Regardless of having solely made music in Spanish, Dangerous Bunny is on his solution to turning into a family identify in the USA. The worldwide pop star has grow to be ubiquitous, from topping Spotify’s annual worldwide charts two years in a row to showing on “The Tonight Present Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Saturday Night time Stay.” He has collaborated with artists like Drake and Jennifer Lopez and even made a foray into skilled wrestling. His viral social media posts and unconventional, sensational promotional strategies have confirmed him to be a grasp of the spectacle.
All of this raises a query that extends to the tendencies of widespread tradition at present: Is there something of substance behind the spectacle? Dangerous Bunny’s new album “Un Verano Sin Ti” (“A Summer time With out You”), and his broader physique of labor, speaks to what sociologist Zygmunt Bauman would name “liquid modernity,” the concept that fastened fact claims are dissipating into extra arbitrary and altering ones.
The songs on Dangerous Bunny’s new album reveal the feeling of emptines and existential dread that nothing can really fulfill him in the long term.
Born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio in Almirante Sur, Puerto Rico, in 1994, Dangerous Bunny demonstrates the fluid nature of our postmodern cultural second. After his early days working as a bagger in a grocery retailer who posted songs on his SoundCloud account, he managed to be signed with Common Leisure and skyrocket to worldwide fame in a matter of three years.
The emergence of Dangerous Bunny’s music and public picture signify the alternative of secure, fastened values with attitudes and behaviors that oscillate between extremes. These extremes create a paradoxical unity: of libertinism and despair, forgetfulness and self-conscious introspection, pleasure and melancholy, the demonic and the sacred. Taking a web page from existentialist philosophers like Camus and Sartre, his music displays the cultural sensibility that eschews everlasting fact claims as absurd—and concludes that the one solution to face the absurdity of the universe is to stay within the second. As a lot as Dangerous Bunny embodies a carpe diem perspective, his music additionally unveils the darker, extra pessimistic aspect of this cultural sensibility.
The songs on his new album reveal the feeling of vacancy, existential dread and worry that nothing can really fulfill him in the long term. He despairs of a scarcity of permanence, which seems to be not as alluring because it might need initially gave the impression to be. He has grow to be a voice for his technology, specifically for youthful millennials and “Zoomers” who’re disillusioned with the so-called virtues of moderation and bourgeois respectability. His music speaks to those that veer away from the center of the highway towards the fringes of what’s thought of commonplace. This proclivity for extremes opens the door to extra frank and clear conversations about human nature, want and keenness, alluding to common questions on everlasting non secular truths.
One is left questioning whether or not the folks questioning him are his haters or himself.
Listeners can hear this thematic pressure on his earlier albums, with songs like “Estamos Bien” (“We’re All Proper”) from his debut album “X100PRE” (an internet approach of writing “Por Siempre,” or “Endlessly”) embodying the libertine pole of what he calls his “Nueva Religion.” “All the things’s fantastic,” he raps, “at present I awakened content material and joyful,” as he continues to quote the events, jewellery, cash and exquisite girls he will get to take pleasure in each day. And if anybody questions whether or not he’s really fulfilled, he has no downside telling them “the place to go.” One is left questioning whether or not the folks questioning him are his haters or himself.
If “Estamos Bien” represents the acute libertine pole, “RLNDT” (or “Rolandito”) represents the opposite excessive. Taking the title from a toddler who mysteriously disappeared in 1999 in Puerto Rico, Dangerous Bunny displays on his existential disaster spurred by his speedy rise to fame, repeating the phrase, “Who am I? I don’t know, I forgot.” He goes on to ask whether or not he ought to flip to God or to astrology, and whether or not his confusion is rooted in psychological trauma from his childhood.
His one aspect needs to stay within the second and overlook his issues, whereas the opposite is suffering from questions, doubt and fears, questioning whether or not he’ll ever discover a lasting sense of affection, that means and objective. This liquid-like back-and-forth between excessive forgetfulness and excessive self-consciousness speaks to the experiences of so many younger individuals who lack a context via which they’ll make sense of their experiences and discover strong solutions to their questions.
His one aspect needs to stay within the second and overlook his issues, whereas the opposite is suffering from questions, doubt and fears, questioning whether or not he’ll ever discover a lasting sense of affection, that means and objective.
This pressure continues on “Un Verano Sin Ti.” The breakout single “Titi Me Preguntó” (“Auntie Requested Me”) begins with him bragging about all the girlfriends he has had. He jokes about taking a selfie at a nightclub with all the women he slept with to ship to his aunt, who retains asking him why he’s had so many girlfriends. After a short interlude that includes a voice mail from his aunt encouraging him to calm down already, he cries out in desperation about his worry of dedication and rejection. “I’d wish to fall in love, however I can’t. / I don’t belief anybody, I don’t even belief myself… / now that it’s chilly you wish to stick with me, / after which tomorrow you’ll go away.”
He laments his weaknesses and the fleeting nature of affection on different songs like “Un Ratito,” when he sings:
That is just for a short while,
don’t get used to this, babe.
Love is fairly,
however there’s all the time one thing that interrupts it.
I used to be born to be alone,
there isn’t a loopy woman made for this loopy man.
Time strikes shortly and doesn’t keep lengthy,
so let’s do it once more, sleep collectively once more,
as a result of perhaps there gained’t be a tomorrow.
Equally, he sings in “Neverita” a couple of woman who isn’t alone as a result of her lovers “come and go just like the waves.” He waits for her to note how a lot he likes her, however she “places her coronary heart within the cooler” as a result of “enjoying with me, she finds it entertaining.”
The synthesizer-heavy manufacturing of the album and chirping of seagulls within the background evoke nostalgia for a summer time that has but to return—a type of untimely FOMO. It comes off as an try and seize onto the fleeting pleasure of the summer time earlier than it even comes and to bypass the inevitable “summertime unhappiness.”
His allusions to God, astrology, spiritism and esoterica converse to younger individuals who discover themselves uninterested in middle-of-the-road secularism.
His tendency towards extremes and paradox strongly form his approach of singing about sexuality. A number of of his sexual adventures veer towards machismo and, at occasions, absurdity, in songs like “Safaera,” and in others from the newest album like “Occasion,” “Aguacero” and “Otro Atardecer.” Dangerous Bunny takes up the custom in reggaeton and Dominican dembow of creating sexual innuendoes which might be so outlandish that it turns into exhausting for the listener to take him severely, implying that his lyrics are meant as an ironic critique.
In different songs, he inverts the macho male gaze, opting to create narratives in regards to the interior lives of the ladies who captivate his consideration, moderately than merely objectifying them for the sake of his personal pleasure. In songs like “Callaita” and “Andrea,” he tells the tales of ladies who’re misunderstood and wrestle with insecurities and emotional wounds. This inversion—or moderately internalization—of the male gaze evokes the ubiquity of social media and its capability to “filter” our gaze. His frequent allusions to watching women’ Instagram tales appears to incite him to begin to replicate on these women’ life tales and interior worlds.
Dangerous Bunny’s unconventional sexual expression extends to his personal wardrobe. He can usually be seen with painted nails, carrying a skirt or carrying a handbag, he has appeared on his Instagram account completely nude, and he was wearing full drag within the video for “Yo Perreo Sola.”
Dangerous Bunny’s affinity for the fringes of respectability increase some vital questions on non secular realities.
In the meantime, the promotional content material for his album releases isn’t your run-of-the-mill commercial marketing campaign. For his second solo album, “YHLQMDLG,” he wore the discharge date on the again of a basketball jersey whereas enjoying at an N.B.A. All-Star recreation, adopted by a sequence of cryptic tweets hinting on the title and variety of tracks on the album. For the discharge of his third solo album, he gave an impromptu concert whereas driving on prime of a truck within the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York.
His viral social media posts are iconic, spawning all types of unofficial merchandise, together with shirts, pillows, automobile air-fresheners and occasion favors on Etsy that includes reproductions of his Instagram images. Echoing Marxist critiques of the fetishizing of commodities, his public persona challenges us to take a look at the sensationalism and fixed barrage of spectacles in our late-phase capitalist second. It challenges us to query if there’s something of substance behind it.
Dangerous Bunny’s affinity for the fringes of respectability increase some vital questions on non secular realities. His music and public persona critique the secular bourgeois worldview that sees folks as simplistic, autonomous entities, devoid of inner blemishes and existential neediness. Although Dangerous Bunny by no means explicitly defines the tenets of his “Nueva Faith,” they’re made clear within the themes of his music and the kind of imagery he makes use of in his music movies and stay performances. His allusions to God, astrology, spiritism and esoterica converse to younger individuals who discover themselves uninterested in middle-of-the-road secularism.
We are able to simply see this within the proliferation of content material on web platforms like TikTok and Reddit about completely different non secular “extremes,” from “rad trad” Catholicism to occult practices like tarot readings and harnessing power from crystals. Dangerous Bunny’s recognition faucets into postmodern yearning for manufacturers of spirituality that embody opposing poles and paradoxes. Although he could veer extra towards manufacturers of New Age spirituality and occultism, one may argue that his affinity for paradox is partially indebted to his Catholic upbringing, which locations at its heart the paradox of the God-man.
Quickly after the most recent album’s launch, TikTok went wild after a rumor unfold that Dangerous Bunny and his girlfriend Gabriela Berlingeri had been in an open relationship. Whether or not or not the rumors are true, the social media fanfare itself is a commentary on Dangerous Bunny’s capability to fire up questions on whether or not dedication, lasting fact and that means can be found to us in an age the place we’re bombarded with sensationalistic public spectacles.
Can anybody ship us a promise of stability or certainty in our fluid tradition, not to mention present us an area the place we will discover the existential questions which have plagued human beings all through occasions and cultures? Dangerous Bunny’s music opens the door to the instinct that these questions are value asking within the first place.
