Arcángel defended Spain's colonial legacy and said the country should not have to apologize for its past in the Americas.
The 40-year-old reggaeton artist made his remarks at his concert in Madrid’s Movistar Arena during his La 8va Maravilla World Tour on Monday (May 11).
“To all my Hispanic-American brothers. I know you say ‘Latino,’ but for me we are not Latinos—we are Hispanic-Americans,” he said in Spanish, as seen in a video circulating online. “The true Latinos are the Spanish, the French, and the Portuguese. We are Hispanic-Americans. I’m proud of all my beliefs, proud of the language I speak, proud of the motherland that once was and gave us light. Because we used to be Indians. These people arrived and made us speak, made us believe, and gave us value.”
He continued, “So those assholes who go around saying that Spain owes America an apology? … What kind of nonsense world do you live in, you son of a bitch? ‘Oh, they stole the gold and all that.’ And what about the streets, the schools, and the churches they built so that you could be educated today? Where did that come from, you son of a bitch?”
Arcángel, who was born in New York City to Dominican parents and also lived in Puerto Rico, kept his passionate speech going as the audience cheered him on.
“There's no need to apologize to anyone,” he said. “I'm proud. I adore my motherland, Spain. Make some noise, please.”
He concluded, “I love my language. I can't imagine myself speaking Italian, French, or Chinese. All of that sounds ugly. I like the way I speak, damnit.”
Earlier this year, Spain's King Felipe VI acknowledged abuses committed during the country's colonial era, saying Spanish colonial laws "wanted to protect. But in reality things didn't work out as they were originally intended and there was a lot of abuse,” per Reuters.
The king also said, "When we study certain things under modern-day criteria, with our values, obviously we can't feel proud. But we must learn from this, within its context, without too much moralizing. We must learn lessons through objective and rigorous analysis."
The comments came during an exhibition on Indigenous women in Mexico and amid ongoing diplomatic tensions between Spain and Mexico over the legacy of Spanish colonial rule.
The dispute has included calls from former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for apologies over abuses committed during the conquest, as well as a decision by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum not to invite King Felipe VI to her inauguration after the monarch declined to issue a formal apology.
