Yale University Launches Course On Bad Bunny’s Cultural Impact And Caribbean Resistance

Bad Bunny is going Ivy League.

This fall, Yale University will roll out an innovative course titled “Bad Bunny: Musical Aesthetics and Politics”—the first of its kind to center the global reggaeton superstar as an academic subject. Created by Associate Professor Albert Laguna, the course aims to unpack how Bad Bunny’s music reflects broader themes of Puerto Rican identity, colonial legacies, and diasporic resistance.

Inspired by the artist’s sixth studio album, Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana, Laguna was struck by the emotional and historical depth in each track. “Walking through New Orleans, I realized the album was revealing so much—about migration, about struggle, about survival,” he shared. “It became a syllabus on its own.”

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The course will dive deep into Spanish Caribbean musical genres like bomba, plena, salsa, and reggaeton. These rhythms don’t just make people dance—they tell stories of migration, police violence, and cultural endurance.

A key moment in the curriculum centers on the track “NUEVAYoL,” which samples El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico’s “Un Verano en Nueva York.” Laguna sees this song as symbolic of the powerful ties between Puerto Rico and New York, and the cultural exchange that continues to define the diaspora.

More than 40 students have already enrolled in the class, which promises to blend academic rigor with the cultural pulse of the Caribbean. Yale sophomore Juli Martinez even wrote about Bad Bunny in her college application. “He’s not just an artist,” she said. “He’s a voice for people like me.”

Laguna agrees. “Reggaeton,” he states, “is inseparable from the political and historical forces that shaped Puerto Rico. Bad Bunny is part of that lineage.”

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