Bringing music into the larger conversation
Dámaris M. Otero-Torres, second from right, with her students and visiting scholar Wilfred Burgos Matos.
Rutgers professor Dámaris M. Otero-Torres was intrigued but skeptical when two of her students suggested she teach a course on Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican singer, rapper, and music producer.
“Not my field of expertise,” quipped Otero-Torres, a literary scholar who’s more at home with the Spanish Golden Age masterpieces such as Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote.
But the students, Erin Foley and Rosselyn Rugama-Ruiz, persisted. They grew up listening to Bad Bunny and were adamant that the deeper themes running through his music—especially the connections he draws to Puerto Rican history and culture—would be compelling topics for serious students of Spanish.
And with the release of Debí Tirar Más Fotos in early 2025, an album that has Bad Bunny reaching back to traditional Puerto Rican music—like bomba and plena—while confronting the current calamities facing the island, the students knew they had a strong case.
Otero-Torres agreed. This fall she launched a seminar, "Topics in Hispanic Literature and Culture," devoted to Bad Bunny and the music of Debí Tirar Más Fotos.
“When that album dropped, I went to Professor Otero-Torres and said, ‘hey, you should take a look at this,’” said Rugama-Ruiz, a senior majoring in health administration. “There’s more depth and more going on underneath the surface of this music than what people might expect.”
Otero-Torres, who grew up in Puerto Rico, has a deep affinity with the island and its myriad struggles as a U.S territory without sovereignty or full political representation.
She listened to the album and was moved.
Bad Bunny wearing a pava, a hat associated with the working class of Puerto Rico.“The (musical) fusion that he had; the way he honored the traditions; I don't think I had seen that in Puerto Rican history,” said Otero-Torres, a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, School of Arts and Sciences. “And when I started listening to the words, I was like, ‘oh my God, this album is so political.’”
The seminar places Rutgers in a select group of schools offering courses on Bad Bunny, including Yale University, Wellesley College and Loyola Marymount University.
And with its deep dive into Puerto Rican history, literature, and musicology, the seminar is no “easy A.” The lectures and reading material are entirely in Spanish. The 14 students are mostly juniors and seniors majoring or minoring in Spanish.
Maya Guennouni, a senior planning to attend law school and pursue intellectual property law, said the course is rigorous and eye-opening.
“I wanted to learn the back stories behind the songs,” said Guennouni, a political science major. “As we explore how specific songs relate to Hurricane Maria or the Puerto Rican diaspora, you begin to understand there is a message and intent behind this music that is so much more than what we hear on the radio.”
During one class, a guest scholar presented an ethnography of Bad Bunny’s historic 31-show residency last summer in Puerto Rico. Wilfred Burgos Matos showed how the artist made sweeping cultural and political statements through his choice of songs and even set design.
He noted how Bad Bunny linked bomba, the oldest Puerto Rican music, with reggaeton, a contemporary and controversial genre that once sparked a crackdown from Puerto Rican authorities. He also noted how a second, smaller stage in the arena evoked the marquesina, or house parties that were held in garages or car ports in Puerto Rico, and where reggaeton was developed.
“The residency was an invitation for people to start seeing Bad Bunny for who he is, a proud Puerto Rican,” Burgos Matos, a faculty member at Lehman College, said. “It was an opportunity for him to show the beauty of the culture while bringing attention to the fact Puerto Rico is going through an economic crisis and colonial crisis.”
Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, rose from obscurity to become a three-time grammy winner and global superstar. He was named as 2025’s most-streamed artist by Spotify, earning more than 19.8 billion streams, and dethroning Taylor Swift. He’ll play the Super Bowl LX halftime show in February 2026.
Erin Foley, a junior who advocated for the course, said listening to Bad Bunny while growing up in a suburb with few Latinos inspired her to become bilingual.
“I wanted to understand what he was saying in the songs, so I started taking Spanish, and the rest is history,” said Foley, who is majoring in Spanish and speech and hearing sciences in linguistics. She intends to become a bilingual speech-language pathologist, working in underserved communities and advancing equity within the field.
Foley says Bad Bunny songs can be personal and political at the same time. Her favorite from the new album is 'BOKeTE,' which is a colloquial term for pothole—a common problem in Puerto Rico, especially after the devastation from Hurricane Maria.
“Although many people think of this as just a sad breakup song, Bad Bunny deliberately chose to use the metaphor of a pothole to demonstrate the love as well as heartbreak he feels for his country in addition to his past relationships,” Foley said.
Rugama-Ruiz, also a longtime fan, said the class did a deep examination of the video El Apagón that revealed layers of meaning in a song she had always considered a party anthem.
“It’s really a statement of resistance after Hurricane Maria hit the island,” said Rugama Ruiz, who wants to work as a nurse to promote healthcare equity. “It calls out the forces of gentrification and privatization and the people taking advantage of the island, which have resulted in people being pushed out.”
For Otero-Torres, the course has been an exhilarating experience. She has always looked for ways to incorporate contemporary topics. Several years ago she created a seminar focusing on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir.
“I believe that as a scholar, I am there to provide for a need,” she said. “And when students come to me and say, ‘We want to dig deep into this topic,’ I can only say ‘yes.’”
Meanwhile, the students are looking ahead to the Super Bowl with both excitement and trepidation. The selection of Bad Bunny as the headliner prompted a backlash, with Trump administration officials threatening to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents “all over” the event.
Guennouni, who is hosting a watch party, says she’s approaching the event with the proper spirit.
“I invited all my friends, and I told them: ‘You have three months to learn Spanish,” she said.