On January fifth, Unhealthy Bunny launched his sixth studio album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (I ought to have taken extra images). By now, you will see no scarcity of opinions and/or social media posts in regards to the album, which on the time of penning this, is primary on the U.S. Billboard charts, surpassing Taylor Swift. DtMF is an ode to all issues Puerto Rico. It serves as an oral historical past; a end result of all issues which have occurred to the archipelago and its folks. By combining salsa, reggaeton, plena and bomba, it honors all of the musical genres of Puerto Rican tradition, whereas mixing it with different sounds of música urbana. Lyrics on DtMF acknowledge Puerto Rican figures from activist Eugenio María de Hostos to rapper Huge Pun, in addition to the historical past of colonization and its results on the island. It’s a tribute to the entire generations earlier than, whereas creating area for these to return. The result’s each outdated and new; it’s the previous and the long run. It’s custom and innovation.
From the second I first pressed play on this album, I couldn’t cease fascinated with films that completely complement it. And for those who’re like me, you perceive the world by means of films. The next listing has one thing for everybody – documentaries, a live performance movie, an animated brief, function size narratives and even a docuseries – all in concord with themes from DtMF.
So, here’s a advised watch listing to enrich the expansive, very Puerto Rican expertise that’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS:
1. “Our Latin Factor (Nuestra Cosa)” (Leon Gast, 1972)
The album’s first monitor, “NUEVAYoL,” is a tribute to the diaspora of Puerto Ricans in New York who’re so important to the tradition that they designed the model of the Puerto Rican flag used as we speak. One other New York invention? Salsa music. The opening seconds of “NUEVAYoL” conjures a pattern of the legendary salsa band El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, which impressed me to consider “Our Latin Factor (Nuestra Cosa).”
What Motown is to soul music, Fania is to Salsa. “Our Latin Factor (Nuestra Cosa),” a seminal live performance documentary with an all-star lineup of salsa legends taking part in a present on the Cheetah Membership in 1971, is a should look ahead to anybody into NYC historical past and music historical past. Live performance footage is interspersed with scenes of a Seventies Decrease East Aspect. Kids play on rooftops, run by means of alleyways and play percussion devices whereas sitting on scaffolding. Live performance footage additionally reveals the group dancing to salsa, sweat dripping down their our bodies whereas shifting to performances by Ray Barretto, Willie Colón, Héctor LaVoe, Ismael Miranda, José ‘Cheo’ Feliciano, and extra. This pleasant time capsule of Latino New York Metropolis is for anybody who loves live performance films like “Summer time of Soul,” “Dave Chappelle’s Block Social gathering,” or “Cease Making Sense.” (Obtainable on YouTube)
2. “Los Sures” (Diego Echeverria, 1984) / Residing Los Sures (Numerous, 2014)
In “NUEVAYoL,” Unhealthy Bunny makes reference to South Williamsburg legend Toñita, proprietor of Caribbean Social Membership, the final of its variety within the space. Extra generally known as Los Sures by its inhabitants within the Eighties, South Williamsburg was as soon as a forgotten neighborhood the place most of its residents lived beneath the poverty line. In 1984, the documentary “Los Sures” captured the lives of households and group members of the world in what has change into one of many staple artifacts of pre-gentrification New York historical past.
A long time later in 2014, UnionDocs launched into an enormous undertaking: “Living Los Sures.” The discharge features a restoration of the unique documentary together with 40 brief movies impressed by the neighborhood, an interactive follow-up documentary on one of many topics of “Los Sures,” and a compilation of oral histories based mostly on every shot of the movie. The completely expansive, in-depth strategy and dedication to preserving historical past this undertaking achieves is harking back to the intentions taken by Unhealthy Bunny and his workforce to indicate Puerto Rican historical past not simply by means of the music, but in addition by means of the visual aids offered for every music, written by historian and professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo. (Obtainable for Lease on most major platforms)
3. “Lo que le Pasó a Santiago (What Occurred to Santiago)” (Jacobo Morales, 1989)
Thus far, three music movies and one brief movie have been launched to accompany DtMF. Two of them function 90-year-old filmmaker/actor Jacobo Morales, who directed “Lo que le Pasó a Santiago,” the one Puerto Rican film ever nominated for an Academy Award for finest international language movie (and probably the final, since Puerto Rico, or some other U.S. territory, stopped being eligible to qualify for a international language Oscar in 2011).
Within the DtMF short film, Jacobo speaks with Concho, a Puerto Rican crested toad, in regards to the passage of time. Each Jacobo and Concho are endangered species, eager for the Puerto Rico they used to know. And within the music video for “BAILE INoLVIDABLE,” Jacobo indicators up for salsa classes. These themes of previous and current are each solemn and hopeful, which has similarities to the challenges confronted by protagonist Santiago in Morales’ personal movie “Lo que le Pasó a Santiago,” because the titular widower struggles to beat emotions of solitude after being pressured to retire from his job. (Obtainable on Internet Archive)
4. “La Pecera (The Fishbowl)” (Glorimar Marrero Sánchez, 2022)
Glorimar Marrero Sánchez directs this somber but stunning movie a couple of girl named Noelia who returns to her homeland on the island of Vieques, whose group remains to be feeling the environmental results of U.S. army bombing from a long time prior. Noelia, affected by most cancers, grapples together with her mortality whereas additionally coping with the lasting results of U.S. colonization which have embedded each fiber of on a regular basis life in Vieques. This film will resonate deeply with anybody who loves the music “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii (What Occurred to Hawaii),” a haunting vow to combat for the autonomy of 1’s homeland. (Obtainable on Filmin with Subscription)
5. “¡Yo Soy Boricua, Pa’Que lo tu Sepas!” (I’m Puerto Rican, Simply So You Know!) (Rosie Perez and Liz Garbus, 2006)
The visualizer for the music WELTiTA particulars Christopher Columbus’ arrival to Borikén, the Spaniards’ violent takeover of the land, and the bravery of the indigenous individuals who fought again. This hardly ever taught historical past can be coated on this 2006 documentary co-directed by Rosie Perez. By household and professional testimonies, and narrated by Jimmy Smits, “¡Yo Soy Boricua Pa’Que lo tu Sepas!” ranges in matters just like the historical past of Puerto Rico’s aforementioned indigenous Taino tribe and Spanish/American colonization, to extra informal questions like: Why are Puerto Ricans so rattling proud? (Obtainable on YouTube)
6. “Reggaeton: The Sound that Conquered the World”
This four-episode docuseries particulars Reggaeton’s beginnings from when it was referred to solely as “Underground,” and explains its sonic influences from Africa, Jamaica, Panama, and New York’s hip-hop scene to create the hit-making fusion of rap, salsa, and reggae. Utilizing a mix of archival footage and interviews with main contributors to the style together with Daddy Yankee, Ivy Queen, Tego Calderon, and Unhealthy Bunny himself, “Reggaeton: The Sound that Conquered the World” offers us first-hand accounts of moments that created this international phenomenon. In a single such second, we see footage of an unknown Daddy Yankee acting at a membership in crutches, nonetheless recovering from a gunshot wound in his leg, with infectious vitality matched by the group. His worldwide hit “Gasolina” wouldn’t even be launched till a decade later, a lot of the footage on this sequence feels prescient. (Obtainable on Peacock)
7. “Nuevo Rico” (Kristian Mercado, 2021)
“Nuevo Rico” is an animated brief movie a couple of brother-sister reggaeton duo who steal from Taino gods to realize stardom within the music world and ultimately must pay the worth. The grainy, vaporwave-inspired look evokes an ‘80s really feel that contributes to an aesthetically and sonically vibrant tribute to Reggaeton and Puerto Rico. (Obtainable to look at on the official site)
8. “Melting Snow” (Janah Elise Cox, 2021)
This brief movie comprised of archival footage from 1952, “Melting Snow” paperwork when Japanese Airways partnered with the mayor of San Juan and transported two tons of snow from New Hampshire to Puerto Rico so locals “might expertise a ‘White Christmas” – however there was an unfair change in cargo. After the snow was unloaded for youngsters to play in, those self same planes left filled with Puerto Ricans who would offer low-cost labor for workforces on the U.S. Mainland, which is one in all many deeply unsettling juxtaposed scenes on this 9 minute brief. From the eerie, foreboding rating, to the voice of Pedro Pietri reciting his famed poem “Puerto Rican Obituary,” to newer footage recorded throughout Hurricane Maria, “Melting Snow” ends in a strong visible commentary on U.S. Imperialism’s results on a tradition, particularly when paternalistic actions are framed as “favors.” (Obtainable on Criterion Channel)
9. “Aquí” (Carlos Mario, 2020)
“Aquí” takes place throughout the mass protests that occurred in Puerto Rico in 2019 the place the general public demanded the resignation of then-Governor Ricardo Rosselló. Protestors play plena and bomba, types of music handed down from enslaved African ancestors, as a name for liberation. These sounds could be heard all through DtMF, however most notably on “CAFé CON RON,” a music that includes Los Pleneros de la Cresta, a band initially fashioned to show youth methods to play Plena music. “Aquí” is a quick glimpse into the facility of protests, and the way even moments of celebration could be acts of resistance. (Obtainable on Criterion Channel)
10. “Puerto Rico: A Colony the American Means” (Diego Echeverría, 1982)
This newsreel-like documentary from 1982 particulars the dire financial, political, and social conditions confronted by the archipelago, principally as a result of United States’ remedy of it as a spot to extract items, land, and cheap labor. Within the phrases of filmmaker and narrator Diego Echeverria, Puerto Rico “has been compelled to develop beneath a synthetic solar – that of the American greenback.”
The 27-minute report begins with protection of the 1980 election, the place Puerto Ricans couldn’t (and nonetheless can’t) vote for the U.S. President, however might vote for his or her governor. The subject of Statehood versus Independence was outstanding in that election, very similar to the latest one which occurred this previous November, through which Unhealthy Bunny was a vocal supporter of the impartial occasion. In actual fact, one might contemplate the entire album of DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS to be a name for independence amongst Puerto Ricans; evoking a renewed sense of pleasure in both being immediately from or having ancestral roots to the archipelago, and a reminder of the power it took us to outlive to this point. (Obtainable on Internet Archive)
