Here’s the thing about Bad Bunny’s light poles
Here’s the thing about Bad Bunny’s light poles
While watching Bad Bunny‘s Super Bowl halftime act on Sunday, you may have witnessed him climbing electrical poles alongside other performers while singing “El Apagón.”
The song is from the artist’s fifth studio album, Un Verano Sin Ti, which was the most-streamed album on Spotify globally in 2022.
The album, which translates to A Summer Without You, is an investigation of a metaphorical absence in Bad Bunny’s life and the resultant emotions that arise from his Puerto Rican upbringing.
His song “El Apagón” literally means “the blackout” and refers to the terrible and persistent power outages in Puerto Rico.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, Puerto Ricans lost around 27 hours of power per year between 2021 and 2024, excluding electrical outages caused by hurricanes or other catastrophic disasters.
Over the last ten years, four storms have caused more than $1 billion in damage in Puerto Rico. People in the United States mainland, by contrast, lose power for about two hours each year.
The nearly one-year blackout in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017 was the longest in American history.
As a result of the devastation, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the territory’s publicly owned utility, filed for bankruptcy.
PREPA has a decades-long history of corruption. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, PREPA purchased low-quality oil from vendors at high-quality prices to feed its power plants.
The arrangements allowed money to flow through executives and politicians while citizens continued to receive service from a deteriorating grid.
Puerto Rico then began privatizing power. Luma Energy, a privately held Canadian-American firm, will take over electric power transmission in 2021.
According to Luis Raúl Torres Cruz, a former member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, power interruptions have increased by 30-35 percent on average since Luma took office.
Last December, Puerto Rico’s government sued Luma Energy for allegedly making fraudulent promises to repair the electricity grid while increasing rates.
“According to Gizmodo’s breakdown of the tune, the lyric roughly translates as “Damn it, another blackout.
However, the situation is not limited to Puerto Rico. The Trump administration has withdrawn federal funds intended to improve the territory’s electrical grid.
Latitude Media reports that the Department of Energy dropped $450 million in grid resilience programs in January.
Last April, Bad Bunny summed it up as “¿Cuando vamos a hacer algo?”
Nonetheless, his song “El Apagón” features the lyrics “Puerto Rico está bien cabrón,” or, according to Genius’ translation, “Puerto Rico is fucking great.”
Despite the ongoing power outages, which lead to growing economic hardship, there is palpable pride and joy in being a member of the island’s community. That was evident to everyone on Sunday.
