What Bad Bunny’s Chart-Topping Salsa Means for Latin Music

Bad Bunny’s success on his sixth studio album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, which earned the top spot on the Billboard’s Top Streaming Albums chart the week of its debut, is on-par with the global superstar’s paramount resume. The Puerto Rican artist was the most-streamed Spotify artist for three consecutive years beginning in 2020, selling out his most recent 2024 Most-Wanted tour, and taking home three Grammy’s since the start of his career. But the surprise streaming star of his latest album may have arrived in “Baile Inolvidable,” a salsa track which went #1 on the U.S. Apple Music chart over the weekend.

The feat is remarkable given the fact that salsa’s peak arrived in the late ‘60s, marked by legends Celia Cruz and Willie Colón who cemented the genre as a staple of Latin culture. “The history and story of salsa is one of emergence and eventual decline,” says University of Pennsylvania professor Jairo Moreno. “But it never stopped existing.” Bad Bunny’s album has hoisted salsa back into the spotlight, serving as an expansion of the genre and a way for Latin Americans to re-explore, and perhaps even be reminded of, their roots. 

“It’s incredibly positive for Latin music in general when a contemporary artist visits their native musical roots and finds success,” says Bruce McIntosh, the vice president of Craft Recordings Latin catalog. Craft Recordings is currently the owner of Fania Records, the brainchild of Dominican composer Johnny Pacheco and American attorney and businessman Jerry Masucci that is credited for creating salsa and whose roster included legends Ray Barretto and Bobby Valentín. “Salsa in particular has always been a genre of the people, even when its peak commercial trend had waned, it remained strong in various countries, communities, clubs and households, albeit with a narrowing audience. This instance is particularly positive because of the age and demo that is embracing it.”

Some artists have kept the style of music alive and found paramount success in the process. The most recent salsa superstar is Nuyorican Marc Anthony, whose “I Need to Know” peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1999, showing the genre’s potential. Salsa itself, which bears Cuban roots but was further developed by Puerto Ricans in New York City, is also in part sustained by dancers who revel in the trombones and bongos that nourish the popular tunes. By the 2010s, however, experts say reggaeton emerged as the most-popular medium through which latin artists began to create music and younger generations had already long traded out their salsa skills for perreo.

Debí Tirar Más Fotos (which roughly translates to I Should Have Taken More Photos) alone is not purely a salsa album. Speaking to TIME in a December interview, Bad Bunny calls it an “album of Puerto Rican music.” “Here I am incorporating other rhythms or 100% music from Puerto Rico, and when I talk about Puerto Rico I include reggaetones,” he said. But Debí Tirar is in part an expansion from the sounds that thrust the artist to global stardom as it explores lesser-known genres of music, including jíbaro–music from the Puerto Rican countryside–and plena. Songs immersed in those beats have also been well-received by U.S. audiences. (“Baile Inolvidable,” was recently overtaken by the plena-inspired title track on the album as the top song on the U.S. Apple Music chart.)

Experts note that Bad Bunny’s decision to incorporate these genres of music on the album is a natural evolution for the artist. “It’s a way for these artists to somehow blend the music that their family was listening to when they were growing up, and the music that they were also listening to as part of the younger generation of American culture,” says Harvard University professor of music Alejandro Madrid. “When you have these fusions, sometimes the pendulum goes a little bit too much into the most contemporary styles, and often it swings back to more of the traditional sounds.” 

Madrid compares Bad Bunny to Rigo Tovar, a Mexican singer credited for popularizing cumbia beyond Colombia by mixing it with modern rock and música tropical. Marc Anthony also started his career making hip-hop and freestyle tracks before being recognized for the popular salsa songs “Valió La Pena,” and “Vivir Mi Vida.” Bad Bunny’s evolving sound, which has expanded to continue the traditional music of the past, is thus adding value to the genre among Latinos and beyond. It’s a notable decision that Bad Bunny is not alone in. Puerto Rican artist Rauw Alejandro’s November album, Cosa Nuestra, a name borrowed from Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe’s 1969 album, samples the salsa song “Qué Lío” on the opening track. Bad Bunny similarly borrows from older classics, mixing salsa with dembow on both the opening and closing tracks of the album “NuevaYol” and “La Mudanza,” and sprinkling in plena on “Cafe con Ron.” In doing so, Bad Bunny is evoking conversation around a shared history. “Salsa… consolidated itself in the ‘70s as kind of a one of the most significant musical cultural contributions of Puerto Ricans to the world, to the United States, to Latin America, but that music was indebted to plena, to jíbaro music, to bomba music into aguinaldos,” says Moreno.

The triumph of Debí Tirar also undoubtedly capitalizes on a particular moment in the industry. Latin music is the fastest-growing genre in the U.S., according to a 2024 report by Luminate. That success has undoubtedly been carved by global superstars Shakira and Luis Fonsi. But those artists have had to bend towards the grip of monolingualism in the music industry by releasing songs in English or collaborating with bigger known superstars, such as Justin Bieber on Fonsi’s smash hit “Despacito,” or Shakira and Beyoncé’s “Beautiful Liar.” Bad Bunny’s pure Spanish-language tunes have made it clear that language is no longer a “barrier to entry” on the music chart, says Leila Cobo, Billboard’s chief content officer for Latin/Español. “This is yet another sign that people are willing and happy to explore music in Spanish in many genres.”

But to garner both critical acclaim on an album and such broadband support from audiences is no easy feat. Debí Tirar also arrives at a particular political moment marked by hostility from the incoming President towards immigrants, many of which are Latino, and at a time where Puerto Rico is facing a multitude of issues, from gentrification to power outages across the island. “Given the political climate in the U.S. regarding immigration or the challenges Puerto Rico is facing, this music plays a particular role in people’s identity as it did in the 60’s and 70’s in NYC when Fania Records was born,” says McIntosh. Choosing to create salsa and plena tracks alone is part of an enduring tradition of protest in the genre, according to experts. And while many are more conscious of salsa romantica, which surged in the late 1980s, Madrid notes that albums like Willie Colón and Rubén Blades’ Siembra, also used salsa as a megaphone for the ailments of their community.

For some listeners, Debí Tirar, marked by Puerto Rican pride prevalent throughout its choice in collaborators, instruments, and album art, also represents an embrace of Latinidad. Estefania Pessoa, a first-generation American and content creator better known online as Tefi, shared her thoughts on the album in a viral TikTok video, saying it helped her to reflect on her personal relationship to her identity.

Speaking to TIME, she says the album’s success feels particularly special given its cross generational songs and approach. “It’s hard to explain to people what culture means to you, how important it is, how much it is a part of me,“ she says. “Listening to it was a gift of reminding me [to] love where I come from, and loving the people that I come from.”

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