up to us. As organizers, this is why strategy matters: We can address the unintended consequences of his residency, that is hastening gentrification, and we can build an economy not based on profit but one that is based on cooperative economics.
We need to be very clear that the primary reason 18-35-year-olds in Puerto Rico are being forced to leave the island is because of lack of jobs and educational opportunities. The boot of colonialism, imperialism, and the extraction of our resources has imposed on us a debt problem that we did not manufacture. Personally, my biggest disappointment with him is his complete silence on the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. I do concur with others that the real test for Bad Bunny isn’t whether he makes every political statement we want – it’s whether he connects his resources with movements on the ground. movements uplifting Blackness, independence and self-determination rather than hyper-capitalism.
Bad Bunny will not free Borikén; only we together, united can do that. That’s our collective responsibility. However, his cultural influence creates unprecedented opportunities for movement building if we organize strategically around it. That means building coalitions between cultural workers and political organizers, creating accessible entry points for newly politicized young people, connecting diasporic resources with island-based movements, and developing cooperative economic models that offer alternatives to capitalism.
When I created PR on the Map, a collective of media makers who went to PR to cover the aftermath of both Hurricane Irma and Maria, I said to myself and others that they want a Puerto Rico without Puerto Ricans. Nine years later, in his song, “Lo Que Le Paso a HAWAii”, is a warning message to Boricuas. Can avoid the same fate as Hawaiians who have faced cultural erasure, land displacement and gentrification due to American imperialism, United States military occupation and mass tourism?
I believe we can.
In one song Bad Bunny encapsulated all my feelings. “He left, He didn’t want to leave either, and he stayed on the island, and no one knows how long-they want to take away the river and the beach too. They want my neighborhood and your children to leave, no, don’t drop the flag or forget the flag. I don’t want them to do to you what happened in Hawaii.”
The only way we make sure this never happens is to organize like never before. It won’t be easy; it will require sacrifice. This is the first time in my life that I believe Puerto Rico will be free/independent, while I am still alive to witness it. Bad Bunny has captured the imagination of a nation that will no longer tolerate the yoke of oppression, occupation and extraction. Puerto Rico is not for sale and Puerto Rico will never become a state.
Hopefully, if I am so blessed and I have a grandchild or grandchildren one day, they will walk on the beaches, with the sound of pleneros, and the rhythm of the coqui and the embrace of the international world. Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre!
