Bad Bunny to be subject of university course in San Diego

Bad Bunny will soon have a university course taught on him to honour his contribution to Lantinx culture.

Bad Bunny, whose full name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is a Puerto Rican rapper and singer known for tackling political themes via reggaeton and Latin trap.

Off the back of the artist’s success as one of the most-streamed artists in the world, a university in San Diego is going to offer a course studying the impact of his work.

San Diego State University (SDSU) will run the course in 2023 via the School of Journalism and Media Studies.

Dr Nate Rodriguez, an associate director of journalism and media studies at SDSU, has previously taught similar courses on other significant artists such as Selena Quintanilla-Perez.

Speaking to CBS News, Rodriguez said: "Bad Bunny has transformed reggaeton like no other artist has.”

"He sings in Spanish, he talks in Spanish, he answers reporters’ questions in Spanish, and that’s how he connects with his fanbase, and I think that makes him authentic, and that also makes him unapologetically him.”

He added: "The Latino community wants to see themselves represented. We rarely see ourselves on television, in movies, in media, especially in English-language spaces. And to see Bad Bunny win awards, perform on these different award shows that are traditionally reserved for only English-language-speaking people gives us an opportunity to see ourselves, hear ourselves.”

Rodriguez also praised Bunny’s subversive approach to the genres he operates in: “When you think about reggaeton, it’s hypermasculine, machista is embedded in its core. And Bad Bunny has come and flipped it upside down.

“Bad Bunny gives us another side to masculinity, and how masculinity can be, how it should be. How it can be authentic, how it can be endearing, how it can be loving."

Describing Bad Bunny as “this global phenomenon”, Rodriquez noted proof of his influence in how “men, women, children, older people, people of all sorts of different colours, people who don’t even speak Spanish are singing his songs”.