Efecto: Yale University Is Offering A Course On Bad Bunny’s Cultural Impact
Written by djfrosty on April 30, 2025
The Ivy League is recognizing Bad Bunny’s greatness. Yale University has announced they will be offering a course about the singer’s cultural impact.
As spotted on Hypebeast, the New Haven, Conn.-based school will be kicking off a course dedicated to Bad Bunny’s indelible influence on the world. Titled “Bad Bunny: Musical Aesthetics and Politics,” the class details how his music has not only shaped the Puerto Rican diaspora but helped put a spotlight on his island’s rich history. Albert Laguna, Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Race & Migration, says that Bad Bunny’s latest project DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS inspired the course. In an exclusive interview with The Yale Daily News he explained how the idea came to life. “I was walking around New Orleans, caught up in the Caribbeanness of the city, just listening to the album over and over again,” Laguna said. “I was taken by how every song opens up avenues of exploration in relation to topics that are important to me.”
The professor went on to further detail the the importance of the curriculum. “Of equal importance will be our engagement with how musical genres and aesthetic choices manifest these histories and challenges as well,” Laguna said. “You can ‘hear’ what the mass migration of Puerto Ricans made possible. Reggaeton in Puerto Rico cannot be divorced from musical flows in the region inseparable from colonial projects in the Americas, and locally, the politics of policing on the island. The class will be attuned to these histories and their sonic manifestations.”
Released Jan. 5, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS served as Bad Bunny’s personal love letter to his home town. The effort blended different elements of the island’s diverse music while his lyrics explored a wide array of the problems Puerto Rico faces including gentrification, political corruption and a fading cultural identity. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS has gone one to be recognized by fans and critics alike as his magnum opus. It has since gone on to sell over a million records in several countries.