Bad Bunny says he was “angry” when a comedian made a joke about Puerto Rico at a rally for Donald Trump in November.
In an interview with the New York Times’ music podcast Popcast, the rap superstar talked to co-hosts Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli about his new album Debí Tirar Más Fotos and the controversial Puerto Rico “garbage” joke made at the event.
During the rally, held at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe said, “I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it's called Puerto Rico.”
Following the offensive remarks, Bad Bunny endorsed Kamala Harris in her bid for presidency and shared a video to his Instagram Story detailing what would’ve been her plans for the island.
“I didn't feel any pressure to say something. I did it because I felt it,” Bad Bunny said around the 29-minute mark in the video linked above.
The 30-year-old rapper, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, said he was “angry at the time” and happened to be in New York when the rally took place before joking that he should’ve gone over there.
“Yeah, I know it was a comedian, blah, blah, blah. But that wasn't a stand-up comedy show,” he added. “It was supposed to be a political rally.”
Switching between English and Spanish, Benito explained that at first he thought Hinchcliffe was a politician because he was wearing a suit, adding that it “bothers and worries” him that the people who attended Trump’s rally wouldn’t realize it was a joke and agree with it.
Bad Bunny, who has previously participated in protests and spoken up about political matters related to Puerto Rico in his music and videos, also explained that he doesn’t feel obligated to be an activist.
“It's not that I have in my mind like, ‘Oh, I have this power, let me use it to influence the minds of people’ or whatever. It’s not something that I have, and I want to do [intentionally]. It's more like a feeling that I want to give back to the others,” he said.
“Every time that I talk or or express about something, I do it because I feel it. It's not because ‘I'm Bad Bunny. I have 40 millions follower and I wanna—,’ no. I always say, ‘I'm a normal human being and I have feelings and I get mad and I get happy,’ and that's how I make my music,” he continued, saying his music’s subjects fluctuate from crying to dancing and falling in love.
“Sometimes I wanna talk about political things because today I feel that I'm not happy with this situation, or whatever, it’s how it works. Everything that I say, everything that I do is because I feel it. And it's not because I feel a pressure to say something because I'm a public figure or something.”
Bad Bunny’s new album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, ("I Should Have Taken More Photos") is out now.