Bad Bunny and the Need to Explain His Lyrics
To whom do artists owe an explanation of their art?
As a Mexican, Latino, artist, writer—I am reflecting on Bad Bunny’s recent response when asked whether his listeners who don’t understand his lyrics are missing something; I felt compelled to exhume the wise words of some of the greatest writers regarding the need to explain one’s art.
Bad Bunny’s latest studio album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, is a lyrical love letter to Puerto Rico. From the country’s slang to the culture and the environment, the Grammy winning-artist praises La Isla del Encanto, and calls for the protection of his motherland from greedy elitist and colonizers—an act of resistance and self-preservation.
This questioning has plagued writers, artists, and musicians of marginalized backgrounds—like myself—for centuries: Must we explain our culture, our language, and our identities to a primarily white audience? The literary voices of Toni Morrison and Việt Thanh Nguyễn provide a sharp answer: no.
If Bad Bunny were to explain his lyrics, his art, then his works would invite the aforementioned entities to continue and conquer the very home he is protecting: Puerto Rico.
I had to cast my mind back to a moment when literary mother Toni Morrison graced us with the image of feeling the address of the narrator over her shoulder talking to somebody else, talking to somebody white, when she read books from the 50s. That narrator, for her, was somebody who need not explain to white readers, for they knew who they were narrating to.
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Morrison re-encounters a question that was posed to her, concerning the need to explain her literary choices. About not writing white characters in her books, the Nobel Laureate said,
“I spent my entire writing life trying to make sure that the white gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books.”
When writing a short story, a novel, a play, I have often caught myself translating a Spanish word, and when I re-read it, I am disappointed because I know I was explaining and translating my culture, my food, my proverbs. I am concerned with what theatre is nowadays, especially musical theatre when songs are written, then immediately after, a translation follows, or the translation is interjected with dialogue. When I see that type of writing, for me, it works against what artists like Morrison say about the need to explain our selfhoods. Is it obligation or choice?
"People miss a lot. Actually, there’s even a lot of Latinos who speak Spanish who are missing a lot because I’m singing in Puerto Rican slang,"
the Grammy winner told The New York Times.
Right—that’s a fact—and I think that’s when the non-Puerto-Rican folk has to do the research to fully understand something they are not familiar with while still enjoying the art. He is not unplugging the aux chord for you to stop and listen to his music. The sovereignty and authority he possesses concerning his art, culture, and motherland is vibrant. He is the narrator on the shoulder of Puerto Ricans addressing Puerto Ricans; nevertheless, listeners will still stream his music, and hopefully, take the time to learn about his poeticism.
Pulitzer winning-author Việt Thanh Nguyễn refused to translate his culture; He made his experiences the majority; of this, he said,
“If you are coming from a background outside of [the majority] as some kind of disempowered, marginalized, minority population, you may feel the pressure to explain yourself and your culture, to translate yourself, your languages, your customs, and so on and so forth—this is something that must be absolutely resisted by any writer” Nguyen said. “When I say write like a majority, I don’t mean like a white person, I mean write as if we ourselves are speaking to ourselves, and let everyone else catch up. That’s where you get interesting art, and even hopefully, great art, to come from.”
Unapologetically, Toni Morrison wrote for Black people; Việt Thanh Nguyễn writes for Vietnamese people; Bad Bunny writes for Puerto Ricans.
Be unapologetically central.
It is not a denial of access; It is an invitation for others to come and listen, learn, and respect, but never at the cost of the artist compromising their identity.
It is a reclamation of space, of narrative, of selfhood.
—José