Bad Bunny Phoned Home

Last month, Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny was navigating a holiday-season flutter of activity, including a giveaway for disadvantaged youth in his hometown, when most of his country was plunged into darkness for several hours. The blackout threatened to upstage the suboptimal last night of the year described in his latest single, “Pitorro de Coco,” a yearning recollection of a morose New Year’s Eve spent sipping coconut rum with his grandfather. Lights came back on with enough time to party like the artist does in the music video that landed that afternoon. But it was another setback in a discomfiting season: Still on the mend following the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017, Puerto Rico had weathered the insult of being called a “floating island of garbage” onstage at the Republican National Convention by the comic Tony Hinchcliffe. Bad Bunny responded on Instagram, sharing a short film about his island’s triumphs. He has carried himself more like the country’s ambassador than a chart sensation ever since, meeting the challenge of a new year haunted by a worrying deluge of deportations with detailed accounts of what othered Americans bring to the table.