SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (CNN) – Never has Puerto Rico, or Puerto Rican music, experienced commercial and artistic success on the scale of Bad Bunny’s residency.
Bad Bunny mania took over the Island of Enchantment last fall.
The rapper, who has previously been critical of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, said in an interview with i-D Magazine that he did not include the U.S. on his concert tour because he feared ICE would raid concert venues.
In a normally slow time for tourism on the island, the Puerto Rican superstar’s 31-concert residency sold out.
Tourism agency Discover Puerto Rico said the island earned a whopping $400 million to $700 million from the residency.
Even the merchandise around the historic residency has gone viral.
Bad Bunny’s version of a Labubu, which features his album’s toad mascot El Sapo Concho, quickly sold out.
Working from a corner of his grandparent’s living room in Ponce, the graphic designer behind many of Bad Bunny’s shirts, Sebastian Muniz Morales, said he is stunned by the hype.
Bad Bunny’s music has long reflected the struggles of life on the island.
“You see la residencia but you see the different problems we fight for,” Muniz Morales said. “There are many things, and you don’t have to spend too much time on the island to figure out there’s something wrong here.
A legacy of United States colonialism and gentrification is confronted head-on in Bad Bunny’s song “What Happened to Hawaii.”
Puerto Rico is facing a crushing debt crisis, crumbling infrastructure and frequent power outages, spotlighted in his song “The Blackout.”
This rough reality has driven young Puerto Ricans to leave the island in search of better opportunities, something Muniz Morales once considered.
“Some people don’t see their futures here,” he said. “They don’t see a future if the island continues this way.”
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