Obviously, the worst part hasn't been the music, but the reactions it's provoked. Bad Bunny sings in Spanish at the Super Bowl, and Spanish nationalism is choking on its own drool, all because this happened right in front of Trump.
The delusion of celebrating that millions of people in the US work, live, and dream in Spanish, and that Latin America is the future of a US that still wants to remain Anglo-Saxon, is compounded by the ongoing "cultural battle" that, when it spills over into Spain, is always disgusting. They are quite pleased to see a minority language spoken and sung (always horribly) in front of white, English-speaking America, but then watch in horror as, for example, another minority wants to speak, create, write, sing, and assert its identity in Catalan right under the nose of a far more arrogant Castilianism.
Or as if Bad Bunny weren't from Puerto Rico, another member of the US very happy to be there, not a fully independent state but an associated one, or a former Spanish colony, which the Spanish lost when—surprise, surprise!—the US occupied the island in 1898. Puerto Rico is yet another of Spain's defeats—against the US now—also against the US. A cultural triumph stemming from immigration fleeing the failed project of a prosperous Latin America, heading for the Anglo-Saxon North or for Spain, where it is used demographically to finish off the Spanish national cleansing, now that non-Castilian languages and cultures still remain on the Peninsula. Everything Bad Bunny represents in the face of Trump, he also represents in our eyes: a type of music that implies the 'Latin Americanization' of our territories, as anyone with children who listen to this music in the Catalan-speaking countries knows. Those who celebrate that the US can no longer be monolingual, monocultural and homogeneous are fighting here to make Spain the same, and to ensure that none of the territories where Catalan is the native language ever becomes so again.
At the same time, they want to make people believe, always relying on ignorance and bad faith, that the Latino He has some kind of track record in terms of prestige and economic future: as if simply speaking Spanish guaranteed any future in the US (beyond washing dishes or doing laundry). Bad Bunny speaks perfect English, and even his music is nothing more than a local echo of North American styles and rhythms; moreover, the cultural message in his lyrics is sexist, that is, perfect for the Trump era.
A phenomenon like him could only emerge in these times of decadence and fear. It's curious that in 'Narcos', the singer plays a camel from the upper Mexican social classes –he is suddenly killed–, something not very different from what his music implies, really.
