Bad Bunny Review – Latin powerhouse star has fun parties | Rap

MDuring Britain’s biggest concert ever by a Latin American artist, a giant cartoon frog appears on the big screen and warns those who can’t speak Spanish: “You’re missing the message,” it warns. The big cartoon frog has a point. Bad Bunny is given long chats between songs, delivered in his own language, that seem to touch on everything from the recent earthquake in Venezuela to what appears to be a veiled statement about the importance of people and places: his world tour refuses to go to the United States for reasons that would attract the attention of ICE. The Superbowl halftime show (an outrage, it’s worth noting, that helped catapult Bad Bunny’s albums into the British Top 10 for the first time).

Similarly, cartoon frogs don’t have to worry. For one thing, there are so many representatives of the diaspora in the crowd that his speech in Spanish is received more warmly and louder than his announcement alone in English. And, on the other hand, if his show proves anything, it’s that you don’t have to understand the words to understand the why. Bad Bunny has become one of the biggest stars in the world. It is divided into two different parts. The first shows Bad Bunny as a traditionalist, in front of a band and, at one point, a group of salsa dancers: his take on the genre includes a long – and amazing – synthesizer solo at the beginning of Baile Inolvidable and a similar long solo on 10 strings with Spanish Juguide strings.

The second one emphasizes his skills as a focussed, party-starter with a performance that is very different from someone who has just sung Turista wearing a cream suit and tie: the latter is very cold – between songs, he has a habit of looking indifferently around the stadium and sometimes he lets out a lot of air, as if he is waiting – if he is waiting. a rocker, a gymnast, too devoted to holding her secrets as she sings. It’s like a Puerto Rican house behind the stadium, complete with satellite TV and air-con on the roof where they will be playing. Before that, he sings in the middle of a chaotic group of dancers on the balcony of the building, complete with an unexpected appearance from Novak Djokovic and a DJ who you can describe as stoic, able as he seems to be quietly beaten while the lady shakes vigorously around his crotch.

In a way, the show is scary – for long sections, the Bad Bunny is hidden from the audience, only appearing in the scenes of the scene, singing as he passes the revelers – but it works very well. The scenes look like a party, chaotic and not choreographed, while the rest of the stadium has lasers and lights, the stands are lit by flashing LEDs on fake cameras that the audience wear around their necks and fireworks are always shooting from the ceiling; the crowd on the tarmac dances with each other rather than looking intently: it feels more like being at a rave than a gig per se.

It helps make the song more interesting. The electronic section has a constant, fast energy, which follows a difficult sequence: Safaera’s Get Ur Freak On-credit, Cybertruck, Monaco, with the distorted samples of Charles Aznavour walking through Hier Encore. But it’s less exciting than what’s with the live band, which is impressively solid, but also impressively exploratory. Watching them watch each other to cues as soloists at NuevaYol, you are all struck by the idea that you are really seeing a group playing live, in the moment, and realize that this is something almost never seen at these big gigs, stadium shows tend to be preordained, invented for the last minute. You’re also interested in how much Bad Bunny needs to change what he does to make it global: this is not a song you can carry with the accusations of favoring the anglophone audience that are only given to K-pop artists. Instead there’s a take-it-or-leave-it kind of thing at its core, which is both formal and acceptable: who wouldn’t choose to take it if it’s this fun?

At one point, he steps forward and starts a big fight and shakes hands with the fans on the barrier that is the most important part of the stadium. But his method is very different: he just stands and talks to people: often, the conversation seems very serious. The encounter in the middle of the show goes on for a very long time, long enough to disrupt the flow of the gig, alienating some of the audience: who knows what they’re saying down there? In fact, it has the opposite effect: it feels really moving, rather than successful, another example of Bad Bunny doing things his way, which, it turns out, is the right way.