Bad Bunny has managed to elevate the urban music genre, which mixes hip-hop, reggaeton, Latin rhythms, and autotune, into a mass spectacle that no one wants to miss. Ten years ago, no one gave a dime for this music, relegated to the margins of society and nights of excess, but last night it brought together a cast of politicians in the stands led by the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, along with Mayor Jaume Collboni and no less than four consellers of the Generalitat. A tribute to popular music like Pujol strolling through the April Fair or Tierno Galván shouting “those who aren’t high, get high.”
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But is reggaeton culture? Those who stayed in the metaphysical debate about the chicken and the egg could not enjoy a performance that started like the legendary Tropicana in Havana to transform into a house party – literally – with reggaeton and trap beats, ending with the signature perreo of the Puerto Rican, who planted his flag in Barcelona to warn all of Europe that, as Dylan once sang, times have changed.
In a pristine white suit and tie, Bad Bunny appeared before his first Barcelona audience – he hadn’t performed since 2019, at Sónar, as he himself recalled – like a leading man at a 1959 mobster party, surrounded by a salsa orchestra with horns, conga, claves, and double bass. He was preceded by a video where two young people speaking Catalan recited the lyrics of La mudanza, a reminder of the humble origins of the Boricua.
This remembrance permeated the entire first part of the concert from the start, still daylight, when Benito appeared by surprise on stage to receive, in complete silence, the acclaim of the audience as he would do on more than one occasion. Satisfied with his ego, he started with a salsa-style version of the reggaeton Callaíta that announced the Caribbean rhythm that would mark the concert, where the band Chuwi, the artist’s opening act, and Los Pleneros de la Cresta, two Puerto Rican groups who collaborated on Debí tirar más fotos, participated at different moments.
From the album presented this Friday night came Pitorro de coco, melancholy bottled in the illegal drink made from rum and coconut, which sounded to the rhythm of plena with a guitarist wearing a pava on his head playing the Puerto Rican cuatro, his traditional instrument. It was before the Olímpic exploded with Weltita and its reference to La flaca by Jarabe de palo, followed by the nostalgic Turista, turned into a bolero, to finish with the salsa hits Baile inolvidable and Nuevayol, which got the 59,000 attendees dancing.
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While a virtual frog talked about eating calçots and pa amb tomàquet and shouted ‘visca el Barça i visca Catalunya’, the concert made a physical and musical leap moving to the pink house installed at the opposite end of the floor, La Casita as they call it, to start the central part of the concert where the bad bunny surrounded himself with half the blaugrana squad. There were Lamine Yamal, Lewandowski, Gavi, Balde, or Ferran Torres to soak up reggaeton and trap beats as if it were a house party.
With night came the glowing bracelets lighting up the stands while the synthetic sounds of Veldá marked the reggaeton rhythm, sped up for Tití me preguntó, which the audience knew by heart. Between laser beams and bass at full volume, Bad Bunny – in tracksuit for the occasion – pulled from the euphoric electropop of Si veo a tu mamá or the reggaeton of Voy a llevarte pa PR and Me porto bonito, while the audience, unsure whether to look at the little house or the screen, took the opportunity to dance like rarely seen at the Olímpic.
Especially when Bad Gyal appeared on the roof to sing Yo perreo sola and perrear alongside the Bunny before staying alone and performing Da me, reggaeton of her own making. That’s how the party went where “you drink, you spend, you smoke like a rasta,” as sung in Safaera, and which ended back at the new Caribbean root of Dtmf, with the plena of Café con ron accompanied by Los Pleneros de la Cresta and Benito’s repeated thanks, who recalled again and again Barcelona’s support in his musical beginnings.
The main stage regained prominence in the last part of the evening, where Benito, with the earflap hat that made him famous, mixed Ojitos lindos or La canción, sweet reggaeton, with the protest El apagón, for which the stadium darkened in memory of Puerto Rico’s electrical problems. A drop in pulse accompanied by Dtmf as a prelude to the final blow dealt with EeO and the word perreo on the big screen. Big letters for an evening that reaffirms Latin urban music as more than a trend: a competitor to classic genres without asking for forgiveness or permission.
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