New SDSU class explores Bad Bunny

San Diego State University will offer a graduate course for the spring semester about Bad Bunny, Puerto Rico’s superstar singer.

Professor Nathian Rodríguez points out that it isn’t just a celebrity course, but an opportunity to learn about representation, media and activism.

“It’s about what he represents and what he is doing, and how he is using the media to build his brand, to build awareness, and to be authentic,” said Rodríguez, the associate director of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at SDSU.

A global reggaeton phenomenon, Bad Bunny has been the most listened-to artist on Spotify for the last two years. He is also the performer with the most nominations for the 2022 Latin Grammy Awards.

He continues to break records on his North American tour, which included two dates at Petco Park last weekend. He became the first artist of any genre to perform back-to-back concerts at the stadium.

“The Latinx community needs representation, and we really don’t see that in English-centric spaces, especially in the United States,” Rodríguez said. “And here comes Bad Bunny, somebody who speaks Spanish, sings in Spanish, is unapologetically him, and he is still selling out tours; he is still getting movies and all these types of commercial offers.”

“He is selling Crocs and they sold out. Adidas (shoes) sold out. What does that mean to the Latinx customer and the commercial buying power of that?”

Rodríguez highlighted that the 28-yearold reggeatonero uses his platform to address social and political issues. An example of this is the crisis his native Puerto Rico is experiencing.

The music video of his song “El Apagón,” a single from his most recent and successful album “Un verano sin ti,” ends with an almost 18-minute documentary that criticizes the inequality and energy crisis on the island. It reached 7 million views six days after its release.

“Now we have the 2022 elections coming up, and he has been a powerful voice in advocating for the statehood of Puerto Rico and helping Puerto Rican people. That speaks volumes on what the youth want to hear, and maybe not just the youth, but the Latinx person in general,” Rodríguez said. “That warrants a class,” he said. “It’s about using Bad Bunny as a lens to figure out what’s happening, what’s really going on, and how we can use him to better understand the social-political world and how the media is involved in that.”

It isn’t the first time that Rodríguez has developed a class centered on a popular culture figure.

Two years ago, he created the course on Selena Quintanilla, the “Queen of Tex-mex,” who was killed in 1995 at age 23.

In 2016, when Rodríguez started teaching at SDSU, he noticed the need for a class for Latinx students in which they could explore their own identity and analyze the Latinx personalities in American culture.

It was then that he created a class in which Selena would be the cultural bridge between academic studies and the media world.

The class, Selena and the Latinx Media Representation, started as a special topic course that later became a permanent class, Rodríguez said.

Back then, when he announced the class on his social media, he said the response was overwhelming

The news unexpectedly went viral, and the press picked it up. There was also considerable interest from the students.

But there was also criticism, Rodríguez recalled. Something that might happen again. “There’s already been mixed reviews, el público es el público (people are people),” he said.

“They think it’s just a course on Bad Bunny, where we are going to learn where he is from or about his lyrics. They don’t understand the whole complexity of it.”

Nathian Rodríguez