Book Launch: Petra-Rivera Rideau
P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance
Global superstar Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, like many other Puerto Ricans, has lived a life marked by public crises—blackouts, hurricanes, political corruption and oppression, among others—that have exposed the ongoing impacts of colonialism in Puerto Rico. Offering a portrait of the past and future of Puerto Rican resistance through one of its loudest and proudest voices, P FKN R draws on interviews with musicians, politicians, and journalists as well as ethnographic research to set Bad Bunny and Puerto Rican resistance in a historical, political, and cultural context. Authors Vanessa Díaz and Petra Rivera-Rideau—creators of the “Bad Bunny Syllabus”—demonstrate Bad Bunny’s place in a long tradition of infusing both joy and protest into music and honor the many evolving forms of daily resistance to oppression and colonialism that are part of Puerto Rican life.
Petra Rivera-Rideau is an Associate Professor of American Studies at Wellesley College. She is the author of Remixing Reggaetón: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico and Fitness Fiesta! Selling Latinx Culture Through Zumba. In 2023, Vanessa Díaz and Dr. Rivera-Rideau created the Bad Bunny Syllabus, a website that provides resources that contextualize reggaetón artist Bad Bunny’s success in relation to Puerto Rican politics, reggaetón histories, and Latin crossovers. She also developed one of the first courses about Bad Bunny in the United States which she teaches regularly: AMST 323: Bad Bunny: Race, Gender, and Empire in Reggaetón.
Vanessa Díaz is an Associate Professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University. She is the author of Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood. Díaz has taught the course "Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico" every semester since the spring of 2023 and is the co-creator of the Bad Bunny Syllabus Project, which seeks to educate the public on Bad Bunny's global impact & how it reflects political, artistic, and cultural triumphs and struggles within Puerto Rico.