Bad Bunny gets help from a Wisconsin professor 

History professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo was on vacation in Portugal with his family on Dec. 24 when he got an unexpected message on social media.

It was global music sensation Bad Bunny reaching out through his team. They asked if Meléndez-Badillo would be interested in a collaboration. 

“It took me by surprise,” said Meléndez-Badillo, who is an assistant professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

He recently authored the book “Puerto Rico: A National History.”

“I’m a huge fan, so I immediately said yes,” Meléndez-Badillo added.

Bad Bunny is the stage name for Puerto Rican rapper and singer Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. He was poised to release his sixth solo album, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” or “I Should’ve Taken More Photos,” on Jan. 5. He asked Meléndez-Badillo to help write historical “visualizers” about his island to accompany each song on YouTube. 

Meléndez-Badillo didn’t have his computer on vacation. But this was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

“It was a tight timeline, and so I wrote about 74 handwritten pages,” he said. 

The final result was 17 explainers on Puerto Rico’s history, spanning from the early 1500s to the present day, written in Spanish. The visualizer for the album’s first track, “NUEVAYoL,” quickly got over 33 million views. 

 Meléndez-Badillo said Bad Bunny’s goal for the project was to “amplify Puerto Rican history, not only for Puerto Ricans, but for everyone to learn more about the history of our people.”

The album has been praised as a “love letter” to Puerto Rico, with bittersweet and sometimes political lyrics, couched in traditional salsa and plena sounds that are rooted in the island’s culture.

Meléndez-Badillo said years of school closures in Puerto Rico have contributed to a “frail” education system on the island. 

“A lot of Puerto Ricans don’t know their history,” he said “So Benito really felt strongly about amplifying general Puerto Rican history.”

The reggaeton artist will perform his new album at a sold-out residency in Puerto Rico this summer, called “I don’t want to leave.” The first few shows are advertised for Puerto Rico residents only.

“His intention is to speak to Puerto Ricans first and foremost,” Meléndez-Badillo said of the album and accompanying projects. 

As a historian, the song “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii,” or “What happened to Hawaii” sticks out, he said. In it, Bad Bunny sings, “Cause I don’t want them to do to you what happened to Hawaii.” He alludes to the changes Hawaii underwent after coming under U.S. control. 

“And how Hawaii went through a process of Americanization, displacement of peoples and their cultures,” Meléndez-Badillo said. “He’s using history in order to think about the potential futures of Puerto Rico.”

For a second week, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” sat at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

“This record marks a turning point, I think, in Puerto Rican culture,” he said. “There’s a before and after Bad Bunny, and I think that this record consolidates that.”