P FKN R

How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance

By: Vanessa Díaz, Petra R. Rivera-Rideau

Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez

"Aquí mataron gente por sacar la bandera/Por eso es que ahora yo la llevo donde quiera." (Here they killed people for taking out the flag/that's why I bring it anywhere I want now.)—LA MuDANZA

Global superstar Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, like many other Puerto Ricans, has lived a life marked by public crises—blackouts, hurricanes, political corruption, and oppression, among others—that have exposed the ongoing impacts of colonialism in Puerto Rico. Offering a portrait of the past and future of Puerto Rican resistance through one of its loudest and proudest voices, P FKN R draws on interviews with musicians, politicians, and journalists as well as ethnographic research to set Bad Bunny and Puerto Rican resistance in a historical, political, and cultural context. Authors Vanessa Díaz and Petra Rivera-Rideau—creators of the "Bad Bunny Syllabus"—demonstrate Bad Bunny's place in a long tradition of infusing joy and protest into music and honor the many, evolving forms of daily resistance to oppression and colonialism that are part of Puerto Rican life.

©2026 Duke University Press

I wish it was a puertorican reader

Stacy did okay but I wish the reader would have been a Puerto Rican person. The accent was all wrong… the R’s were are wrong!

Excellent Analysis

These scholars did a fantastic job recounting the echoes of Puerto Rican history and culture in Bad Bunny’s music. They also offered necessary critiques and their sources were impeccable.