Bad Bunny is Portugal: 'Ahora todos quieren ser latino', no, ey Pero les falta sazón, bateria y reggaeton'

I probably sound like a bitter old Karen that didn’t get to see an artist, but honestly, I’m so far up my own arse I don’t even like Bad Bunny, I love Benito tho.

There’s something so charming and inspiring about Bad Bunny that I cannot put into words; he is the representation of Latin Cultures: Colourful, fun, full of Life….With a great sense of geopolitical awareness that comes from the last 500 years of history of Central and South America and all of the problems created by a system that does not want to see them succeed, and, somehow, they keep winning.

I’m a music whore, I listen to anything and everything as long as it seems nice, I have no wish or will power to discard styles…In one night, I can go from London Club Music to Reggaeton and then binge the whole Hamilton Musical…My epic sense isn’t a story for today, but there’s still time.

When I knew Bad Bunny was coming to Portugal, I was like, ‘Okay, Seventeen when?’ (in the words of Jennifer Love Hewitt ‘WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? “)…This was months ago! In the last two days, I had to explain to my mom who Bad Bunny is. Who is Benito? What is reggaetton? All the questions you can expect from a 50-year-old white lady.

I’m gonna be honest, after I saw the pictures, I wish I had gone…EVERYONE WAS THERE. I could’ve had a university/high school/middle school reunion. However (again), I stayed home, which gave me time to think. So there I am in the middle of my 4th Gin and my binge watch of the first season of The Big Bang Theory when it is me: ‘WHY THE FUCK IS SUZIE IN THE FUCKING SHOW?’

Her name isn’t actually Suzie, to be fair, I saw like 10 different Suzies. Who is Suzie? Well, for you to understand Suzie, you have to understand the social context and, well, Portuguese pettiness in general and, mainly, the reason why it’s so hard for me to sometimes love my culture and my people. I’m not like other Portuguese people, seriously, I am much better.

Most Portuguese people think they are Latinos, one of the biggest uphill battles in my hometown, since I’m 13, is to explain to people a) abortions, b) that we are, in fact, white, yes, some of us are a bit darker, but we are still white….Yes, we speak a Latin language…But we are still white….Yes, we have spices, but we are still white (we only got spices because we are kinda awful, but still). Now, I am from a small town (doxxing who?), I’m not gonna lie, it’s a shit hole here. I hate that I came back and feel stuck here (again writing down an article about all this pain very, very soon…it’s after the other one I have planned.)…But at least I left, I grew as a person (still keeping the judgmental gene that we all seem to have), and I am one of the most international people I know in one or many senses.

Suzie, however, started to work right after high school and by the time she hit high school, she had already peaked (I told you I am judgmental). All she consumes is TV, she’s already married or in a long-term relationship (where both of them probably cheated a couple of times) that will either end in divorce or swing. And she is the Portuguese version of a republican. This is another tangent, but if Portugal were as big as the USA, we would be a bigger joke. Suzie is still a bully, but now she has no one to bully, so she turned Christian and thinks Portugal is the peak of human evolution, and we have to defend our culture while not caring for said culture. Suzie doesn’t like Portuguese music, literature, cinema, I could go on, but you get the point, cause we all know a Suzie. Suzie never eats Portuguese food; she actually wants to be American, so she acts like an American with a Portuguese twist. I could go on, as I said, but there’s no point in it, is there? We know a Suzie, nothing more than a wife who agrees with what her husband says, isn’t a feminist, loves Starbucks…And never thinks bigger or at all. She lives life like she is still in middle school, with a rush to grow and without thinking of real consequences, problems and other realities. Suzie is like a vacation in a resort: they’re all the same, all over the world, and there’s no connection with reality.

So when all the Suzies I know go to a concert of someone who built his brand about being a Latino immigrant in the USA, that stuggles with English and has bent gender norms, I get confused. Do I want to pick on someone? Do I want to be bitter? Or is this actually weird as hell?

Now, I’m not saying that they had no right to be there; they paid. All I’m saying is that this reveals the hypocrisy of Portuguese people, the lack of media knowledge and the lack of awareness. You spend hundreds on a foreign artist but refuse to pay for a concert that will help the victims of a major tragedy. You will criticise the Brazilian people in Portugal and their culture, but you only listen to reggaeton and funk? You will say out loud that I am a leftist piece of shit, but you believe in the lies of a fake politician being paid by the evangelical churches of the country you claim is taking your culture away.

I love Brazilian culture, I love all my Brazilian friends, and I listen to them and to the racism they face constantly…So what is the difference between Benito to you and the Brazilian people that surrendered to you? I know the difference, but do you? Do you understand that you are consuming something that is what you claim to hate?

Benito is not for you! You can enjoy the music, but as everything else in your life is a superficial thing, because you don’t get it. You only like Bad Bunny because he is popular. I know I sound like those dudes that shout, ‘Oh yeah? Name a Nirvana song that’s not Smells like a teen spirit?’, but it reveals ignorance about consuming habits and the widespread use of things…In spanish non the less…You can understand the message. If not, the whole image of Bad Bunny should be enough to make you hate him.

The only plausible conclusion is that you are either an imbecile or that you don’t understand the very things you claim to defend. You are just a puppet in a capitalist machine that tells you who to hate, what to like and how to live. I’m sure Suzies are very happy in their bubble, I’m sure they will vote for CHEGA and say Numeiro isn’t always wrong, and that Brazilian people are dumb…They will do all of this while listening to Anitta and Bad Bunny; they won’t even bat an eye, because they don’t understand what’s behind. They won’t understand the cultural impact of Bad Bunny’s last album, nor why they hate Brazilian people. In the same way, they will use slurs for black people, while fantasising about adopting a black baby with blue eyes. In the same way, they will say women are catty because they are mean girls. In the same way, they will eat sushi and complain about Chinese stores being everywhere. And in the same way, they will listen to Bad Bunny and complain about immigrants.

Benito is right, they all want to be Latino, but they don’t have the sauce. They all want to be Latino, but they don’t know the culture, the geopolitical scenario of the last 500 years. These people will defend slavery and colonisation as a normal thing. At the end of the day, it’s all for aesthetics; the message becomes small when the blindness is greater.