Sawt Falasteen - The scholar who helped Bad Bunny deal a Puerto Rican history lesson

"My heart dropped," he told AFP. "I immediately said yes."

Bad Bunny, one of the globe's biggest stars, was preparing to release his sixth studio album, "Debi Tirar Mas Fotos" -- "I Should've Taken More Photos" -- a love letter to his home Puerto Rico.

And the reggaeton artist born Benito Martinez Ocasio wanted Melendez-Badillo -- who had recently published the book "Puerto Rico: A National History," a study of the island's colonial history and its political movements -- to consult on the visualizers the megastar would release with his new tracks.

The release date was January 5 -- less than two weeks after Melendez-Badillo was brought in.

"I had promised my partner, my kid, my therapist, that I was going to leave my computer behind," he laughed, saying at the time they were vacationing in Portugal.

But when Bad Bunny calls, you answer.

Melendez-Badillo said he first spoke with a producer who explained the album's concept: an affirmation of Puerto Rican identity and culture in relation to continued colonialism and displacement (The Caribbean archipelago has been a US territory since 1898, following centuries of Spanish colonial rule.)

The project "centers marginalized people," Melendez-Badillo said. "Benito was really interested in, for example, highlighting the history of surveillance and repression in Puerto Rico."

The University of Wisconsin-Madison professor wrote 74 pages of notes by hand, eventually typing them up and turning them in by New Year's Day, having communicated with Bad Bunny over voice notes transmitted by associates of the artist.

The slides accompanying Bad Bunny's infectious, wildly popular new songs that feature salsa and percussive plena are power-point style and text-heavy, but still an accessible crash course.

To date, the visualizer for the smash lead single "Nuevayol" has received some 58 million views -- it's centered on the creation of the first Puerto Rican flag -- and there are 16 more visualizers beyond that, with views on sites like YouTube totaling in the hundreds of millions.

"As academics, your books are only read by your students," he laughed. "A few colleagues write reviews."

And while he aims to "bring history out of the ivory tower," Melendez-Badillo said "never in my life did I think it was going to be at this magnitude."

- 'Complexity of Puerto Ricanness' -

Melendez-Badillo said he's received snapshots from clubs where his visualizers are projected: "They're drinking and dancing, and there's like, freaking history in the background. It's surreal."

It's also a vital teaching tool, the professor said.

Bad Bunny's album has highlighted how little Puerto Rican history is taught in the island's public schools, many of which have shuttered in recent years in the wake of a crippling debt crisis and devastating hurricanes.

His visualizers are Spanish only: they're educational for anyone, but ultimately, they speak to Puerto Ricans.

"He was interested in these histories being read by people in the projects and the working class neighborhoods," Melendez-Badillo said.

Bad Bunny's no stranger to politics: he's been a vocal participant in Puerto Rican elections and movements.

The artist also weighed in this past US presidential election, supporting Democrat Kamala Harris after a speaker at a Donald Trump rally disparaged his homeland.

Bad Bunny has made multiple short films that illuminate issues in Puerto Rico including endemic power outages, tax laws benefiting foreigners, and displacement, both physical and cultural.

"We've seen Benito grow in the spotlight," the professor said. "He is more aware of being a political subject and of using his platform to amplify those conversations."

The history lessons in "Debi Tirar Mas Fotos" extend to its celebration of traditional Puerto Rican sounds and rhythms.

And it's brought positive visibility to a place too often viewed through a lens of suffering in moments of disaster.

Those media cycles rarely "allow for Puerto Ricans to speak for themselves," Melendez-Badillo said. "It reproduces these very problematic colonial tropes."

With the new album, Bad Bunny flips that narrative.

"It's forcing people to reckon with the complexity of Puerto Ricanness" with nuance, Melendez-Badillo said.

And, crucially, it's eminently danceable, he added with a smile: "The perreo songs are my favorite."

R.Halabi--SF-PST