Bad Bunny Review – Dynamic Latin Star Hosts a Hot Party | rap

MIn the middle of the biggest British concert ever by a Latin American artist, a giant cartoon frog appears on the big screens and warns the audience who can’t speak Spanish: “You’re missing the message.” The giant cartoon frog has a point. Bad Bunny engages in a lengthy conversation between songs, delivered in his native language, that apparently covers everything from the recent earthquake in Venezuela to what appear to be subtly pointed observations about the importance of people and places: His current world tour refuses to take place in the US on the grounds that it might attract the attention of ICE, an unreasonable assumption given Donald Trump’s tantrum over the singer’s headline appearance at the Superbowl halftime show (a tantrum, it’s worth noting, that helped propel Bad Bunny’s albums to… List of the top 10 British debut albums).

Likewise, you don’t have to worry about the cartoon frog. For one thing, there are so many diaspora representatives in the crowd that his Spanish monologues were noticeably more warmly and loudly received than his solo announcement in English. On the other hand, if his show proves anything, it’s that you don’t really need to understand the lyrics to understand why Bad Bunny became one of the biggest stars in the world.

It is divided into two distinct parts. The first presents Bad Bunny as a traditional performer, leading a live band and, at one point, a platoon of salsa dancers: his take on the genre, however, takes in a long – and surprising – solo on a synthesizer solo at the beginning of Baile Inolvidable, and an equally long solo on a 10-string Spanish guitar that turns into a cover of Hey Jude.

The second underscores his abilities as a rhythm-focused, tracksuited player who represents a markedly different team to the guy who just performed “Turista” in a cream suit and tie. The former is very quiet – between songs, he has a habit of staring emotionlessly around the stadium and occasionally exhaling heavily, as if he’s pricing the place out for a redesign – while the latter is a swaggering, kinetic performer, frequently prone to grabbing his private parts as he sings. It was set in a replica of a Puerto Rican home at the back of the stadium, complete with a satellite dish and an air conditioning unit on the roof where he would eventually perform. Before that, he was singing from within a chaotic crowd of dancers on the house’s balcony, complete with an unexpected appearance from Novak Djokovic and a DJ you could only describe as stoic, seemingly able to keep the beats smooth while a lady vigorously swayed around his crotch.

To some extent, this show is a risk – for long sections, Bad Bunny is hidden from most of the audience, only appearing on the venue’s screens, singing as he storms through revelers – but it works very well. The footage originally looks like a party, chaotic rather than choreographed, as the rest of the stadium is bombarded with lasers and lights, the stands are lit by flashing LEDs on fake cameras the audience wears around their necks and fireworks are constantly shooting from the roof; The audience on the field dances with each other rather than watching intently: it feels more like a being at a rave than a concert per se.

It helps that the music is uniformly great. The electronic section has a relentless urgency, with tracks relentlessly weaving into each other: Get Ur Freak’s debt-ridden Safaera, Cybertruck’s light-speed Monaco, with its distorted sample of Charles Aznavour slicing its way through the Hier Encore. But it’s no less exciting than the set with a live band, which is astonishingly tight, yet admirably exploratory. As you watch them watch each other for cues as the musicians play solo during NuevaYol, you’re struck by the sense that you’re seeing a band playing live, in this moment, and the realization that this is something you never see at a gig as big as this, as stadium shows tend to be pre-determined, composed until the last minute. You’re also struck by how little Bad Bunny needs to adapt what he does to achieve global success: this is certainly not music you can load with the kind of accusations of pandering to English-speaking listeners that have recently been leveled at K-pop artists. Instead, there’s a take-it-or-leave-it quality at its center, which is absolutely incremental and foolproof: who wouldn’t choose to accept it if it was that exciting?

At one point, he walks toward the front row and starts shooting and shaking hands with fans at the crash barrier that’s almost mandatory at a stadium party. But his style is noticeably different: he keeps stopping and talking to people: more often than not, the conversations seem remarkably deep. The meet-and-greet in the middle of the show goes on for too long, and is theoretically supposed to disrupt the flow of the party, alienating the rest of the audience: who knows what he’s saying there? Instead, it has the opposite effect: it feels genuinely affecting, rather than performative, and is another example of Bad Bunny doing things his way, which, as it turns out, is exactly the right way.