‘Debí Tirar Más Fotos’ Is Bad Bunny’s Most Determined and Resonant Work Yet: Album Review

Bad Bunny chose to release his sixth solo album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”), on Día de Reyes or Three Kings Day, the last of the winter holidays for Latinos — Argentines, Uruguayans, Mexicans and closest to home for him, Puerto Ricans — that is typically celebrated with immediate family by exchanging gifts and sharing a feast. All creative elements of “Debí ” uphold a familial tone, from the instrumental música jíbara (traditional folk music) woven throughout its 17 tracks to the album cover, a faded memory of yesteryears for Caribbean natives.

Three No. 1 albums deep into his pop breakthrough, Bad Bunny feels comforted, inspired and empowered enough by his global fame to create what he refers to as a “dream” album. “At the peak of my career and popularity, I want to show the world who I am, who Benito Antonio is, and who Puerto Rico is,” he said in a press release. “Debí’s” super-charged rollout — composed of a short film and a tracklist reveal that sent fans on a scavenger hunt across the island — is centered on the theme of anti-colonialism, or the issue of gentrification in Boricua history. The songs on the album were released with visualizers on YouTube, each one of them including historic messages written by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, a professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, highlighting different eras of Puerto Rico’s political past and its social justice heroes. (Luisa Capetillo, for example, is a feminist writer and anarchist leader who is most famously known in Puerto Rico as the first woman to wear pants in public. She was an advocate for working class women and their children.)

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Just as his blockbuster “Un Verano Sin Ti” discussed similar themes of pride and appreciation for his culture, “Debí” is a celebration of the caribbean’s cross-generational influences. The album is entirely cohesive yet musically ambitious in its foundation of live instrumentation, blending tradition and modernity with genres like salsa, reggaeton, dembow and plena, creating a patchwork of the island’s richest musical resources.

“NUEVAYoL” starts the album with a salsa sample of “Un Verano en Nueva York” that builds into a rager. The same applies to the spirit of “CAFé CON RON,” built from an Afro-Puerto Rican style of music in collaboration with the musical group, Los Pleneros de La Cresta. The breezier moments come when guests are on the bill. All of the collaborations are with Puerto Rican musicians who stay true to their signature sounds. Bad Bunny shapeshifts to meet the band Chuwi on a jaunty pop beat for the joyous “WELTiTA,” which incorporates bomba drums and electronic production. Another standout track, “PERFuMITO NUEVO,” is a dreamy reggaeton song that doubles as a lullaby elevated by RaiNao’s delicate vibrato.

Lyrically, the isolation that can come as a result of colonialism is also applied to Bad Bunny’s perspective on love; he expresses many ways that he or the people around him have felt loss. He’s melancholic and self-aware on “TURiSTA,” comparing the woman in his life to a tourist who only witnesses him at his best, never there to see him at his worst. On the title track, “DtMF,” he wishes he would’ve taken more photos with the person or people he’s no longer with.

He aches for displaced and impoverished Hawaiians on “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii” (“What Happened to Hawaii”), and hopes Puerto Rico won’t endure the same fate — “They want to take away my river and also the beach / They want my neighborhood and for grandma to leave,” he sings in “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii” (“What Happened to Hawaii”). “No, don’t let go of the flag or forget the lelolai / I don’t want them to do to you what happened to Hawaii.”

Though he may have physically strayed, temporarily leaving home to assume the responsibilities of a globe-trotting artist, Bad Bunny is determined now to keep his feet on Puerto Rican soil. “Debí” is infused with these affirmations, or repetitive mantras that are exuberantly optimistic — he wishes his family will never have to move, and makes the bold proclamation that he’ll do whatever it takes to ensure everyone stays put.