NPR Music - Alt.Latino: Bad Bunny's Tiny Desk

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Bad Bunny's Tiny Desk concert was the most watched premiere in the series' history. In this episode, Alt.Latino's Anamaria Sayre speaks with the superstar at the Desk and takes you behind the scenes of the performance. NPR reporter Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, who also was in the audience, sits in for Felix Contreras this week.Featured artists and songs:• Bad Bunny, "PIToRRO DE COCO" (Tiny Desk Version)• Bad Bunny, "VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR" (Tiny Desk Version)• Bad Bunny, "KLOuFRENS" (Tiny Desk Version)• Bad Bunny, "LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii" (Tiny Desk Version)• Bad Bunny, "LA MuDANZA" (Tiny Desk Version)Credits:Audio for this episode of Alt.Latino was edited and mixed by Simon Rentner. Our project manager is Grace Chung. NPR Music's executive producer is Suraya Mohamed. Our VP of Music and Visuals is Keith Jenkins.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. This is really exciting. Okay, we need to calm ourselves because this is going to be good. I'm Felix Contreras. Let the Chisme begin. Oh, my God, I love that. I'm Anna Maria Sayer. We're here with the amazing, venerable, wonderful, fabulous.

Isabela Gomez, Armiento. Oh, wow. I'm never going to say your name again. You have to do it every single time. Two days ago. Two days. We released the most legendary, amazing internet-breaking tiny desk to ever exist. In my opinion.

I'm snapping. Lo de Benito. Bad bunny tiny desk. If you haven't watched it. it already. I would highly recommend going and watching it. Now, we're talking about this happening during arguably what is maybe the biggest peak of Bad Bunny's career. I need to set the scene a little bit. So he comes in on a cold Washington DC day. We packed the room. There had to be 250 people in there maybe, like full maxed out. There was a lot of buzz and a lot of anticipation in the building,

people waiting in the hallway before he got there. Everyone kind of nervously chat. among themselves. Like, we knew something big was about to go down. I had been talking to his team for years. We had all been wanting this to happen, waiting, waiting. Album would drop. Album would drop. And it wasn't the time. And now I understand because this was the perfect time. His whole crew came in, all different kinds of instrumentalists, all from the island. There were one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight of them. Decked out and casual wear sports clothes, very representative of the space. And he came in just, ready to rock. I mean, the energy in that room that day, Issa, you were there.

I was. One of the highest energy I have ever experienced. I mean, we were all buzzing. Like, obviously first when his album Debitir Mar Foto came out in January, but then when he came a month later to play it for us at the tiny desk. I got to speak with him after the tiny desk and he said something to me that I think is really kind of an explanation in a nutshell of why his record DeVi Tirod more photos that came out back in January is blowing up.

I mean, he says it on the record, this fear of losing home, of being disconnected away from home. Afraid of losing something, I think always, one always lives in fear of losing something. When you're afraid of losing something, what you do is take care of it even more. Protect it, defend it.

I would tell you about so many things that maybe I'm afraid of losing, but the action of starting to take care of and defend what one has is worth more than saying you are afraid. So before I'm afraid. So before, I said I'm afraid. I'm ready to overcome that fear. But from another perspective, the album comes from a point of missing Puerto Rico, from a point of being far from Puerto Rico,

and from starting to appreciate many things that may have always been there. and they weren't appreciated. So that's more or less where all of this comes from. And not they were, more or less, to it. I thought this was such a powerful answer when he gave it to you

because I think it really shows that the angle of this music and this celebration for him is not necessarily about worrying or looking back in remorse, but looking back and wanting to celebrate, looking back and wanting to rally people, in defense of the island and also saying it's it's not too late you know we can still do something

and the music is what's going to rally us up to stake what's ours essentially i love that interpretation not only of his answer but really of what this album is i think there's a point of connection a point of access for everyone because it's not down tempo it's not downtrod and it's not defeated and anyone can really take something from that and that has never been more clear to me than the celebratory element of it. Okay, so let's start with a little bit of the tiny-dust version of Bittorro de Coco. I was there,

a year that I was there. A year, your first brother's, was only for me, I had in the nouges, and like a rio, I, cai,

and now no one ya no one, no one men's, the brother, me they're on vocals

On the So, l' I'm Boker de co that was to be

bacillar not for a to for a o'clock vocals I wasn't sure how hard he was going to go for it. I knew that, you know, this album is very

vocally heavy, singing heavy, I think maybe more than almost any record he's had. Despite the fact that it makes perfect sense for the space, I was like, oh, this is going to be a test, because no in-ears, no monitors, no backing track, no auto tune. They were clear on that before they came in, and I was like, can he rise to the occasion? I think this was such a crazy way to start the tiny desk because so much has been said and written about Bad Bunny's voice.

How deep it goes, how high it goes, how he manipulates it. And yet we've never heard it be so full before. and we've never heard it be so bare before. He's completely projecting in this room acoustically in a way that just transcends anything we've come to understand about his voice up until this very moment. That was Pitoro de Coco by Bad Bunny from his tiny desk. Fabiola Mendez had graced our beautiful desk

with her incredible Cuadro, traditional Puerto Rican quattro playing about a year prior. I remember. Maybe it was six months. It was the last of tiny, so six months and some. And really to see her again in this space with one of the biggest artists in the world, probably arguably the biggest name off of the island to have her moment and shine in the way that she did. And this was, I mean, he kept doing this, right?

Like he kept giving the musicians their place to shine and show their traditional instrumentation, which really rounded it out nicely. Yeah, he's not just talking about. the talk when he says he wants to appreciate the things that haven't been appreciated. He's really walking the walk. He gave all of these musicians the time and the recognition for their instrument to really take center stage, which is already so amazing, but even more so when we're not used to seeing Bad Bunny perform with a band like this, with these kinds of instruments, with these kinds of sounds. So it was like magic on both levels, you know? Right. And to have it so up close to

where you can literally see these instruments, see the musicians playing them, like you can't spot like a traditional artist in a stadium. Should we go to PR? You know I always want to. Let's go. Asa, I have never heard a reggaeton track. Honestly, in general, sound like this. Even at the tiny desk, we've had a lot of regettoneeros come through and do their different

arrangements. I love hearing fresh new takes on Dembo every single time. But this was really like I've never heard it before. This is a little bit of voye yovart. for P. It sends me every single time. I forgot that he did that until I was re-watching this tiny desk. No, you don't understand, Issa.

In the warm-up, he kept doing it. And they had that sound on the sampler. It was like he kept accidentally hitting it. And the whole room would go, what? I mean, the second that he moves from like that intro to the actual Dembo, And I remember hearing that for the first time and being like, oh, this is going to be unlike anything we've ever heard. There are songs on the album that have the Plena Bomba Salsa arrangements, and I really thought that's what he was going to bring to the tiny desk.

It was really cool to watch him take a straightforward reggaeton dembo song on the album and completely reinvent it into a plena arrangement. So many people have talked about how this album feels very intergenerational because it's genres that parents and grandparents know and love and it's kind of opening them up to the world of Bad Bunny, who maybe before they were like, Grosero, he's so vulgar. You know, they maybe didn't quite appreciate him in his reggaeton lane.

And this, like the plena backing to lyrics about Tinder and Pereo is just like intergenerational hangueo is here to stay. You're so right. Every single, like the I talked to in Puerto Rico was like, no, but I love Benito now. Like, they're all like that. They're converted. 100%. Super converted. And this tiny desk is going to do so much more to convert them because,

still, while he incorporated these instruments in the album, a plena arrangement of a demo song, I've never heard that. And it's going to bring, I think, even more so all kinds of people to the music. And it really shows how he's rising to the challenge because he didn't have to do that. He had plenty of other songs he could have played. That would have been amazing from this album already within those musical structures. He's like Café Conron. That would be too easy, please. Exactly. That was Bad Bunny and his tiny dusk version of Boya Javarte Pappare.

We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Moving on, another incredible unique arrangement. Let's talk about Glow Friends. I'm going to play a little bit of Glow Friends by Bad Bunny. How do you want to me go out of the cloutre me pass you toky on to be what's going to do you Can chula,

but that's it me pass But how you want to be going to go ya If you no me saca If you no me saca de the clowlough me pass you toky on top of you to be What's the chula can't be that's me pass

Like, I'll be to forgett If I'm when I'm just I'm just when I'm just I'm thinking I know what's going to come I want to I already said this, but his voice.

I know I already said this, but his voice. Yeah. And he's in his rapping bag. I love that we got some of that too. We got some of like bar for bar, bad bunny showing us. his OG moves. The other quattro player, his name is Luis Sanso. He studied the quatro.

He teaches the quattro. He's one of just a couple artists from the island who are preserving this very traditional style of playing and actually the instrument. It's so sharp and it's so specific to the island. And again, we've seen artists who are more within the folk realm, artists like Natale La Forcade, artists like Silvana Estrada, who have played quattros from other parts of the Caribbean

and who are very very, intentional in centering those instruments, but it is just so refreshing to see that music front and center within like a Latin pop sphere because this is Latin pop now. that was Kloafriends, that was KloFriends, by Bad Bunny. Very, very, very special moment in the show coming up. This was, I think, hands down for me, so this was like the moment for me. Benito gets into what he passed on Hawaii, which we have to spend some time talking about that. But first, I actually want to talk about what he says after he plays the song. He gets into this whole really funny story, like,

I don't even know what the word is. It was an SNL monologue, essentially. That's exactly how to describe it. He said it. He said, wow, super nice. Because we're looking to enshrer here in Washington, D.C., no, no, no, we're pretext. He tells this hilarious story

where he says he's playing in front of the White House, they wouldn't give him another place to play, and this guy comes out, and he asks them, he's like, oh, I really love your music. In this fictional scenario, and he says, we can't vote for the person sitting in there, but they decide what happens to our island.

Or something to that effect is kind of what he follows it up to say. And then when he gets to the point where he's making a very political point about being a Puerto Rican musician, about the music he's playing right now, and about being in Washington, D.C., I was like, this whole thing is scripted, this whole thing is planned. They're from Puerto Rico, right? I'm, you know, I'm saying, yeah, well, we, we're, we're not.

So at the end of this big story, Benito comes to the conclusion that, like, it's been over 100 years of Puerto Rico being a colony and fighting to preserve their culture and keep it alive. And yet a lot of times people in the U.S., mainland Americans, don't even know where Puerto Rico is on a map. And it's a very powerful political statement to end on what started like a fun, goofy story. The thing is, I mean, I've spent time to. talking with musicians who have played with him on tour. I spent a lot of time with the guys who came through with him.

And everyone says the same thing where they're like, no, no, no, he really just constantly changes things up. He's constantly coming up with things on the fly. Like, he gets bored if it's to formulate. So we're going to play a little bit of Loke Le Pazzo a Hawaii, which obviously is one of his most beautiful, important, politically charged songs off the album and from this show. Here's Lo Que le Pazzo a Hawaii. Be bonita,

That's her She'll be a In the eyes A sonrises A-Wontan't Yorre Of the fume of your ori

They're like Champon Some alcohol for the heri For the Trite's to Bail Some alcohol

for the Errida Because there much to sanal Issa, I've heard this song approximately 10,000 million times. On the recording, I was there the day he played it. I've watched the tiny dust since. And that still gives me goosebumps.

I think this song, Loke le Pazzoa Hawaii, is one of the clearest illustrations of what you were saying at the top of this conversation, Anna, about this universal feeling of feeling your home slipping away. This is one of the songs that I've seen. all over TikTok with all variations of Latin American flags, of compilation videos of all kinds of different countries. It is a migrant anthem at the end of the day. But it's also a staying anthem.

It's an anthem about not leaving and not giving it up. A hundred percent. And the way he comes in on that chorus, he says something about the depth of that voice. Like it's gravelly. It's raw. It's thick. It's deep. it feels almost comforting.

Like it feels very resolute. It feels very grounded in a way, even more so than I hear on the recording. And there's something about it that makes me feel like, okay, this is what the deal is, but this is how we fight this. The studio version of Lokele Paso Hawae

plays with these dropouts, with these moments of silence right before he goes into his grand statement, you know. But I think something about it being in this room that you know is full of people and the ability for everyone to just be quiet for those few seconds before he delivers this political thesis. There's just something so powerful about experiencing that in a communal space because the office was packed.

There was so many people there. And you could have heard a pin drop in those few seconds. That was What was Lokele pasto a Hawaii by Bad Bunny But speaking Issa of the way that he really took command of the space, right? He did more of this kind of like interstitial play thing He had the moment he's like, should I be speaking Spanish? I don't know, should I be speaking English?

Which was hilarious and perfect. He said, I don't care As he told the New York Times Again and again and again and again. He does this insane thing where he goes. calls out, he uses the audience to introduce the set. It's once again this masterful, masterful performance thing that he does, right? Where he's like, oh, but like, what's my dad's name?

And he says, even before he says that, he goes, you could take anyone's name and put them at the beginning of this song. And that, to me, was like, whoa, yeah, like, who isn't part of la mudanza? Like, who doesn't have that in their lineage, at least amongst Latinos. And so when he did that, and then he calls out, what's my dad's name? Someone from the audience starts to go. And he's like, oh, yeah, Benito, Ijo de Benito. Yeah. He's doing, like, a really interesting, non-traditional call and response.

Because if you know, you know what this is, this question is leading to. Absolutely. And then it leads to poetry. It leads to what's essentially a poem. I know. It's not rapping. No. It's not singing.

It's poetry. It's like spoken word. I'm going to go ahead and play a little bit. This is La Mudanza by Bad Bunny. So they were going to give her. You know, you know, what, you know, what, what, what, I'm going to say, oh.

So, I was that I said, ah, well, you're from Puerto Rico, with you the bandera, the gorr, that you know, that all of everyone, now want to put a barra so, I said, I said,

I'm, and then you said, and me me said, I'm, me said, I'm, I'm, I had this moment, you said, where I was watching this, and I, he says that, here, he killed people for bringing out the flag.

And I look at this gorgeous, gorgeous Puerto Rican flag, which, by the way, we had our amazing colleague, Adrian Florido, actually brought from Puerto Rico's handmade. I see it there just absolutely brilliant on that desk. And you know there's a very specific varietal of blue that a Puerto Rican flag. that a Puerto Rican flag has to have because when they got their own flag, it was like, oh, let's just make it American blue. And it's like, no, no, no.

We want this beautiful, crystal, bright, light, like the ocean, azou. And to see that on our desk, with him singing those words, I mean, it just, it made me cry. I think there's two things about La Moulanza and this performance of it that are really special

and that really bring this point home. First, the specificity of him telling his family history, but saying this could be anyone's story, like just taking pride in where you come from and thinking your ancestors, that's a really powerful thing that anyone can identify with. And I think he sets it up perfectly here. But also, once again, he's blending the personal with the history. The fact that the Puerto Rican flag was banned. People were persecuted for wanting to show Puerto Rican pride for decades.

And that's why it's so powerful now. And that's why it's such an important symbol. I mean, of your New York City, you see the Puerto Rican flag everywhere. and it's because that used to be a right that people didn't have. So for him to have it displayed in front of the desk, to be singing about it, to be joyful in the presence of the flag, I mean, I was crying, too. And he proceeds to go and make this the most fun improvisational,

because all the best time that, like the ones that people really get excited about remember, they are all improv. You can see them. They're having fun. They're just doing whatever. They're just being good musicians, right? They're making good art. They're jamming.

They're jamming out. Exactly. Because that's the space. Yeah. Pulito Gaston. And oh my God, the solo he does. I'm going to play you a little bit of this. Please do.

This will really be one of those shows that I think... This is like when you look at Tiny Desk and you're like, what's the impact? There's a few that I'm like, oh, these will be in the museums. Like, these will be actually relics that we use to remember certain really important cultural historical moments. And this has to be one of the top for me. I agree 100%. And I think, again, so much has been said and written on our air on this show. on this show in other outlets about bad bunny's politics

and bad bunny using music as a vehicle of politics. And I think that's never been clearer than it was during this performance. Oh, well, I need to go watch it again. Achopere! But thank you so much for coming to unpack this with me. This was so fun. Anytime. I'm always happy to go.

I know. I know my girl who I can call it. who's like obsessed with this as much as I am. Just hit me up. Thank you. That was Isabella Gomez Sarmiento. She is a reporter on the culture desk and one of my favorite people on the planet Earth.

Thanks for coming. Te Kuo! You have been listening to Alt Latino from NPR Music. Our audio producer for this episode is Simon Retner. The woman who keeps us on track is Grace Chung. Soraya Mohammed is the executive producer of NPR Music. And our he-in-chief is Keith Jenkins VP of Music. and visuals. I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Thank you so much for listening.